Strategies

Managers should always be looking for ways to win. GMs should always be looking to put the best team on the field. Fans should expect no less from their team.

If those basic tenants break down, if those basic responsibilities are not kept, you will have a fan base that turns on their team. We're already seeing a lot of that early in the season.

I don't care if the Twins lose some games. I care that the team put a substandard team on the field this year, and they tried to trick the fan base into following the team anyway.

Their strategy wasn't to win games this year. It was to get fans back in the ballpark by signing an over-the-hill Torii Hunter.  That strategy, which has nothing to do with winning games, was destined to fail. Even if they can fool enough of the fan base early, the loss total resulting from that roster move will affect attendance and support well into the future.

Where KC has lost several of their top players, including top starters, over the last five years, THEY keep bringing up their minor league guys to perform in their place while signing an occasional free-agent to boost their current needs. As a result, THEY are the team to beat this year.

The Twins USED to be that team. Now they rely on has-beens and cast-offs to to be too much of their team. And as a result we have a lot of average (or worse) guys miscast in their rolls.

Take Blaine Moyer for instance. At 33, he has been a reliever in the league for nine seasons. He has never been particularly good. I call him a fringe reliever. He's the 13th pitcher on a 12-man staff. You use him in mop-up stints in games that are out of hand so that you don't have to waste the arm of good relievers in that spot.

But Saturday, he entered in the NINTH inning of a TIED game with one out and nobody on. On Sunday, he faced four batters in the EIGHTH inning of a one-run game. If you were still watching at the time, you saw the results. I'll summarize it here for you: The last seven batters that Boyer has faced have all gotten hits. Yeah, the Twins are losing, but you can't be losing like that. Boyer should never been in those games in those situations. That's not what we have him for.  What little value he may have for the Twins is not in the eight and ninth innings in close games.

Those types of moves reflect on the manager. Molitor isn't having bad luck. He doesn't know how to manage a game. He MAY learn in time, but history shows us that good managers are good from the get-go. They have the knack, right out of the gate to see things like this, and avoid them.

You know how I always harp on metrics, odds, and tendencies? This is why. Great managers see those types of things inherently. Good managers trust their stat guys who see those things. Bad managers? They do what Molitor did on Saturday and Sunday. They lose.

And they keep on losing.

I'm still watching, but I'm not a blind follower. At some point the Twins have to see that their current 5-year-plus path is really screwed up and do something different. Radically different. A new GM and new manager would be a good place to start. It's never to early to do the right thing.