We have a high patience level in this organization. We always have.
— Twins GM Terry Ryan, right before his team dropped to 0-9 to start the season
Love it or hate it, the Minnesota Twins have an organizational identity, and they’re not gonna change it anytime soon. As his team slumped to 0-9 to begin the season, a historically bad start, general manager Terry Ryan sat calmly before the assembled media as they finished their meals roughly 30 minutes before gametime. “There comes a time when obviously you look at the record,” he said, “You’ve gotta get going. We can’t let the month of April get by.”
Everyone but Joe Mauer and Eduardo Escobar was hitting below .200. The lineup was below .100 collectively with runners in scoring position. The starting pitchers were going deep into games, only to see slim leads blown by what was supposed to be a sturdy bullpen. Closer Glen Perkins got hurt and went on the disabled list. Mega prospect Byron Buxton got hit in the hand with a pitch. Miguel Sano wasn’t hitting home runs.
Veteran third baseman Trevor Plouffe, who has been with the organization since being selected in the first round of the 2004 draft, stood in front of the assembled media after the 3-1 loss to the rival Chicago White Sox that dropped them to 0-9 and calmly expressed his team’s struggles. “We’re all frustrated right now, you can’t hide that,” he said. “It’s probably about the worst-case scenario for us to start the season. We know that.”
Later that night he tweeted to the fans, pleading with them to stick with a team that won 83 games and was on the doorstep of the playoffs last year. “I know you guys are frustrated. Trust me, we are too. But we will get through this,” he said. “There’s too much talent not to. Stay with us MN!!”
“He’s always been a leader in the minor leagues — always,” said Ryan the next day. “As an organization, we’re very receptive to whoever wants to step up as a leader. We’re very receptive.
“There’s a handful of guys that have that capability. We got a lot of young ones here, but we also have some guys that are of veteran status. And if they want to step up, and they see an opportunity to help lead, they’ll take it.”
Little did anyone know that as Ryan sat there — his team facing long odds not only to have a winning season, but to make the playoffs — he was in negotiations with an old friend, trying to bring back a man who he had fired two years ago.
Ron Gardenhire was part of the Minnesota Twins organization from 1987 to 2014. He literally sat next to Ryan at the press conference announcing his dismissal. He was replaced by Paul Molitor, a man who was on his staff, a more accomplished ballplayer who unlike the German-born Gardenhire was from the city of St. Paul and had played for the Twins. “I feel like he’s my brother, not my manager,” Ryan said of Gardenhire at the time, breaking up as he tried to finish his sentence.
“Obviously I was with the Mets when he was a player over there, I was the one that got him over here for gosh sakes,” he said as the room shifted from sadness to laughter. “Now he didn’t play very well when he got here, he was in Triple-A and he wanted to be in the big leagues.”
You see in Spring Training, Paul does a lot of the same things that Gardy had done, and Gardy did a lot of the same things that Tom did.
His return was announced last Monday afternoon, and Gardenhire promptly reported to Ft. Myers. The erstwhile manager was working with players in the lowest levels of the minor leagues, relieving the man who had the job before him, Tom Kelly, of some of his roving duties as he gets older, while also doing the job that Molitor did before he took over for Gardenhire.
“The history and tradition and all that, that’s fine,” said Ryan. “But he also knows basically the philosophy that we haven’t strayed too far. You see in Spring Training, Paul does a lot of the same things that Gardy had done, and Gardy did a lot of the same things that Tom did.
“There’s a lot of familiarity here.”
There’s two ways to see this. On one hand, it’s a lot of the same people doing things the same way they’ve always been done. On the other, the stability means there is continuity throughout the organization — meaning the techniques and methods taught in A-ball in Cedar Rapids are the ones that are taught in Double-A Chattanooga and Triple-A Rochester. There are people in this organization who have won World Series, but there are are also many who were around during the four recent 90-loss seasons.
They are excruciatingly patient. They are borderline dogmatic. They are unquestionably loyal.
The organization is reluctant to call it the “Twins Way,” a phrase of which its origin is unknown but the team insists was created on the outside. They are excruciatingly patient. They are borderline dogmatic. They are unquestionably loyal. All while being an open operation, one in which the general manager sits down with the local media as they finish dinner for 10-20 minutes every time he is in town. One in which the manager patiently fields questions about a winless team in a pre-game meeting that came to resemble a therapy session more than an interrogation. One in which team leaders have become increasingly accountable.
Some professional sports organizations fight a quixotic battle between being a public product, but a closed operation. They know they need fans and media to remain financially viable, but duck into their hidey-hole as soon as things go haywire. The Twins, by and large, are an open book, receptive to criticism and ridicule, but undaunted in their manifesto to do things the “right way.”
It’s fair to speculate whether the organization stifles innovation by retaining many of the same people over the years, but the Metrodome Twins creatively overcame their shortcomings to win multiple division titles over higher-spending teams with nicer ballparks. It’s fair to ask why a team would bring back its manager two years after firing him, but he may have been fired in the first place because of how the team was managed.
It’s also fair to wonder why Ryan was able to exude such calmness as his team hobbled to an 0-9 start. Maybe it was because Mauer appears to be returning to form and the starting pitchers were going deep into games. Maybe it’s because he knew that the other hitters would come around and believes the bullpen will eventually stabilize. Maybe he simply knew his job was not at risk.
Regardless of what it was, he sat there, projecting serenity even as turmoil continued to build around him. “Obviously we’re not doing anywhere near what we were hoping to have happen at this time of the year,” he said right before his team won its first game of the year. “But we’ve been very accountable around here for many, many years, and we’re not gonna change any.”
