The Twins Have Fired General Manager Terry Ryan
The first thing I want to address here is, has Terry Ryan ever smiled before?
But I mean, if you were Ryan, how big would your smile be if you had to present Ervin Santana, Ricky Nolasco and Phil Hughes with jerseys when you’re trying to build a winning team? If you think about it, these photos above are probably what cost Ryan his job in the first place. The Twins have the second worst record in the MLB this year at 33-58, but for as bad as they’ve been, they have a middle of the pack offense. Out of 30 major league teams, the Twins are 18th in runs scored (403), which isn’t great, but they’ve still scored more runs than the Marlins, Mets, and the Dodgers, who all hold a piece of a Wild Card spot coming into play today.
Where the Twins have lacked the most talent has obviously been within their pitching staff. They’re 28th in the MLB in team ERA (4.95), and 29th in starting pitching ERA (5.27). Before the 2015 season, Ryan rewarded Phil Hughes with a 5-year, $58 million extension when he still had two years remaining on the pre-existing deal. Hughes has a 4.83 ERA in 39 games (36 starts) since he was given that extension, including a 5.95 ERA this season, which ranks 203rd out of 217 pitchers who have thrown at least 40 innings this year. Nolasco has been just as bad, ranking 185th in ERA (5.22), after signing a 4-year, $49 million deal prior to the 2014 season. Minnesota didn’t exactly break the bank for Nolasco, but he hasn’t impressed whatsoever.
Prior to the 2015 season, the Twins signed right-hander Ervin Santana to a 4-year, $55 million deal, which was the biggest free agent contract in Twins history. Four months later, Santana got popped for steroids, and was handed an 80-game suspension just before the season started. Santana’s accumulated a 4.06 ERA in his time with the Twins in 34 starts, and is a name that has come up fairly often in trade rumors recently.
But the main takeaway here is that if a 4-year, $55 million contract is the biggest free agent deal the organization has ever handed out, then they’re not going to be an organization that hauls in a big free agent pitcher, right? Not entirely true. They could if they wanted to. The Twins’ payroll is about $16 million higher than the Arizona Diamondbacks’ this year, and they were able to make Zack Greinke the highest paid pitcher in baseball history by average annual value. If their philosophy is to not pay boatloads of money to free agent aces, then that’s fine. But you have to draft better and develop those aces on your own, which they never have.
I’m sure the first name that just popped in your mind was Johan Santana, but he was originally signed by the Astros as an international free agent in 1995, selected by the Marlins in the Rule 5 Draft four years later, and THEN traded to the Twins in 1999. So, that’s been their Achilles heel. They’ve been signing these middle of the pack starters, who have not blossomed into anything more than what you knew they’d be — painfully mediocre or worse — and they have been unsuccessful at drafting and developing their own starters. That, it seems, has ultimately cost Terry Ryan his job.
However, eight of their top 11 prospects are pitchers, including their top prospect, right-hander Jose Berrios, who made his major league debut earlier this year, but was optioned back to Triple-A after getting rocked in four appearances.