This is more or less in regards to this post written by the Bill and the Common Man from the Platoon Advantage: http://espn.go.com/blog/sweetspot/post/_/id/7491/al-central-ranking-organizational-leadership
After perusing the comments, I am wrathofcrain on the comments section, I seem to notice most Twins fans griping that both Gardenhire and Bill Smith are ranked so low when they win the division every year. Is this criticism justified? Are both Gardenhire and Smith really worse than the other candidates? There's not really any research one can partake in to see the effectiveness of a manager but as a Twins fan, I can guarantee you that Gardenhire is not the best manager in the American League, despite his American League Manager of the Year award just as Andre Dawson was not the Most Valuable Player in 1987.
I am a Twins fan and if you read this blog throughout the season, you will more than likely notice that I am incredibly critical of my team. However, Bill Smith had an incredibly terrible 2010-2011.
The Platoon Advantage, which is a blog that after reading it, I've discovered I'm a big fan of, I'm glad Rob Neyer introduced the Platoon Advantage to me, rated their off-season at 27 out of 30th. Understandably, this was before the Twins got Thome back, but still just a bad off-season. Let's take a look at what happened.
The Twins lost Jesse Crain (the reason for my user name is no longer on my team), Brian Fuentes (who pitched brilliantly for his 9.2 innings), Matt Guerrier (131 ERA+ last year and 129 ERA+ for his career), Orlando Hudson (the steal of the off-season previously, but contributed a 2.0 WAR and subjectively my third favorite Twin last year), Nick Punto (who I have a small hatred for, but for the pennies he's getting paid this year, could we have not kept him?), Jon Rauch, Brendan Harris, JJ Hardy, and Jose Morales.
I am alright with losing two of those players in the last four, almost ok with losing another player, and downright upset with losing one of those players. I'll let you decide which player is which.
Instead Smith, in his infinite wisdom, brought back Capps, who was expensive, considering they probably could have had both Crain and Guerrier for that price. He decidied that trading Hardy for two middling, excuse me, middle relief pitching prospects, was a good course of action and in doing so, decided that Alexei Casilla would be an effective everyday shortstop.
Beyond this off-season, he decidedly lost the Santana trade, lost the Bartlett and Garza trade (Delmon Young will forever be linked in my mind to those players in that trade), extended Nathan and Cuddyer, gave up Wilson Ramos for Matt Capps, etc.
He has also made some terrific moves including signing Jim Thome and Orlando Hudson on the cheap before the 2010 season.
Bill Smith is not a good general manager, based on his decisions, regardless of what the standings over the last few years have said. He became general manager in the 2007 season just in time for the 2007 off-season and before the 2008 season. So I will look at the moves that he has made as a GM in subsequent post. I would love to be proven wrong on my statement that he is not a good general manager, but the facts will be laid out and I'll come to an ultimate decision.
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