With the off-season underway, many Minnesota Twins fans were hoping the Twins would re-sign Michael Cuddyer and/or Joe Nathan and that would be a majority of the Twins off-season. Well that was quickly put on the back burner for a little bit. The more shocking news of the off-season was the firing of General Manager Bill Smith. I, like most Twins fan, had no idea their was disagreement within the Twins front office.
There were thoughts about some possible re-shuffling within the front office once the Twins told the Baltimore Orioles they weren’t allowed to interview Mike Radcliff for their General Manager vacancy. People quickly started to wonder if there was going to be a change sometime down the road or maybe that Radcliff would just be the next in line for the GM position.
Instead, former GM Terry Ryan will be in the interim GM until the Twins find a new, permanent GM. A time table has not been giving to find a replacement for Bill, so I expect for Terry to make smart baseball decisions and bring this team back to what it was two years ago. Terry was known for building from within the organization and acquiring players who fit the “Twins way”.
Terry has already said that he expects the Twins payroll to be around the $100 million mark, slightly down from last years payroll of $113 million. So I could see him signing some veteran players at a lesser price to fill the holes on this team. It also appears this could help the Twins re-sign Cuddyer, who was drafted under Ryan’s first reign as Twins GM and also signed him to the contract that recently ran out.
So as a Twins fans, I am very excited for a Twins off-season for the first time in a while as I expect some drastic changes to take place with the Twins roster. The first task for Terry is to sit down and talk with Cuddyer and Nathan along with their agents to discuss new contracts as well as to find an everyday shortstop. Terry has already said the current team doesn’t have a shortstop that is an everyday player, so I look forward to seeing what Terry can do in such a short amount of time.
