We dumped Corey Brewer

[JasonIsDaMan [enjin:7981157]]

Abe

Couple of things.
1. Does the name Ray Allen ring a bell? And who knows what a Laettner/KG/Gugliotta frontcourt could have accomplished? But in all seriousness, you're right for the most part. They have done such a horrible job in drafting "talent" that a guy contributing once they cut ties is really not that big of a concern.

2. So you put your big boy pants on and are stepping to Terry Ryan? Really? It's one thing to think you could do better than McHale/Flip/Kahn (It's up for debate, but at least it would be a debate). In the past 15 years, the Twins have made 4 types of moves: 1) letting David Ortiz sign with a team that plays its' home games in a pinball machine with a bunch of players who have, um, alternative training methods. 2) Hunter doing for LAA the same thing he would have done for MIN if Carl the Cryptkeeper would have paid him. 3) Dumping Kyle Lohse because he couldn't stand Gardy (On the plus side, Burton and Swarzak swear by Gardy) and 4) Bill Smith moves, which are exactly that, which is why Bill Smith doesn't run a baseball team anymore. If you are going to mention Twins moves that had no other underlying aspect whatsoever that turned out poorly, you have to go back to the Smiley/Neagle deal and dumping Sorrento for someone who never played in the bigs, and that was McPhail.

Terry Ryan is the best Minnesota Non-playing Sports Figure of my lifetime. Better than the Grant/Finks team. Better than the McPhail/Kelly team. Better than Herb Brooks. Better than Dennis Green. Better than the Bobby Clarke/Bob Gainey team. Better than Clem Haskins. WAY better than Jerry Burns, Lou Nanne, Brad Childress, Jacques Lemaire, Glenn Mason, or Doug Woog. Which is truly amazing, when you consider the possible exception of Norm Green, he has had the worse boss out of anyone on this list.

Running an NBA team is 15 good decisions. A MLB team? Try about 175, and that's if the Minor league teams have 25 players each (they may have more). When you factor in a payroll in the bottom 10 for most of that stretch? Outstanding.

Stay in your lane. The NBA, and the Wolves especially, are fertile ground. We just saw "GM" Stan Van Gundy say no to a trade for Josh Smith that would have got him Carl Landry, only to waive the guy 25 or 30 games later. Terry Ryan has nothing even remotely close to that in his past. The NBA: Where Amazing Happens.

You have no business second guessing Terry Ryan.

[khans2k5 [enjin:6608728]]

Abe

Couple of things.
1. Does the name Ray Allen ring a bell? But in all seriousness, you're right for the most part. They have done such a horrible job in drafting "talent" that a guy contributing once they cut ties is really not that big of a concern.

2. So you put your big boy pants on and are stepping to Terry Ryan? Really? It's one thing to think you could do better than McHale/Flip/Kahn (It's up for debate, but at least it would be a debate). In the past 15 years, the Twins have made 4 types of moves: 1) letting David Ortiz sign with a team that plays its' home games in a pinball machine with a bunch of players who have, um, alternative training methods. 2) Hunter doing for LAA the same thing he would have done for MIN if Carl the Cryptkeeper would have paid him. 3) Dumping Kyle Lohse because he couldn't stand Gardy (On the plus side, Burton and Swarzak swear by Gardy) and 4) Bill Smith moves, which are exactly that, which is why Bill Smith doesn't run a baseball team anymore. If you are going to mention Twins moves that had no other underlying aspect whatsoever that turned out poorly, you have to go back to the Smiley/Neagle deal and dumping Sorrento for someone who never played in the bigs, and that was McPhail.

Terry Ryan is the best Minnesota Non-playing Sports Figure of my lifetime. Better than the Grant/Finks team. Better than the McPhail/Kelly team. Better than Herb Brooks. Better than Dennis Green. Better than the Bobby Clarke/Bob Gainey team. Better than Clem Haskins. WAY better than Jerry Burns, Lou Nanne, Brad Childress, Jacques Lemaire, or Glenn Mason. Which is truly amazing, when you consider the possible exception of Norm Green, he has had the worse boss out of anyone on this list.

Running an NBA team is 15 good decisions. A MLB team? Try about 175, and that's if the Minor league teams have 25 players each (they may have more). When you factor in a payroll in the bottom 10 for most of that stretch? Outstanding.

Stay in your lane. The NBA, and the Wolves especially, are fertile ground. We just saw "GM" Stan Van Gundy say no to a trade for Josh Smith that would have got him Carl Landry, only to waive the guy 25 games later. The NBA: Where Amazing Happens.

You have no business second guessing Terry Ryan.

You can't seriously be arguing for a guy who is responsible for the personnel that just had 4 straight 90+ loss seasons? There are other teams with just as small a budget as we have that haven't been that bad. I don't care how many division titles you have won. 4 straight 90+ loss seasons is inexcusable on any level. He's made a lot of bad moves lately that was a direct cause of those records. The Japanese shortstop who bombed out. Not ever getting a number 1 starter on the staff after Johan left. Trading away two decent centerfielders to clear the way for the garbage that is Aaron Hicks. How'd the Kendrys Morales deal work out? Giving up on JJ Hardy before even giving him a chance to adjust to the new team and stadium. How'd Nolasco do last year? Having a terrible bullpen after Perkins took over for Nathan. He's put 4 straight garbage teams on the field because of poor moves he has made. At some point it is on him.

[Coolbreeze44]

The Twins problems over the last 4 years are a collective effort. Ryan, Gardy, the Pohlads all have to take responsibility. It's hard to blame Gardy too much though. After all he should have been fired a long time ago. Anyone who loses 12 straight playoff games should never have been allowed to manage the last 6 in that streak. A lot of good teams were wasted by him being in the dugout. Trading Morneau and getting rid of Liriano were just mind boggingly stupid decisions. And after being as terrible as we've been, not going after and spending the cash on a #1 starter are proof you don't care much about winning. Yes, a collective effort indeed.

[JasonIsDaMan [enjin:7981157]]

Another brain surgeon

....and there have been some "big-budget" teams like Houston who have been worse.

Nishioka - Bill Smith
Johan - Bill Smith traded him under duress. Not that it was a horrible move when you think about how the Mets paid him $150m for maybe two good seasons. But once again, Bill Smith.
Span/Revere deals - Trying to get a number one starter. You remember you mentioned that, right? And losing Span/Revere would have been no big deal if Smith doesn't trade Carlos Gomez.
Kendrys Morales - It worked out exactly how it was supposed to. He was either going to help them contend, or traded at the deadline for the best player he could get. I have a friend who is a Mariner's fan who swears by the reliever he got.
JJ Hardy - Bill Smith. It will really help you to remember that Bill Smith was in charge from 10/1/07 to 11/6/11.
Nolasco - Hurt this year. May work out, may not. But hurt this year.
Bullpen - Actually kind of underrated the past 4 years when you consider the innings they logged and Gardy falling in love with the crappy ones.

And even if you gave Ryan the "credit" for all the moves Smith made, HE IS STILL WAY BETTER THAN MCHALE/FLIP/KAHN AT A WAY MORE DIFFICULT JOB!

[JasonIsDaMan [enjin:7981157]]

Cool

Mourneau plays his home games in a pinball machine after MIN traded him (while he was hitting .260 with not a great deal of power) and PIT didn't resign him, and Liriano does a great job facing 8 batters in quadruple-A, and at the time of the trade his ERA was over 5, so not exactly in demand. Remember, he had a 5 ERA with CWS, so they let him walk too.

I go back to my original point: The Wolves make God-awful moves that many can see coming a mile away. Ryan make moves that, more often than not, work, but gets blamed by morons for Bill Smith's moves and by more sophisticated fans for the moves he makes when his hand is forced.

[Camden [enjin:6601484]]

Phil Hughes - Camden. Well, I guess technically it was Terry Ryan, but he had to have read the Twins forum.

Edit: I'm also a big Ryan fan, and I do think we will rise back to relevance (and perhaps more) under Ryan's control. The guy knows his baseball, and with our farm being as stacked as it is, I 100% believe we'll be back.

[JasonIsDaMan [enjin:7981157]]

Good job Camden. I knew he would be better just from the ballpark adjustment if nothing else, but I had no idea it would go this well. Kudos.

[Coolbreeze44]

Cool

Mourneau plays his home games in a pinball machine after MIN traded him (while he was hitting .260 with not a great deal of power) and PIT didn't resign him, and Liriano does a great job facing 8 batters in quadruple-A, and at the time of the trade his ERA was over 5, so not exactly in demand. Remember, he had a 5 ERA with CWS, so they let him walk too.

I go back to my original point: The Wolves make God-awful moves that many can see coming a mile away. Ryan make moves that, more often than not, work, but gets blamed by morons for Bill Smith's moves and by more sophisticated fans for the moves he makes when his hand is forced.

Jason,

The only reason I can rightfully complain about the Morneau and Liriano moves is because I said they were bad moves at the time. I'm not using hindsight in these cases. A small market team has to work so hard to develop guys like Morneau, that to just give them away is really annoying. And if you remember, it was almost as if they had made their mind up before the season started that they were going to trade Justin. I just never understood why.

[JasonIsDaMan [enjin:7981157]]

Cool

Maybe bring back Morneau on a WAY cheaper contract. But he wasn't worth the money he was being paid, and I don't think it's fair to Ryan to say "But look what's he's doing in Colorado" because almost every hitter does better there. I think the biggest reason they were planning on trading him slash not bringing him back is because they new they needed a new spot for Mauer.

We are never going to agree on Frankie. If you have a 5 era and you pitch half your games at Target Canyon, no one is going to want you.

[khans2k5 [enjin:6608728]]

Ryan has been in command for 3 of the past 4 90 loss seasons (12, 13 and 14). Smith only lost 90 games his last year here. I'm not saying he was great, but it's been almost a decade since Ryan was any good either.