On Tuesday the Minnesota Twins
introduced the 13th manager in club history, Paul Molitor,
and gave him a chance to address the many questions that have been
floating around since he emerged early on as the front-runner for the
job.
The new field boss takes over a team
that's lost 90+ games for four consecutive seasons, and has serious
questions to answer before they return to baseball relevance.
But for his part the new skipper seems
undeterred by the challenge.
“I'm coming here to win,” Molitor
said at his introductory press conference, “I think that it's very
important to lay that out there right from the start. Things can
change in this game very dramatically at this level very quickly.”
So how will that change come about?
Both Molitor and his boss Twins GM Terry Ryan know that it comes down
to pitching.
“I like some of the things we saw
about our pitching,” Molitor said, “I'm sure Terry will tell you
that we're always going to keep our minds open about trying to find
ways to improve our roster – I mean who doesn't do that? - but I'm
also prepared to look at what we have and say hey there are some good
things there.”
“We've got to address a few holes
here,” GM Terry Ryan said, “As you've heard me say many times,
payroll's not everything, but it certainly helps, so we'll use it to
our advantage. If there's somebody out there that we think is going
to help us, we'll have the ability to go chase that player.”
While Molitor will certainly have input
on the eventual 25-man roster, his job will be primarily be about
coaching and managing whatever players Ryan gives him.
And since Molitor's never managed at
any level before, there are some questions about his experience.
Questions he's aware of an didn't shy away from.
“Playing, coaching, developing, it's
not the same as being the leader at the top,” Molitor said, “I
certainly was transparent with Terry about I know what I know … but
you have to know where you're going to need help. I think assembling
a staff that's going to be supportive, that's able to fill some of
those gaps for me … will be very critical, and it's something that
we plan to get started on.”
Asked if Molitor's lack of managerial
experience factored in his decision-making, Ryan said he was
certainly cognizant of it.
“If there's one thing that Paul
wasn't experienced in, it's making out the lineup card,” Ryan said,
“and that certainly crosses any general manager's mind about the
hiring process. And then you look at some of the recent history of
major league managers, there's many guys that are succeeding that
haven't made out a lineup in their life. And after obviously knowing
Paul for the many years that we have around here, that's secondary.”
Beyond experience, there are questions
about Molitor's ability to connect with all of his players. There's
a narrative in sports that players of Hall of Fame ability struggle
to coach players who aren't as naturally gifted.
Molitor didn't sound overly concerned
about it.
“We've seen successful athletes not
have much success in management,” Molitor said, “If that happens,
it won't be because I didn't think I did the right thing, or why
would you mess – just leave a good thing alone. This is a
different challenge, it's totally separate from my playing.”
He even quipped that the Hall of Fame
reached out to him after he was announced as manager.
“I got a text from Jeff Idelson
yesterday, the president of the Hall of Fame,” Molitor said, “and
he said, 'Relax, enjoy this. No matter what you do, your plaque is
gonna stay in the plaque room. Give you a little freedom.'”
What about the increased use of
advanced metrics in the game? Will Molitor embrace the trend towards
using sabermetrics to optimize his teams performance?
“It's changed a lot. Information has
incredibly increased,” Molitor said, “ I will be open to using
what's helpful to me. My concern is that there is so much out there
that we try to pass on to players, that you see the smoke coming out
of their helmet when they're trying to remember what this guy does on
Wednesdays, in a three o'clock game when he has a guy on third base
in the sixth inning with two outs.”
But perhaps the most telling answer
Molitor gave on Tuesday was to a pretty straight-forward question:
What will a Paul Molitor-managed team look like?
“I think that people will probably
have their ideas on what it's going to be after they watch our team
play for a year,” Molitor said, “Everyone's going to have their
own little unique stamp hopefully that they put on their club. I
don't know if there's going to be major changes in certain things
that we do. Hopefully part of the stamp that I put on is trying to
help these guys understand the critical aspect of being good
base-runners and learning how to score runs.”
That answer is reflective of a simple
truth: anyone who tells you they know what kind of manager Paul
Molitor is going to be – including Paul Molitor – is speculating
at best.
Until he gets out there and does it, no
one really knows how this is going to work out.
Molitor won't be able to turn this
thing around on his own. Unless the Twins starting pitching improves
- giving the bullpen a break and maximizing the impact of the
seventh-highest scoring offense in baseball last season – the
difference in managerial styles from Ron Gardenhire to Paul Molitor
won't show up much in the team's record.
Those looking for answers from Molitor
on Tuesday got a few. But the answers to the most important
questions won't start being answered until April 6th, when
the Twins kick off their 2015 campaign in Detroit.
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