The Twins announced that they have removed the interim label from Terry Ryan's job title, making him the permanent general manager once again (Twitter link). Ryan had been in charge of baseball operations as the team's interim GM for the last 11 months.
Ryan, who first became the Twins' GM in 1995, spent more than a decade in the role before stepping aside in September of 2007. Bill Smith succeeded Ryan as the team's general manager, a role he stayed in until last offseason, when Minnesota replaced Smith with Ryan on an interim basis.
Since Ryan returned to the GM role, the Twins have signed Jamey Carroll, Ryan Doumit, Matt Capps and Josh Willingham to Major League deals. Some of Ryan's best minor league additions in the last year include Jared Burton and Casey Fien, as MLBTR's Transaction Tracker shows.
I recently explained that the Twins must obtain pitching this offseason and Tim Dierkes took a detailed look at the team's arbitration eligible players.
No mention of the Twins firings yesterday?
The official, or non official firings?
The also “fired”:
Carl Pavano 8m
Matt Caps 4.7m
Jason Marquis 3m (SD playing, but Twins paying)
**Probably** Scott Baker and his 9.2m Option.
Twins start the new season saving 25m losing in dead weight, only Baker is even remotely worthy of coming back and he may not be 100% healed by ST.
Twins need to find a couple of low cost SP fast before other teams get involved.
Well, these things take time but it would be awesome if Terry could use his skills and find a way to restore this team to competitiveness a second time in his career.
At the very least, GM Ryan is competent.
He might make some decisions that are unfavorable to the fan base, but he will restore the team to its former competitiveness.
Patience, my friend.
At least ownership saw who it was that was the problem and fired the person who assembled the team; it isn’t always the manager who is the problem—sometimes, it’s the front office.
Interestingly, Bill Smith was the first GM ever fired by the Pohlads (now his son JIm, after his father Carl passed on in 2008)