Twins 2013: Once More Into The Cellar

Gulf Coast League Twins (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

After two years of nearly triple-digit losses, is there anything the Minnesota Twins can do in the 2013 Major League Baseball season that might cause their fans to cancel their vacations and their Netflix subscriptions to come and spend their hard-earned money at Target Field?

The short answer is no.  General Manager Terry Ryan is in the midst of a makeover with this team, with the aim of making them more competitive by 2015.  Until then, he has to deal with an untried pitching staff, the questionable futures of two of his biggest stars, and how long he can stick with a manager who's gone stale.

Want more than that?  OK. 

With the Twins declining once again to participate in the off-season free agent market, the reputation of the Pohlad family for being cheapskates continues into a second generation.  Denard Span and Ben Revere were traded to the Washington Nationals and Philadelphia Phillies (in that order) for pitching prospects, none of whom will be ready for years--if ever.  The best (if most erratic) pitcher they're had in the last few years, Francisco Liriano, now toils for the Pittsburgh Pirates.

The pitching now?  Let's just say it's a work in progress.  Vance Worley, Cole DeVries, Mike Pelfrey and Kevin Correia will try their best to keep the Twins (and themselves) in the game for as long as possible.  If not, there's always the Rochester Red Wings.

Hitting won't be a problem as long as Justin Morneau and Josh Willingham keep producing.  But their futures here might depend on whether the Twins can make a deal with a contending team for more pitching help later this season.  As for Joe Mauer, will he be a better player now that he's a married man, and will soon be the father of (what else) twins?  Or will his legs give out as the years of crouching down behind the plate with all that catcher's equipment on takes its toll?

The big rookie sensation is centerfielder Aaron Hicks, so the Twins must have felt comfortable in unloading Span and Revere, who used to play that position.  Is Hicks worth it?

Ryan must be the most loyal person in the world to have kept manager Ron Gardenhire on for so long, even after two dreadful seasons.  That will be tested this season if the overhaul in coaches doesn't translate into an improvement on the field.

The Twins will once again bring up the rear in the American League Central division.  There is one silver lining, though.  Thanks to the Houston Astros, who are switching from the National League to the American League West, the Twins won't be the worst team in their own league.

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Our division and wild card picks, for what it's worth.

AMERICAN LEAGUE

EAST  Tampa Bay Rays
CENTRAL  Detroit Tigers
WEST  Los Angeles Angels
WILD CARD  Texas Rangers and Toronto Blue Jays

NATIONAL LEAGUE

EAST Washington Nationals
CENTRAL  Cincinnati Reds
WEST  San Francisco Giants
WILD CARD  Atlanta Braves and Pittsburgh Pirates

The Tubby Smith Principle

Tubby Smith (Photo credit: rburtzel)

Maybe you've heard of the Peter Principle, where in business the farther you go in your profession, the higher your level of incompetency becomes.  Or something like that.  Which is why so many CEO's who ran their corporations into the ground got nice, fat paychecks on their way out the door.

Tubby Smith, the University of Minnesota men's basketball coach, is working on a similar philosophy.  Having once coached a national championship team at Kentucky, Smith was hired to turn around a moribund program mired in scandal.  Since then, he's been running on the fumes of his past reputation.  In his six years of sideline pacing at Williams Arena, the Gophers have made two NCAA tournament appearances and almost as many in the National Invitation Tournament.

This season, Smith and the Gophers will make their third appearance into what the NCAA (and CBS) calls "March Madness".  They will play UCLA Friday night in the South regionals at Austin, Texas.  (It will be televised on a cable channel called truTV, the home of "Hardcore Pawn", "Lizard Lick Towing" and "Full Throttle Saloon".   They're one of the networks involved in the NCAA's current TV deal with CBS and Turner Sports.)

It's an amazing feat, given that the Gophers have lost 11 of their last 16 games, mostly in Big Ten conference play.  They have a 20-12 overall record, with their league record at 8-10.  But the committee that decides which teams get in the tournament figured that the Gophers, with their stellar non-conference wins against teams like Northwest Podunk State and "quality wins" over the likes of Indiana and Wisconsin at home was good enough to get in, even if nobody else believes that.

During their long Big Ten tailspin, the Gophers played uninspired basketball--blowing leads, losing by double digits to teams they should have beaten, etc.  Fans and local hoops pundits, seeing that their coach is losing his ability to lead his players, have been calling for Smith to resign or get fired.

Presumably, this is not the way seniors Rodney Williams and Trevor Mbakwe envisioned the end of their college basketball careers.

Seven Big Ten teams, including Minnesota, have been invited to play in the NCAA tournament.  This is either a comment on the strength of the conference this season, or the weakness of the rest of the field, or both.  Defending champion Kentucky, whose five starters last year left en masse for the NBA, isn't here this year.

Meanwhile, Tubby Smith has done his part.  He's gotten the Gophers into another post-season tournament, and has earned $100,000 just for showing up.  Unless the team makes it past the first round, the university bigwigs will no doubt be under pressure to release Smith from his contract, which could be much costlier than keeping him.  That means Smith will have reached his level of incompetency--and would be paid handsomely for it.  Just like any corporate CEO.

UPDATE:  Let the buyout begin.  Smith was let go Monday after going 1-1 in the NCAA tournament, beating UCLA and losing to Florida.  We can't say we're surprised, because we're not.   Smith leaves behind a 124-81 overall record over a six-year period, but 46-62 in the Big Ten.  He's still a respected coach nationally, but now he'll have to earn that someplace else if he wants to.  Virginia Commonwealth coach Shaka Smart and former Gopher player and Wolves coach Flip Saunders are considered the early favorites to replace Smith.

UPDATE#2:  After Smart, Saunders and others turned down the Gophers, the best they could come up with was Richard Pitino, who last coached at Florida International.  That's Richard, not Rick.  He's the son of the Louisville coach whose team is in the NCAA Final Four.  Obviously, the U of M thinks the old Pitino magic could rub off on their struggling basketball program.  Next thing you know, ESPN and CBS will want to schedule a father-son matchup between the Pitinos.  As for Tubby Smith, he's landed on his feet as the new coach at Texas Tech.

Wild 2013: Not Ready for Prime Time

Alternate logo since 2003. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

On January 6, 1980, the Minnesota North Stars slammed the brakes on the Philadelphia Flyers' NHL-record 35-game unbeaten streak with a 7-1 blowout win.

On March 5, 2013, the Minnesota Wild tried to do the same thing to the Chicago Blackhawks, who have yet to lose a game in regulation time in a lockout-shortened regular season.  Instead, the Wild got blitzed for four goals in the first period before the Blackhawks ultimately won 5-3 to extend their streak.  As of March 7, they are now 21-0-3 through the first 24 games of the season.  Thirty straight if you go back to last season, not counting the playoffs.

The differences?  (1) The Flyers' streak-breaking loss was played in Minnesota.  The Hawks continued theirs at home in the United Center.  (2) The Wild are not the North Stars, who have been residents of Dallas, Texas for the last two decades.

In a season where much has been made about the improvements the Wild have made, they currently stand at 11-9-2, equaling 24 points.  That's good for a three-way tie with the Dallas Stars and St. Louis Blues for the eighth and last playoff spot in the Western Conference.

Behind the mediocrity is their inability to put the puck in the net.  With high-priced talent like Ryan Suter and Zach Parise, along with holdovers Pierre-Marc Bouchard, Devin Setoguchi and Dany Heatley, the Wild have managed to scare up 56 goals--which is among the fewest in the NHL.  The goaltending is hit-or-miss with Niklas Backstrom and Darcy Kuemper, a Houston callup who took over when Josh Harding was sidelined due to complications from multiple sclerosis.

Not surprisingly, this leads to the Wild's brain trust being looked upon with suspicion.  Coach Mike Yeo's job is in jeopardy because he's threatening to bring back the glory days of Jacques Lemaire, the team's original defensive-minded coach.  Chuck Fletcher, the general manager, is between a rock and a hard place when it comes to improving his team's talent.

The Wild, for most of their brief history, have blamed part of their problems on the division they're in--the Northwest.  The rivalries with the Vancouver Canucks, Edmonton Oilers and Calgary Flames have been intense over the years.  But they were also time-consuming, as the Wild bounced between three time zones and two countries.

The new realignment setup proposed by the NHL (and the players association just gave their blessing) would put the Wild in the same division with the Blackhawks, Blues, Stars, Winnipeg Jets, Nashville Predators and Colorado Avalanche starting next season.  That's great for local TV ratings and travel because most of these teams hail from the Central Time Zone.  But the competition would be much tougher than the Northwest is now.

Until then, in the remaining few weeks of the truncated regular season, the Wild need to find a way to increase the scoring and hold on to their leads.  If they don't, the division they'll be playing in isn't the only thing that's going to get realigned.