MLB Minnesota Twins

Paul Molitor Is the Right Hire For the Minnesota Twins

Fresh Videos

By @bradberreman24

Paul Molitor, Minnesota Twins, Ron Gardenhire

Jesse Johnson-USA TODAY Sports

After a search that officially spanned a little over a month, the Minnesota Twins will announce Paul Molitor as their new manager at a press conference on Tuesday morning.

Molitor was part of the Twins’ coaching staff in 2014, and he was immediately considered the front runner to replace Ron Gardenhire, which has now come to fruition. Molitor was runner-up to Gardenhire back in 2002, and his role within the organization, along with his acumen as a player, lends hope he can lead a turnaround in the Twins’ fortunes.

Prior to joining Gardenhire’s coaching staff for this past season, Molitor was a roving minor league instructor in the Twins’ organization for close to a decade. Before that, he was on former Twins’ manager Tom Kelly’s coaching staff in the early 2000′s and served as hitting coach for the Seattle Mariners during the 2004 season.

Molitor spent the final three seasons of his Hall of Fame career with the Twins, and he got his 3,000th hit as part of the team in 1996. Since he is a St. Paul, Minnesota native and a University of Minnesota alum, we are very familiar with Molitor here in the Twin Cities market. Despite outward appearances that the Twins did not stretch themselves by deciding to hire Molitor, I think he is the ideal candidate to take the franchise out of the losing trend that has been set over the last four seasons.

Molitor is very familiar with the young talent the Twins have in their minor league pipeline, having worked closely with prized prospects Byron Buxton and Miguel Sano along with many others. Second baseman Brian Dozier credits Molitor with improving his base running this past season, and the results showed as Dozier set a career high with 21 stolen bases while scoring 112 runs. It’s also safe to say other holdovers from the past few seasons are excited about playing for Molitor.

The main questions surrounding Molitor are his willingness to embrace the grind of a 162-game season, and secondarily his ability to handle being second-guessed by the media for perceived mistakes in strategy. It’s safe to say owner Jim Pohlad and general manager Terry Ryan got the answers to those questions that they were looking for from Molitor, and if not they should have gone another direction.

I give Ryan credit for not taking the easy route and naming Molitor as the new manager soon after letting Gardenhire go, and at least on the surface it seems an extensive search was done, with multiple outside candidates being interviewed. Cultivating new ideas is a must for the Twins going forward, and hopefully the organization was able to bring some fresh perspectives into the mix as managerial candidates were being considered.

Molitor was originally hired as sort of a jack-of-all trades coach for this past season, with some emphasis on base running, infield play and bunting. A reshuffling became necessary when Joe Vavra was sidelined by a hip injury in July, and at that point Molitor took over as first-base coach for the rest of the season. His move to the major league coaching staff led to speculation he would eventually succeed Gardenhire as manager, assuming that thinking didn’t already exist on some level, and it’s safe to assume Gardenhire kept Molitor out of a higher profile position on his staff for as long as possible as he felt his seat getting warmer.

Seeing as he’s never managed at any level, Molitor must be allowed to prove himself before judgment is made. The makeup of his coaching staff will be critical, particularly who will be coming in as the new pitching coach, and it’s possible some of those coaches will be named alongside Molitor on Tuesday morning.

Molitor will reportedly sign a three-year deal, so if this move happens to not work out as hoped out he and the team will not be committed to each other for too long. He will be just the third Twins’ manager since Kelly took over toward the end of the 1986 season, so barring a complete disaster or no progress back to playoff contention, he has a high level of job security.

Molitor will hopefully have a positive influence on Joe Mauer, and his success as manager will be intertwined with Mauer’s ability to recapture his previous form as a hitter. A lot of that falls on Mauer and his desire to show he can stay healthy and still perform at a high level, but perhaps Molitor can get through to his fellow St. Paul product. Simply demanding he be in the lineup every day, while shaking off minor ailments, would be a good way for Molitor to start with Mauer,

I think Molitor will embrace advanced statistics and analytics in a way Gardenhire had only begun to in recent years, and that will help him do everything from setting optimal lineups on a daily basis to arranging defensive alignments for opposing hitters.

When Joe Maddon became available after opting out of his contract with the Tampa Bay Rays, I suggested the Twins should do whatever it took to hire him as their new manager. But that was clearly not in the cards, due at least in part to the team’s four straight 90-plus loss seasons and immediate rumors the Chicago Cubs would hire (and have since hired) Maddon. I also think being the Twins manager does not appeal to those outside the organization in a way it may have 5-10 years ago.

I think Gardenhire led a small initiative with certain people in the organization to keep Molitor at arm’s length, since being a roving minor league instructor would keep him away from the major league dugout. So for that reason, I don’t think Molitor fits the profile of a traditional internal candidate, at least in the way a lot of Twins fans might consider him right now.

Molitor is clearly the right managerial hire, at the right time, for the Twins. He is someone players will respect, and his familiarity with the young talent that has started to surface will allow him to push the right buttons and get the most out of everyone.

Brad Berreman is a Columnist at Rant Sports.com. Connect with him on Twitter and Google +.

Share Tweet
Trending Now on