Sometimes is Sucks Being a Minnesota Twins Fan

Sometimes it sucks being a Minnesota Twins fan. Today Paul Molitor will be announced as the new team manager. Molitor, who comes highly recommended by outgoing manager Ron Gardenhire (if you like playing detective there’s a clue there), is being touted on the facts that he’s a hometown guy and a Hall of Famer. All the accolades translate to  just more Twins management sleight of hand. “Hey, look at the new manager, isn’t he great? He’s from here, you know. Come to the park and see him and cheer for him and eat a hot dog. Just don’t look behind that curtain and see what we’re putting on the field. Hey, did we mention our brand new manager and that he’s from here? And look at those delicious hot dogs!”

Many point to the Twins minor league system as proof of good things to come in 2015 and beyond. Well, that minor league system isn’t so great anymore. It’s not as good as the Chicago Cubs or the Houston Astros and I doubt it’s better than the Boston Red Sox. The prospects down on the farm who we’ve been told will bring us great baseball and division titles and championships: they’re struggling. Our #1 minor league prospect, Bryan Buxton, has been battling injuries for the last year, our #2 minor league prospect, Miguel Sano, is way behind in his  progress after elbow surgery and both our #1 (Alex Meyer) and #2 (Kohl Steward) minor league pitching prospects have been battling shoulder problems. Maybe these are just growing pains, but if they are, they’re scary ones.

Add to that the ugly fact that we have a General Manager who should have stayed retired rather than returning in another sleight of hand publicity stunt in 2011 and who thinks he can run the team better than the manager and is better qualified than the team owners to make the team’s financial decisions and I think it’s going to be a long time until there’s anything to cheer about in Twins Territory.

I take what I said back at the top. Sometimes it really sucks being a Twins fan.