Gleeman: The fall of the Terry Ryan empire
From SABR member Aaron Gleeman at Baseball Prospectus on May 17, 2016:
Twins general manager Terry Ryan is a Well-Respected Baseball Man™.
He was drafted by the Twins in 1972 and pitched four seasons in their farm system. From there he became a scout and, eventually, the Twins’ scouting director. In the fall of 1994, when two-time World Series-winning general manager Andy MacPhail left the Twins to take the same job with the Cubs, the team chose Ryan as his replacement. He’s been the Twins’ general manager for 18 total seasons split between two stints, separated by a self-imposed four-season hiatus. Terry Ryan is the Minnesota Twins.
That cliché about someone who has forgotten more about something than most people will ever know is absolutely true of Ryan, a 62-year-old baseball lifer who has earned universal respect from his peers in baseball and from the media covering baseball. All of that is undeniable. However, also undeniable is that Ryan’s overall winning percentage as Twins general manager is just .474; the team has won a grand total of one playoff series since 1995. They haven’t won a playoff game since 2004, and the Twins have the second-worst record in baseball during Ryan’s second stint, with a fifth 90-loss season in the past six years currently looking likely following a disastrous 10-27 start.
When the Twins were winning six AL Central titles in nine years from 2002-2010 they were known for remaining old school as MLB front offices increasingly went new school. Basically they were known for being Terry Ryan, continuing to rely on their scouting chops and well-established organizational approach as waves of analytics and innovation swirled around them. All of that remains true now, except the Twins have fallen even further behind in the various new-school categories while failing to dominate on the old-school side like they used to. In short, it’s not obvious what they’re even good at relative to the other 29 teams anymore.
Read the full article here: http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=29211
Originally published: May 19, 2016. Last Updated: May 19, 2016.