The Minnesota Twins have fired Paul Molitor. They will have a new manager for the 2019 season.
Jerry Crasnick of ESPN reports that the Twins have had “productive conversations’’ with Molitor about transitioning to a different role in the organization, however, so it’s not like they’re kicking him to the curb. They still gotta pay him too, of course, as they still owe him $3.25 million over the next two years thanks to a contract extension granted last offseason.
Molitor led the Twins for four seasons. In that time they went 305-343, yo-yoing between pretty good, terrible, pretty good and disappointing in that time. They won 85 games and the Wild Card last year -- winning Molitor the Manager of the Year Award -- and there were high hopes heading into 2018 as a result. Those hopes went unfulfilled and that’s what cost Molitor his job, it would seem.
Molitor was a Hall of Fame player, a long time coach and instructor, and anyone who knows much about him can tell you that his baseball IQ -- and general IQ -- is extraordinarily high. He never got more than expected out of his club, however, and half the time got much less. It’s also worth noting that he was not hired by the current Twins baseball operations team, led by Derek Falvey and Thad Levine, and baseball ops teams like to have their own guys. As such, he likely had a shorter leash than other mangers might.
The Twins, it would seem, would be in the market for a motivator.