John Shipley
St. Paul Pioneer Press
MINNEAPOLIS - Management told Terry Ryan a month ago that he would not return as general manager in 2017, then asked him how he would like to transition. After meeting Friday, the sides decided to end it now.
The Twins fired Ryan on Monday morning. He will be replaced on an interim basis by assistant GM Rob Antony.
“He basically said, ‘OK, if you’ve decided to make the change, let’s get on with it,’” Twins owner and CEO Jim Pohlad said Monday afternoon. “So that led to … this accelerated process that led to the announcement today.”
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Ryan, 62, was the architect of the Twins teams that won six division titles between 2002-10 but struggled in his second stint as GM to rebuild a team that has routinely finished at the bottom of the American League Central since 2011.
After replacing Bill Smith in November, 2011, Ryan was aggressive in his efforts to rebuild the major league team and replenish the farm system, which resulted in fine prospects such as Miguel Sano, Byron Buxton and Max Kepler, all currently with the big-league team.
But a series of bad trades and free-agents signings, mostly of veteran pitchers, capsized all other efforts to improve the team in the standings, an above-.500 season in 2015 notwithstanding.
Heading into Monday night’s game at Detroit, the Twins are 33-58 and 21 games out in the American League Central.
“There’s nobody being punished for the results of this season,” Pohlad said. “Maybe it should have been highlighted to me earlier, but it really highlighted the need to look throughout our organization and review the way we do things and likely change the way we do things. And from my standpoint, that can be best begun and accomplished through the change in leadership.”
Ryan, a former minor-league pitcher who grew up in Wisconsin, said in a statement that he is disappointed he couldn’t bring the Twins back to the World Series for first time since 1991 but leaves the post “with immense pride in being part of the Twins organization for the better part of three decades.”
Pohlad said Antony has no marching orders for the rest of the season, and that Ryan’s permanent replacement will have only one: He cannot fire manager Paul Molitor, whom Pohlad would like back next season.
He hopes to have a new GM in place by season’s end, and said it could come within our from outside the organization. The search, Pohlad added, starts now.
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Ryan initially was named the team’s fourth general manager on Sept. 13, 1994, and stepped down following the 2007 season. He has twice been named Sporting News executive of the year (2002, 2006), and was Baseball America’s major league executive of the year in 2004.
“It’s been an honor to be part of the Twins organization and I wish everyone nothing but the best going forward,” he said in a statement.
Antony is in his 29th season in the Twins organization and his ninth as assistant general manager, a role he’s held since Sept. 13, 2007. He was promoted to vice president in December 2013 and is responsible for major league contracts, including arbitration, and evaluating major and minor league players.
