Ron Gardenhire Fired by Twins: Latest Details, Comments and Reaction

Ron Gardenhire's run with the Minnesota Twins is over. The organization fired its manager of 13 years Monday, a day after Minnesota capped off its fourth consecutive losing season.

The team confirmed the news on its Twitter account:

Gardenhire, 56, has been with the Twins as a manager or coach since 1991. He served as longtime manager Tom Kelly's right-hand man from 1991 until Kelly's retirement following the 2001 season. Gardenhire then took over for Kelly, leading Minnesota on one of its best sustained runs of excellence in history.

Following the announcement, general manager Terry Ryan spoke about the decision to move on from Gardenhire, via Mike Berardino of the St. Paul Pioneer Press:

Gardenhire himself spoke about his exit from the organization and his tenure in Minnesota, via Berardino:

The Twins won their division under Gardenhire six times, including each of his first three seasons. One of baseball's smallest-market clubs, a lack of postseason success mired the team's trajectory. Minnesota managed only one ALCS appearance in six tries, which came during Gardenhire's first campaign.

The Twins have lost their last 12 postseason games, including three different sweeps in the ALDS. With the core of its successful run aging and the team financially shackled by Joe Mauer's massive contract extension, Gardenhire's last four years have been fraught with frustration.

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Minnesota's 70 wins in 2014 were its most since its division crown in 2010, a dark period that's caused attendance to drop precipitously at taxpayer-funded Target Field. The stadium, which opened before the 2010 season, had an average attendance of 39,798 during its inaugural season. In 2014, that number dipped all the way to 27,785.

Unsurprisingly, the attendance drop has coincided with last-place finishes in the AL Central three of the last four seasons. The Twins, who some expected to inch near the .500 mark after making moves to bolster their pitching staff in free agency, finished 20 games out of first place and tied for the second-worst record in the AL.

Most of the offseason signings backfired instantly. Phil Hughes turned in a solid campaign, but Ricky Nolasco proved to be a disaster. The Twins ranked 29th in team ERA and were at or near the bottom of every major pitching category—helping squander an above-average offense.

"After being in pennant races and being in the playoffs and you hear all these people saying, 'You better take advantage of it because you may not get a chance again.' Well, we've seen that for four years now. I understand it. It's pretty frustrating," Gardenhire told reporters this month.

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Firing Gardenhire is not a surprise from a performance standpoint; the Twins are nearly a half decade into their recent futility. It is, however, a change of course from an organization that hasn't fired a manager since the Ronald Reagan administration. General manager Terry Ryan also told reporters last month that Gardenhire was not in any danger of losing his job.

"Same stuff. He is signed for next year, so you don't have to worry about him," Ryan told Sid Hartman of the Star Tribune.

The Twins were not appreciably worse in September than in other months, so it'll be interesting to see the team's overall reasoning. Perhaps Ryan, who has been with the organization off and on for more than two decades, saw the writing on the wall himself. The Twins have struggled since his return as general manager in 2011, with many of his biggest decisions proving ill-fated.

Perhaps Minnesota ownership needed to see a change, and Ryan will get one last shot to bring the team back to contention in 2015. Either way, it's the end of an era.

Editor's note: An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated the Twins hadn't fired a manager since Ronald Reagan's first term. Ray Miller was fired during Reagan's second term.

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