Mentorship Chronicles: Torii Hunter, His Mentors and What He Could Do For The Minnesota Twins

Sports are full of things that can’t be measured. One of those things is how much a ‘mentorship’ really affects the potential mentees. Only those mentees can claim if the mentorship was worth the trouble, a thing that we, the public, aren’t exactly told.

This was all brought up on Friday in a series of tweets. First, Darren Wolfson of KSTP tweeted the potential pitch that new manager Paul Molitor could use to sway Torii Hunter back to the Minnesota Twins:

Molitor's pitch to Torii: be that mentor that Kirby and I were for you in the 90's. Reiterating: #MNTwins have a good shot at a reunion.
— Darren Wolfson (@DWolfsonKSTP) November 21, 2014

That sounds really good on its face, right? Make Torii think he is in the same class of a couple Hall of Fame baseball players. That is a great scheme and I’m sure something that Molitor will talk to Hunter about. It makes too much sense not to.

Then Mike Berardino chimed back with this:

On Torii Hunter and mentoring:

1. Torii was in A-ball when Kirby retired

2. Torii played 7 MLB games (19 PA) w/Molitor as a teammate
— Mike BerardinoNDI (@MikeBerardino) November 21, 2014

That changes the face value thing. Torii barely played with Molitor and never played with Kirby Puckett. And the fact that Hunter would not be mentoring anyone unless Byron Buxton, Miguel Sano and company were at the major league level…

Wolfson shot back that Hunter learned a lot in the many weeks of spring training time that Hunter spent with the Hall of Famers. Assumingly Hunter could have the same affect.

It’s hard to know what mentorship does for a baseball player, but the debate is now on for what Hunter could bring to the team in that capacity. Add in his age, declining play and the salary he will probably still demand, the Hunter situation is fluid to say the least.

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