Minnesota Twins search for next manager becoming clearer
By Nate Palmer
Hensley Muelens, San Fransisco Giants Bench Coach
From one national team manager to another, Hensley Muelens or “Bam Bam” has served as the Netherlands manager and is currently the San Fransisco Giants bench coach. It was Muelens performance as manager in the most recent World Baseball Classic that led to major league teams looking towards Bam Bam as a potential major league manager.
The former Yankee in his playing days, was given consideration last season for the open job in New York before Aaron Boone was selected for the position. Muelens experience with the Giants as hitting coach through World Series championship years gives him the playoff experience that could interest other teams. As could his ability to speak five different languages (English, Spanish, Dutch, Papiamento, and Japanese) help to add to that interests.
While Muelens seems to check all the boxes when it comes to being a leader and connecting to baseball players, he doesn’t seem like a fit when it comes to analytics. That is if the quotes in a post titled “Sir Bam Bam” at SB Nation (a great read if you are interested in Muelens) gives appropriate representation to the coach. In reference to sabermetrics Muelens is quoted as saying:
"“I keep it simple, I believe in seeing the ball and hitting it. There’s all kinds of statistics nowadays. What’s WAR? What the BABIP? What are these things, you know?”"
That doesn’t sound like a coach who is ready to use sabermetrics in his game plan as Muelens would be leaving an organization that historically have not been adopters of implementing sabermetrics either.
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There are certainly other men out there that the Twins front office will continue to look at. David Ross, the former catcher and now television analyst, has reportedly drawn interest from the Twins. Even though his name hasn’t been mentioned I wonder if Falvey wouldn’t make a call back to Cleveland to see of Sandy Alomar Jr. wouldn’t be interested in the Twins vacancy. There certainly may be more names that surface as the search continues for the Twins so stay tuned.