Where have you gone, Dick Martin

When Tom Kelly retired as Twins manager, Terry Ryan took advantage of the opportunity to do some house cleaning.
Most notable of those moves was removing the unpopular Dick Such, Kelly's longtime pitching coach and confidant. Such's replacement, Rick Anderson, has turned out to be maybe the best pitching coach in the majors this side of Leo Mazzone, so we can certainly chalk that up as a major victory for T-Ry.
Another, less publicized move, was the removal of long-time trainer Dick Martin, who was replaced by Jim Kahmann.
Martin was with Kelly and the Twins through the lean years, but one of the consistently positive traits of those teams was health.
The Twins rarely had any need for the disabled list during the TK years, and when they did, it was usually for Kent Hrbek's fat ass.
Kirby Puckett, Chuck Knoblauch, Greg Gagne, Brian Harper, Tom Brunansky, and pretty much the entire pitching staff almost never missed significant time.
From 1987 to 2001, the Twins had at least 6 players tally at least 130 games or 400 at-bats every season. Five times in that period they had 8 players reach those marks. And if you factor in that quite often there were marginal players on the roster, you have to assume that the numbers would have been even better if more players had been good enough to warrant staying in the lineup.
But ever since Martin left (and he left acrimoniously, selling his World Series rings and savagely ripping Terry Ryan and the Twins in the papers), the Twins have seemed to be battling injuries on a regular basis.
Corey Koskie, David Ortiz, Brad Radke, Joe Mays, Joe Mauer, Justin Morneau, Torii Hunter, Matt LeCroy, Doug Mientkiewicz, Luis Rivas, Nick Punto, Shannon Stewart, Johan Santana, Carlos Silva, JC Romero, Michael Ryan, Eric MIlton, Brian Buchanan, Jay Canizaro, Tony Fiore, Rick Reed, Bobby Kielty, and Grant Balfour have all spent time on the DL since 2002, many of them significant time. As best as I can figure that means the only regulars NOT to visit the DL since Martin left are Cristian Guzman (who was on the DL in '01), Jacque Jones, Kyle Lohse and Eddie Guardado.
There were a few grumblings in the papers about this subject, but the Twins said it was just a bad coincidence. After all it is hard to say just how much responsibilty a trainer bears for injuries. It would seem that where they make their money is in how fast they get players back from those injuries.
So it is perhaps in that vein that the Twins, very quietly, fired Kahmann after last year. Joe Mauer's knee injury was certainly nothing that Kahmann could've prevented, yet the fact that Mauer was never able to recover and unable to contribute during the playoffs may have cost the Twins a World Series berth, and that is almost certainly the biggest reason for Kahmann getting his walking papers.
Kahmann was replaced with Rick McWane, and this year's returns are inconclusive. Mauer and Morneau are battling again, though Gardy and Torii (rightfully, in my opinion) called those players out this week, saying basically - 'get your 22 year old asses out of the training room. Suck it up. This is the big leagues.'
The pitchers, namely Silva and Lohse, have had some minor flareups, but they've been managed. Joe Mays has bounced back wonderfully from a full year off from surgery.
So sure, it's possible that Dick Martin was just a lucky guy who never had to do any real work while in charge, and that Jim Kahmann was a terribly unlucky guy forced to work with a bunch of fragile wussies.
But you have to wonder, since Twins injuries have gone from an anomaly to a way of life in the last half-decade.