The Good Old Days

My stint as a Twins fan has endured three stages.
Stage 1: 1986-1993. The Twins won two World Championships during this time, and also won 90+ games in '88 and '92. They were good, and everyone expected them to be good. Expectations were high, attendance at the Dome was through the roof - it was good to be a Twins fan.
Stage 2: 1994-2000. The Twins were terrible during this stretch, never really even threatening to contend. After the '93 team - a team expected to contend - failed, the Twins began a series of rebuilding projects that totally failed because the team built around players that never amounted to much. Attendance was poor, expectations got so low that the Twins became an afterthough throughout the Upper Midwest. Nobody cared.
Stage 3: 2001 - present. In 2001, the Twins found out that, for once, they had rebuilt around the correct players. The team came into its own, and after finishing in second place with an 85-win season, went on a three year run of division titles starting in 2002.
Interest in the team was rejuvenated, a new group of players became household names, and the success eventually led to the team getting a new stadium.
Tom Kelly was in charge from 1986-2001, then turned the team over to Ron Gardenhire.
Considering Gardy won division titles in each of his first three years, it seemed that the transition was a smooth one.
It is becoming apparent that that wasn't exactly the case. As the Twins continue to rely on more and more young players, Gardy's faults as a manager become more and more glaring.
As bad as the Twins were for all those years in the 90's you could always count on two things.
One - the Twins wouldn't beat themselves with mental mistakes or lazy play (they lost because they had far inferior talent).
And Two - the Twins would not get outmanaged, not as long as TK was in the dugout.
Nowadays, the Twins seem to get outskippered on an almost nightly basis.
I'm not saying TK was perfect, or that Gardy is worthless. At times TK's stubborn ways rubbed players the wrong way, which sometimes cost the team.
But the fallacy is that Gardy makes up for his lesser intellect by 'keeping the guys loose, etc'.
This is a load of shit.
Not only can Gardy not make a lineup, not only does he still rely on old-fashioned conventional wisdom (sacrifice bunts with .300 hitters, etc), not only does he ignore advanced statistical analysis (insisting on managing with his 'gut', rather than scouting reports or obvious statistical trends), but he also fails in the clubhouse stuff.
He has totally mismanaged the career of Kyle Lohse. He has cowtowed to veteran players (refusing to DH Shannon Stewart for fear of pissing him off, refusing to bench Jacque Jones against lefties) to make them 'more comfortable.' He has steadfastly continued to write the name of Juan Castro, statistically the worst everyday player in baseball, into his lineup.
He has been unable to make up his mind on players like Jason Barlett, Jason Kubel, Michael Cuddyer and Justin Morneau, which has stunted their development as players.
He has allowed the team to become undisciplined and careless, resulting in the kind of mistakes TK's teams prided themselves on never making.
Failing to advance runners, mistakes on the base paths, missed signs, failing to get bunts down, and an overall decline in team defense.
'Twins baseball' does not mean what it once did.
And maybe the worst of all, he keeps making an ass of himself, going out on the field and throwing a temper tantrum and getting tossed.
In 16 years, TK got tossed four times.
In 4 1/3 years, Gardy has been tossed 24 times. It might be entertaining for the fans, but it's not helping anything. It's childish. At the very most, getting tossed can 'rally the troops' once or twice a year. When it happens every other week, it's just stupid.
I'm sad that it took me until the past year or so to realize it, or at least completely convince myself of it, but the Twins success in recent years had a lot more to do with Tom Kelly. As the players he developed have gradually moved on, the team has become more and more mistake-prone, more undisciplined, and frankly, just plain worse.
It's tough to say these things because I like Gardy. A lot.
But sometimes poor leadership is overlooked when people are likable (see Tice, Mike).
The bottom line is that Gardy's mistakes are costing his team wins.
That didn't happen under TK, and it can't be allowed to happen.
So the real question, of course, is would TK come back?