The Minnesota Twins and Arizona Diamondbacks have officially begun their search to fill the teams' manager position. The Texas Rangers are little bit ahead of them as they've already conducted interviews with candidates of their liking.
The Twins fired manager Ron Gardenhire on Monday following his fourth consecutive 90-loss season, and since then there's been much speculation as to who will manage the team in 2015. ESPN MLB Insider Doug Mittler mentioned a number of potential candidates, including Paul Molitor (currently the Twins' infield coach), John Russell (Orioles' bench coach), Torey Lovullo (Red Sox's bench coach), Joe McEwing (White Sox's third base coach) and Dave Martinez (Rays' bench coach).
Thus far, the only development that has come out of the speculation was Molitor meeting with the team on Wednesday. The Minneapolis Star Tribune reported that the Hall of Famer spoke with the organization about potentially taking over as manager despite the fact he has no managerial experience. Molitor was believed to be a front-runner for the Twins' manager position back in 2001, but withdrew his name from consideration when it came down to him and Gardenhire due to the potential contraction of the Twins organization. General manager Terry Ryan declined to mention who else he plans to interview.
As for the Diamondbacks, chief baseball officer Tony La Russa fired general manager Kevin Towers, manager Kirk Gibson and bench coach Alan Trammell last month. Gibson and Trammell were casualties just last Friday and the team has already started looking for their replacements. According to Nick Piecoro of the Arizona Republic, the Diamondbacks have interviewed Double-A Mobile manager Andy Green as a potential candidate to succeed Gibson. The team then tweeted yesterday that Sandy Alomar Jr., Jay Bell, Phil Nevin, Jim Tracy and Turner Ward are on their radar. Joe McEwing and Don Wakamatsu (Royals' bench coach) have surfaced as candidates too.
In Texas, the Rangers temporarily filled their vacancy after Ron Washington resigned and appointed bench coach Tim Bogar to the post. Bogar went 14-8 to close out the regular season, but general manager Jon Daniels insists he will interview others, as well as Bogar, to see who would be best to take over in 2015. It was speculated that former Ranger Michael Young could be a candidate, but those rumors were shot down and he's now expected to take a job in the team's front office. On Tuesday it was reported that Texas interviewed pitching coach Mike Maddux and Triple-A manager Steve Buechele for the position, and that Bogar is expected to interview in the next few weeks.
With plentiful candidates out there, these teams are in no particular rush to fill their vacancy in the immediate future. The Twins (70-92), Diamondbacks (64-98) and Rangers (67-95) were three of the worst teams in the MLB this season, so their front offices are likely taking their time to hire the right manager.
