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Twins' minor league staffs set for 2010
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The month of October is usually highlighted by roster decisions at all levels of a major league organization. On Wednesday, the Minnesota Twins began their organizational shuffling by announcing their minor league coaching staffs.
Last month, it was announced that Rochester manager Stan Cliburn was not being retained after four seasons at the helm of the AAA affiliate. The Twins filled the position internally, elevating last year's AA New Britain manager Tom Nieto to the Rochester position, and moving high-A Ft. Myers affiliate manager Jeff Smith to New Britain to take Nieto's place. To fill the void in Ft. Myers, the Twins tapped Gulf Coast League Twins' skipper Jake Mauer. To complete the moves, Chris Heintz will make his managerial debut with the GCL Twins next summer.
Nieto was a catcher for the Twins in the 1987 and 1988 seasons and spent 2009 as his first year back in the Twins' organization after several major league coaching stops, most recently with the New York Mets. New Britain was 72-69 under Nieto's leadership this past season.
Smith had managed Ft. Myers for the past two seasons and managed the Miracle to an outright regular season title in the Florida State League's South division, notching a 80-58 mark.
Mauer played five seasons in the Twins' minor league system before joining the organization as a full-time minor league coach in 2006. He ran the Twins' extended spring training drills and was manager of the Gulf Coast League Twins for the past two seasons. With the GCL Twins, Mauer led the team to a 34-21 record in his second season with the team. Of course, he has a rather famous younger brother who is a part of the major league club.
Heintz will get his first taste of minor league managing when he takes over for Mauer with the GCL Twins. Heintz saw 34 games of major league action with the Twins between 2005-2007 and spent the balance of time in those seasons in Rochester. The catcher saw almost 1,100 games of minor league action between 1996 and 2008, retiring after spending the 2008 season with the Baltimore Orioles' AAA affiliate in Norfolk.
The skippers in low-A affiliate Beloit and rookie league Elizabethton remain the same, with Nelson Prada and Ray Smith returning to their respective teams. For Prada, 2010 will be his third season, while Smith will begin his 17th season in E-Town.
The Twins have one of the most stable coaching staffs in all of baseball and that stability extends to all levels of the minor leagues. Farm Director Jim Rantz has been with the club for over 40 years and serves as a testament to that stability. Rantz hired each and every member of the current Twins' major league coaching staff, and the stability and loyalty is present in the minors. Most baseball executives respect the Twins organization as a whole, and one reason for that respect is that few elect to leave the organization.
The 2010 staff has a lot of exciting prospects with which to work next spring (Kyle Gibson, Miguel Angel Sano, among others) , and many in Twins Territory will be carefully monitoring the progress of these stars under the gentlemen profiled in this article.
