Fire Gardy

Heard this: The Twins are working on a contract extension with Gardy, whose current contract expires after 2009.

For some reason, teams and managers alike find it an untenable situation when a manager actually manages during the last year of his contract. I don’t fully understand that, but that’s the way it works. So it comes as no surprise that the Twins would extend Gardy before the final year of his contract begins — after such a good year, a vote of non-confidence like that would be all over the media and send the wrong message to all of our players.

This is probably a good move, and I’m sure the Twins fully expect to have Gardy in the new dugout at Target Field in 2010. I can only hope that he starts to learn the value of having people on base and making the pitcher work, as opposed to being most excited about possibly fitting a game in in under two hours.

I’d expect his extension to be in the range of 2 years (2010-2011), $2.75-3 million, if the team’s history with Gardenhire is any guide. He’s on his fourth consecutive two year deal, with gradually increasing pay each time. Each time, he signed the extension before the final year of the contract started.

I’ll keep my eye on this as it develops.