Twins excuse GM Bill Smith

In a somewhat unexpected turn of events, the Twins have excused general manager Bill Smith of his duties in the front office. This comes shortly after the team declined the Baltimore Orioles the opportunity to interview Vice President of Player Personnel Mike Radcliff and the reports that they are trying to re-hire Wayne Krivsky, who was the Cincinnati Reds’ GM from 2006 to 2008. Clearly, ownership was not satisfied by the results generated by the current leadership. According to Smith, on Friday he was notified that the Twins were going to insert Terry Ryan as the interim GM and allow Ryan to search for suitable replacements – which could very well be either Radcliff or Krivsky. During a post-firing interview with 1500ESPN, Smith admitted that the two sides had “philosophical differences” in their approach. In his tenure as the GM, Smith had made plenty of trades that seemed highly questionable at the time and looked exponentially worse in retrospect – including his Joha...