Twins fire Smith, bring back Ryan

It's a great day to be a Twins fan. Billy Smith was relieved of his duties, and someone capable of actually evaluating players was installed, with the return of Terry Ryan.  Everything Smith touched in his four years with the Twins turned to lead. 

While he has some classic headline-making disasters such as the Garza-Bartlett/Young trade, or getting nothing for Santana, or the Capps deal, the one that I think best exemplifies his ineptitude was sending Jose Morales to Colorado for Paul Bargas.  Having already traded Ramos for Capps, Morales was the only remotely capable bat left in the organization at catcher.  There was no reason to trade him, nevermind that the guy they got in return ended up with brain cancer.  The Capps deal was a gamble that just didn't really pay off.  There was very little upside to the Morales deal, and a ton of downside as the Twins found out the hard way with Mauer's prolonged absence.

So I look forward to the return of Terry Ryan, who was the king of below-the-radar trades that paid big dividends.  Hopefully he can quickly restore the Twins...