Leadership

So Torii Hunter was in town for just a few days to visit teammates this week. Still, he made time to carry out his duties as Team Leader--such as getting into a fight with Justin Morneau.

Morneau had the class to downplay the incident and pay his respects to Torii in the press, but here's the part of the story that slays me:

Hunter, during an interview about the frustration in the clubhouse, said he's kept up with the developments from Texas and has been startled at what he's read. Some of the events during the second half include righthander Carlos Silva saying that some players were acting like they didn't want to win, Kyle Lohse damaging doors in the clubhouse after being taken out of a game and J.C. Romero getting into arguments with Gardenhire and bench coach Steve Liddle earlier this week. In each case, things eventually calmed down.

"I gotta say if I was here, I probably wouldn't have allowed that," he said of some of the things he's read about. "It's not my ballclub, but I can't handle that. We're trying to win, and you cannot win when you've got people talking about each other in the paper and the media, even in the clubhouse going against each other. You've got the pitchers on one side going against each other, you can't do that. Everybody's got to be tightly knit, and I think that if I was here it wouldn't happen. We'd have to fight, it's as simple as that."

Um, Torii. You remember that road trip in early June, when there was a fuss in the papers about young players who needed to learn how to play hurt...?

Even now, while he says a team can't have players criticizing each other in the media, isn't he doing exactly that?

Funny how his leadership solution to rifts in the clubhouse seems to be, "We'd have to fight, it's as simple as that," too.

Torii has his talents, but acting as a leader to unite the players on the team isn't one of them. That in itself doesn't necessarily mean that he must go this winter. Baseball teams can win despite divisive influences in the clubhouse. But this incident should finally put the lie to the notion that he's indispensible because he's the Team Leader. Should he stay or should he go--Terry Ryan ought to base his decision mainly on whether Torii's plate production and play in the field is likely to be worth $10.75m (plus the $2m buyout in 2007) to this club, and what kind of value he might bring in trade and how else that money could be spent as an alternative. If Torii's clubhouse influence tips the scales at all, the way I see it, the clashes with Morneau this season should tilt against him.