I think Dusty is the clear third choice and I doubt these are the only three interviews. Girardi is probably the hardest of them to hire - will get the most $ and the most years (the latter because he's younger and will have the leverage). Of course so far there are zero candidates who haven't already worked for MacPhail in some capacity (Girardi as a player but they also know each other from labor negotiations).
For all the knocks on Dusty - the pitching history, the non-analytics approach, the accompanying small-ball preference - he just won 95 and 97 games in 2016 and 2017. So either it's still possible in 21st century baseball to win with different kinds of philosophies or maybe the talent on the roster matters just a bit more than the manager or the strategy/analytics (see also, Kansas City's championship).
I'd still like to see Ausmus in the mix but I suspect the Angels drug scandal might make him unhireable (at least this year).
I also think it's probably unfortunate that we are passing up a lot of good candidates by locking in on experienced managers. But I guess they might still interview some major league coaches (including our own). Just not front office/recent player types.
You can't really call our GM "inexperienced," either. He's been a GM for four years and was in a front office for as long if not longer than most of the GMs of his ilk who are succeeding. He has more baseball years than Luhnow. Derek Falvey was an intern as recently as 2007 and he's Thad Levine's boss in Minnesota. Klentak's experience is not the problem, he just might not be a good GM (or he works for a team where it's not possible to be one).
