Hi, hello & welcome to THE USB Baseball Report! I'm
Steve Cook, and this week's edition is going to be a bit shorter than usual. Mostly because I have no idea if it's going to get posted or not, and I want to save all the good material for weeks where my USB superiors aren't high off their asses. Though, come to think of it, I might be waiting a long time to use the good material if that's going to be my standard. We're down a manager, the Reds are down a bunch, the Giants are catching fire...let's get right to it.
Hired To Be Fired
There was a time when Fredi Gonzalez was considered one of the top young managers in baseball. In three seasons with the Florida Marlins he'd led the club to more wins every year, including a second place finish in the NL East in 2009. He was let go in 2010 after 70 games & a 34-36 record, but nobody outside of Marlins management really blamed him or is surprised that the franchise hasn't accomplished anything since letting Gonzalez go.
Baseball thought highly of Gonzalez, and he landed a pretty sweet gig in 2011: Manager of the Atlanta Braves. He had a pretty tough act to follow in Bobby Cox, who had managed the Braves for the previous two decades & taken them to the postseason in fifteen out of twenty-one years. Prior to taking over in Florida, Gonzalez had played for Cox & coached under him, so it was no surprise when Cox recommended him as his replacement. He inherited a pretty good team, and the first three seasons were like his first three seasons in Florida, but even better. 89 wins, 94 wins & 96 wins, though their two postseason appearances both ended before the NLCS.
Most of the criticism Gonzalez would receive from fans was due to his failings in the postseason, and in the second half of the season in general. The Braves would get off to a hot start, which would usually be enough to carry them through a mediocre second half. Then there would be failure in the playoffs, which is enough to get any manager some heat. Now that the team isn't anywhere near the playoffs, it makes sense for the manager to get the axe because obviously he isn't connecting with the team and it's not like you can fire the players.
So it didn't really come as a surprise when Gonzalez was let go this week after a 9-28 start, with a dreadful 2-17 home record. The question I have regarding this move is pretty simple: What did Braves management expect would happen on the field the last couple of years once they traded away all of their good players except for Freddie Freeman?
I used to be on the Fire Bryan Price bandwagon due to the Reds' failings over the last couple of years, but the more I watch the more obvious it becomes that Bryan Price never had a chance to succeed as a manager. His bullpen is a mess, his top starting pitchers are all injured, his starting catcher will play thirty-nine games during the 2015 & 2016 seasons combined, his superstar first baseman is batting somewhere around .200...it never stops. Gonzalez has been handcuffed in similar ways the last couple of seasons, and he was let go this week because the front office needed to do something.
1975 Sparky Anderson couldn't succeed with the 2016 Cincinnati Reds. 1995 Bobby Cox couldn't succeed with the 2016 Atlanta Braves. There are plenty of instances where managers have deserved to be dismissed, but when their teams are designed to lose & lose big, I don't see the fairness in throwing them on the sword. It's nothing more than a move designed to take some heat off the front office.
And if you listen to sports talk radio, you'll find that it usually works. Firing the manager is the common fan's answer to everything. It's never that easy, but that doesn't stop us from yelling for heads to roll. There's something about a dude losing his job that makes us feel better about things. Schadenfreude, I believe the term is. We get happy because the manager loses his job. Their misfortune brings us happiness.
Though, in the case of managers of teams like the Braves, I'm not sure getting fired is misfortune. They still get their money, and they'll get a job somewhere in baseball. Fredi Gonzalez will be employed by an MLB team in some capacity next season. When Bryan Price gets sacrificed by the Reds front office, he'll find a coaching job somewhere. And it'll be a job that he might actually be able to succeed in.
