Managers Ken Macha, Dusty Baker, Trey Hillman, Ron Washington and John Russell are under varying degrees of pressure, according to Jon Heyman of SI.com. Here are the details on two other managers on the hot seat:
- Mets people say it's "too early" to react and replace Jerry Manuel, so they aren't about to fire him. Some people around the Mets say former MLB manager and newly-hired Mets scout Bob Melvin is in line to manage the club if Manuel falters. Mets management seems reluctant to bring Bobby Valentine back for a second stint managing the club.
- If the Marlins fire Fredi Gonzalez before his contract expires after 2011, he could be a fit in Atlanta. The longtime Braves coach could return to replace Bobby Cox, who is in the midst of his final season managing the Braves.
- Torii Hunter won't try to extend his career by DHing. Hunter says defense got him to the majors, so he intends to play a couple more years and then spend more time with his family.
Not that I’m for firing Manuel or was against his hiring, but replacing him with Bob Melvin would be doing the same thing with their previous managerial change. Willie, Manuel, and Melvin all have the same temperament. If you’re going to change managers for the 2nd time in under 3 years, go for someone who has a different personality.
If they do fire Manuel, they should hire Valentine. It’d get the fans off their back, if at least temporarily.
Just curious but which is your team?
I’m a Met fan.
I began to suspect but I have read a lot of your posts and I can tell you really love baseball all around. Good stuff.
Yeah, I’m Amazin’ too….for better or for worse. These days this board practically doubles as a support group.
The only thing that will salvage the Mets organization is a sell of the team.
Yeah, no doubt. Doesn’t seem like too many fans really get that — yet.
They don’t need to do that. All ownership needs to do is hire a GM who relies on numbers more than scouting and isn’t a bumbling fool in public. Give him free reign and let him hire his own people. Basically, do what they did when they hired Minaya except hire someone better.
Minaya isn’t running that team, Jeff Wilpon is. Any GM they hire if Minaya is fired is just going to be another puppet for Jeff to play with. No GM for the Mets is going to have free reign to make his own decisions and hire his own people.
And any GM doesn’t need to rely on numbers over scouting. You need both to build a successful franchise.
Which is why, as I said, if you hire a GM and give him free reign, you don’t have to sell the team.
Minaya has relied more on scouting than numbers. Often times he just ignores numbers (like Gary Matthews Jr). That’s why a GM who does more with numbers would be an improvement.
But they won’t hire a GM that has free reign. Jeff enjoys having the team as his little play thing too much.
You got it!
And I agree that the team would be better with a more statistically-driven GM. I was just saying its foolish to ignore either scouting or statistics.
I just feel like the Wilpons’ leadership of the organization overall is an impediment to all of that – especially in hard times. They’re not Peter Angelos but I’d be glad to see them in the rear view mirror. I’ve had enough.
I’d love to get Fredi back in a Braves uniform after Bobby retires. He’s my #1 pick to replace Bobby after this year.
Try to make it last as long as you can Torii. Love those HR robbing hops!
Agreed. And I like Hunter’s honesty on this matter.
Nice nickname, BTW!
Yeah, Torii’s a special breed, and even when he’s been wrong I appreciate that he just says what he feels.
Nice nickname, BTW!
Thanks, man. It probably doesn’t come as much surprise that Mr. Hunter actually inspired it! I always used to watch Twins games just to watch him pick ’em!
I like Hunter a lot but honestly if he retired at the end of the year I would be thrilled. Having an extra $18m/year would be pretty awesome for the Angels.
Would they have an extra 18 millions? How much would it cost to find a good centerfielder today? or do you think the Angels would be happy to go with Willits?
He’s not retiring yet. Unless there’s some kind of freak injury, he’ll be back next year. He was .01 away from hitting .300 last season, he probably wants to accomplish having a .300 season also.
How is it too early to replace Jerry Manuel? It was too late the moment Willie was fired and Jerry took over. It’s not like he just started managing the team this year.
Because is replacing Manual going to make the team better?
Perez and Maine arent struggling because of Manual.
Santana was throwing 89 because of Manual.
Team construction wasnt done by Manual.
The injuries werent because of Manual.
What does firiing Manual do? Needed to fire Omar last offseason and start fresh, let the new guy pick his manager and guys, let him scout for the upcoming draft, etc.
tori says that now but when there are teams offering him 5-10 mill a season to DH and part tiem out field he will change his mind
Who pays a 35+ yr old DH 5-10 mil anymore?
The Angels.
Hunter just isn’t good enough to DH. Career 800 OPS just isn’t going to cut it if your entire job is to hit.
Plus his defense is the definition of overrated. He’s been negative UZR since 06 (though, to his credit, it was -1.4 in 09, a stark improvement over the -11.5 in years past). He’s starting to get old in the field, though. Good hitter, but not nearly good enough to be a full-time DH, unless he can be had for REALLY cheap.
Fredi definitely deserves a job like Atlanta. That team is looking super-promising in the near future and, unlike the Marlins, Fredi doesn’t have to worry about his best players getting dealt each off-season. Part of me feels like Johnson gets dealt before he completes more than half of the life of his contract.
How about we trade T.P. for Fredi???
Notice how nobody singing Fredi Gonzalez’s praises is a Marlins fan. He overuses his best relievers which is WHY we need to keep restocking the pen, because by mid-season our best guys are on the DL. He doesn’t really have much control with this team outside of what relievers to use and what guys to bring in to pinch hit/come in as a defensive replacement (another thing he does way too much), so it’s really impossible to say he does “more with less.” It’s the front office that puts together these great teams with no budget, not Fredi who takes terrible players and makes them go out there and win games. Not that Fredi deserves to go, but if Loria expects playoffs (and with the talent the team has, they should make the postseason) and they don’t come through, in Loria’s eyes, Fredi is a failure, and he has to go. And the Girardi firing was due to his relationship with Loria, not due to his performance.
Its is. Loria has openly debated firing him if they don’t make the playoffs this year.
Firing Fredi would be crazy, stupid, idiotic, and just plain wrong.
He does more with less than anyone managing any ML team. It’s that way for him every year he’s been with the Marlins. Their players can’t play defense, and they have a revolving door bullpen, and always new, young, starters with all the inconsistencies that brings.
I’m sure the Braves would take him off of the Marlins hands. It would be great to see what he could do with a better constructed roster of players to choose from.
Fredi has done great with the youngsters he’s been given. Atlanta would want and need that skill set. The Marlins have done a lot with a little, and I think Fredi is part of the reason why. I agree there is no way they should even consider firing him.
Atlanta is one of the teams I root for. I would gladly take him off of the Marlins hands. He’s excellent.
This is the team that fired Girardi after his manager of the yr.
I see Fredi as a younger Bobby Cox with better in-game management skills. I love the guy, and I can’t wait to see if we can land him.
Girardi isn’t exactly an amazing manager. As a Yankee fan, I will tell you that his pitching decisions are so inconsistent it is maddeningly infuriating. For example-Hughes was up to about 95 pitches when he came back out for the 6th inning, and was clearly winded/tired. thankfully, the two extra walks he issued didn’t cause much damage. Also, he jumped the gun and brought Mo in for a one-out save when the only reason the game didn’t end was because Jeter mis-read the bounce on what would have been the game-ending ground-out.
Those are two recent examples, but there are SO many more. Then again, I credit Girardi with not having Joe Torre Syndrome. Which is basically falling in love with a specific relief pitcher and using him enough to dash any hopes of having a long, productive career (Proctor comes to mind).
You would think, but season after season the ‘answer’ for most fans is to blame the manager, GM, coaches, and of course, the players, again and again. For fans like these, yelling for the heads of people who actually CAN be fired is preferable to recognizing how helpless they are to do anything about those ultimately responsible for the team’s continuing failures: ownership. Human nature, I guess.
Completely agree.