APRIL 20: Redmond’s fate could be the first test of Loria’s patience with his new front office, notes Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports (Twitter links). Loria has said that he’s much more comfortable with his restructured front office, and sources tell Rosenthal that neither GM Dan Jennings or president of baseball ops Michael Hill wants Redmond fired.
APRIL 19, 10:33pm: A Marlins official denies that the team is considering firing Redmond, Mike Berardino of the Pioneer Press tweets.
9:26pm: Marlins manager Mike Redmond could be in danger of being fired, Clark Spencer of the Miami Herald writes. According to Spencer’s sources, the Marlins have already considered firing Redmond, and have even considered potential replacements (with Mets Triple-A manager Wally Backman as one possibility).
Redmond is in his third season as Marlins manager. He is 142-194 as the Marlins’ manager, although the Marlins were rebuilding much of that time and performed somewhat unexpectedly well last season, finishing 77-85 despite the loss of ace Jose Fernandez, who had Tommy John surgery. Late last season, the Marlins extended Redmond’s contract through 2017.
After an offseason makeover that included the additions of Mat Latos, Martin Prado, Dee Gordon, Mike Morse, Dan Haren and Ichiro Suzuki as well as big new contracts for Giancarlo Stanton and Christian Yelich, however, the Marlins are 3-10 and seven games out of first place in the NL East. Of course, the season is only 13 games old, but as Spencer notes, Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria has frequently been quick to make managerial changes and has also fired managers in-season (including Jeff Torborg in 2003 and Fredi Gonzalez in 2010). Stanton said Friday that the Marlins lacked “fire,” and Spencer suggests that, while Stanton’s comments weren’t intended as a criticism of Redmond, they could help convince Loria to view Redmond’s laid-back style as a problem.
Who gets fired first … Amarro or Redmond.
Ron Roenicke
Gibbons will be the first fired. Guaranteed.
It’ll probably be Gibbons, Roenicke, and Mattingly.
and lets not forget, but the Nats may fire Williams. #hotseat
I don’t know. Yeah, they’re in last place, but they’re also only one game under .500. And I doubt Mattingly will be fired, the Dodgers are in 1st place.
It’s way too early to talk about what place they’re in.
Can’t exactly blame Gibbons for Stro going down. And that lineup is still not clicking on all cylinders yet.
Lineup would be scary if Encarnacion, Bautista and Martin started hitting above .200. Edwin’s been pretty disappointing to start the season, a lot like last year’s April… Let’s all hope he goes on a tear soon.
Do you watch Blue Jays games? Gibbons has been excellent at constructing the lineup, and he’s been great with his bullpen usage too. He’s doing well and players like him.
Not many watch games here. They read box scores and look at stats.
Even if you just looked at box scores, you’d see how Gibbons has been putting Donaldson 2nd in the lineup, and how he’s using his best relievers when the time calls, and not saving his best relievers for a save chance they won’t get.
Wouldn’t Donaldson be better served hitting 4th, protecting EE? Have the OBP-driven Joey Bats hitting 2 and then Reyes leads off.
EE hits 4th. Donaldson gets tons of fastballs hitting infront of bautista and edwin. Since hes been moved in the 2 spot hes hit 3 bombs and its batting around .400 over the last 10 games.
Donaldson has been so good recently because he’s a tremendous hitter. Not because of who’s on deck.
I know… but you need to understand that when you hit infront of bautista and edwin you will see better pitches. Its just a fact.
Gibbons had Bautista hit second last year often. It isn’t about ‘protecting hitters’ (when will this myth die), it’s about putting your best hitters in positions to do damage.
I don’t think its a myth.
If first base is open, and the guy on deck isn’t a huge threat, and the guy at the plate is, why would you give him anything to hit?
Barry Bonds wants to speak to you because I’m pretty sure nobody wanted to face him with the bases loaded, which is why he was walked intentionally with the bases loaded. Also, if you knew he was coming up would you not want to face him with 2 outs and nobody on?
This has nothing to do with the myth of ‘lineup protection’ and everything to do with how good Barry Bonds was.
Then how do you define lineup protection because If someone of similar skill like a Babe Ruth was hitting behind Bonds, I’d believe wholeheartedly that he wouldn’t have been walked intentionally with the bases loaded. You pick your poison.
Beliefs and truth are two separate things. One requires imagination, and the other requires facts.
I have no idea how opponents would have dealt with that situation. Maybe they intentionally walk both hitters. I have no idea, I don’t see how anyone could answer that question.
Since none of us have been managers, and the majority of managers believe in lineup protection, it must be true. That’s all the facts we have. You draw your own conclusion.
Protection is a myth; ideal roster construction has your best hitter batting second, because, you know 11% more at bats.
Agreed before gibby put donaldson in the 2 hole i honestly was telling one of my buddies he should do that. Its not his fault cecil has basically blown 2 games.
Excellent bullpen usage? Perhaps with the lack of pieces Gibbons has been handed but their bullpen and rotation have been terrible under John Gibbons’ management. The only outlier so far was his first year back with the Jays in 2013, the same year they were heavy favorites for a World Series appearance and fell mighty short, just like last year where they were up 5-6 games going into August on a wildcard spot and only a few games behind Baltimore for the Division crown and fell short. The Jays being “all in” the last few years has been a disaster so far if they don’t make the playoffs, considering the talent they have and Alex Anthopoulos’ hand is going to be forced to have a new manager come in just to see if he can salvage his job which is certainly running thin as he’s likely given 2016 as his last chance with this organization. Bautista and Encarnacion’s team friendly deals expire after that season and I don’t think they want to sit around on a team that constantly loses when they can get paid more to go to a winner.
The fact that the Blue Jays staff has been performing poorly has little to do with John Gibbons. He was given the pitchers he has and he’s been using his best relievers when it matters most, which almost no other manager can say they do.
This is the only year where gibbons has managed the pen correctly. Last year was horrendous.
You can only do so much with little talent. Cecil/Sanchez were the only guys that could be counted.
But the fact that he’s learning and changing is very encouraging. The day you stop learning is the day you stop coaching.
Honestly , I really like Loup as well. Just been struggling so far. Gibbons has made the right calls this year though.
I like Loup too. I think maybe Gibbons should try and use him a little less against righties and let him get his confidence back.
Agreed. Even though hes usually great against righties, as you said, he can face some lefties to gain that confidence back. His looping slider/curve is almost impossible to hit against lefties with his delivery.
Like throwing in his closer in a situation with the bases loaded and no-outs? That same closer has one out pitch(curveball) and wasn’t able to find his release point because of an uncomfortable pitching situation(cold,wet,bases-loaded) in which he pretty much has to be ahead in the count isn’t ideal for him, the catcher or the manager, but Gibbons thought throwing him out there with the bases loaded might’ve salvaged the game. A wild pitch, a beaned batter and a hit later(all via curveballs mind you) and the game is lost.
Mind you Russell Martin had caught Cecil for about 1-2 innings during Spring Training because of Cecil being hurt. So you really might not want a catcher who’s unfamiliar with catching your only swing and miss pitch in this situation. Maybe the Jays should’ve taken out Russell Martin for Navarro?
That was the best move Gibbons could have made. Cecil gets strikes out and suppresses contact. Bases loaded and nobody out, you want strikeouts.
Evaluating the process of a move is different the evaluating the results.
Cecil also walks a lot of guys when he can’t find his curveball release point. He lives and dies with it and the scouting report probably said that. Statistics or not, when the guy doesn’t have that command (second half of 2013 & first half of 2014) he gets hit and hit hard.
He’s getting hit pretty hard right now too. Why? Because I watch the Jays play and picked up a long time ago that if he isn’t able to throw his curveball over for strikes, he’s not going to have a good outing.
Name a reliever he ought to have used, and I will find two periods in their professional careers where they haven’t commanded the ball well and have gotten punished.
There is a downside to every pitcher, but Cecil represented the best chance to minimize the damage of that inning. Unfortunately it didn’t work, but again, good process, and that’s encouraging.
There’s no reliever he should’ve used with the bases loaded and no-outs.
Girardi simply out managed Gibbons by pinch hitting Didi Gregorius(who’s not a threat regardless of what pitcher) with a LHP killer in Chris Young the second Gibbons called for Loup to start that inning. I would’ve kept in Castro who had just faced Drew and A-Rod for relatively quick outs and put in my LHP(Cecil) in to face the Yankees top of the order in which Young would probably sit on the bench or he would be PH’ing a solid defender/bat in either Gardner/Ellsbury. You have to anticipate these moves ahead of time and with only one guy on or a 3-2 lead at worst, Gibbons hands the ball to Cecil to face the Yankees top of the lineup, which is LHB strong excluding the switch hitter in Mark Texeira. Cecil has had extreme success against everyone except Texiera who was batting cleanup and would likely not even see a PA.
Cecil with the lead and at worst with a 3-2 lead is given the chance to find that release point on his curve against guys who’ve simply been dominated by him.
Why are you assuming in your scenario it works out? Castro gives up a bunch of fly balls, he’s struggled against lefties, he doesn’t command his fastball well, that’s a poor situation for the Blue Jays.
Would Cecil have found his release point in your scenario, unlike the actual game?
Castro facing a #9 hitter in Didi Gregorious who’s got a career .238/.308/.356 slashline is hardly something to worry about. Castro also having a 7 inning sample in the majors is hardly something to base your counter-argument off of. Worst thing is if Garrett Jones comes off the bench, I still throw in Cecil, out comes Young. Meaning I still get Cecil the opportunity to work without having to be perfect. Maybe he finds his release point out of the wind-up? Maybe he doesn’t, I can evaluate that after the next few PA’s.
If he blows it, oh well. The chances are Gardner, Ellsbury and Beltran don’t do anything as they’ve struggled against Cecil for their entire careers. Meanwhile Loup on the other hand has been crushed by Beltran and Ellsbury meaning if Young reaches Cecil’s probably going to need to come in anyways. Which is why he did but against Beltran with the bases juiced.
Very much doubt that Matt William has to worry about his job.
Redmond, but it should be Amaro.
If Amaro was gonna get fired, they’d do it by now. They’re gonna let him play out his contract, which ends after this season. Ryne Sandberg should be canned also.
Can’t blame Sandburg, they didn’t give him a team to compete.
He’s a lame duck. Need someone to fill out the lineups and fall on the sword.
Hes just a bad manager. He makes silly decisions with the guys he has. An example would be keeping Ben Revere out of the lineup for 3 straight games when he was apparently healthy. Limiting the back end of ur bullpen because he only has 1 lefty in the pen.
Anthony Recker was playing 3B for the Mets (hes a backup catcher) the other day, and Revere at the plate, and he called for Revere to swing away and not bunt.
How much control do managers have over the roster construction?
I would think he has some control, but he struggles with what he has.
I’m not sure Amaro has done anything recently to get fired. Was it his fault that both Halladay and Lee fell apart so quickly? His recent contracts/trades have been good. He got something for Byrd, and it seems like the Rollins deal was really good for Phillies. The only deal (of recent) that I question is the Ruiz deal. (The Papelbon deal is bad, but that was awhile ago).
I’m not saying Amaro is a great GM, however, his recent moves do not call for his head like most may imply. The problem is he made so many costly mistakes his first two years (Howard, Papelbon, trading Lee, trading for Pence, and trading Pence).
You’re forgetting the elephant in the room, here, which is the Howard extension, signed 2 years before free-agency
No I’m not. I mentioned that, but that was not a recent move by ruben. If they wanted to fire him for that move, that should have been done a while ago.
Sorry, missed that in the second paragraph. If Hamels has a really bad season or gets hurt, though, Amaro really should go. Not cashing in his chips with Hamels could be disastrous for the franchise.
Halladay and Lee have absorbed a lot of innings over their careers though. You want every player to decline gracefully, but that doesn’t often happen.
I think when you commit so much guaranteed money to aging pitchers and aging position players, you assume quite a bit of risk.
thats the problem. amaro locked up too many players with unmovable contracts and didnt really compliment the rest of the team with anything else.
Already? Not even gonna give him the first month?
I agree, this is ridiculous..
16 of the Marlin 25 players have been below average thus far in the season. Changing a manager can’t fix that. But I guess everyone needs a scapegoat.
I always get mad when the manager is the first person to blame due to player’s struggles
WALLY BACKMAN! Go look that guy up on youtube. A legend.
I don’t think its Redmond’s fault. Latos hasn’t been very good, their best 2 starters are out and Stanton hasn’t been great. They should get better over time.
ot: Kelvin Herrera, over or under 14.5 game suspension
lol what are we looking up on youtube? Are people not familiar with him?
no
Way under… they give starters 6 games so they are forced to miss 2 starts. Herrera will get 3, 5 tops in my opinion….
He was yelling “im gonna hit you in the head” while pointing to his head to signal it when he was being pulled off by his coaches. I could see it being a very hefty suspension compared to usual. Hes wasn’t being a Ryan Dempster and sending a message, he was intending to hurt Lawrie. I think 7 would be the minimal, with a 20 being the max.
He didn’t yell that he pointed at his head and later clarified saying he was saying “think about it”
And Lawrie said he was screaming that hes gonna hit him in the head. I’m sorry if I don’t believe the guy facing a huge suspension rather than the guy who did nothing wrong, and was thrown at twice and has no reason to lie.
Its all perspective, and Herrera’s doesn’t look good.
That’s not what was happening on the field; I was watching the game and it was very clear what he was telling Lawrie. Of course in the dugout he’s going to say something else. He’ll get 4 or 5 games off, I’d guess. Yost should get the bigger suspension though – even by the silly baseball rules you don’t just keep throwing at a guy. Hit him once and it’s over.
Ya I found it odd they targeted Lawrie again. After Lorenzo Cain got hit (which I don’t think Kazmir meant with any malice whatsoever), knowing KC and how they operate, you figure they’re probably going to get a guy back. But why Lawrie again?
Legend is one thing…telling your new employer that you have nothing in your past gets you fired 4 days after you are hired to manage the D-Backs is another.
What’s Jack McKeon doing?
It’s not Redmond’s fault that the off-season moves, though plentiful, barely improved the team.
Gotta keep the $325 million man happy; if Redmond has to go to do so, so be it.
Is it early? Yes. Not everyone is playing to potential, and you got swept by the Mets, who just happen to be the hottest team in the NL. If you get swept by the Phillies in the upcoming series, well….it might be time for Redmond to pack his bags.
How many games have the Marlins played?
13. 3-10. Tied for most runs given up in NL.
Maybe look for a new pitching coach before manager? Hitting coach? Again, I agree it’s probably too early, but if they keep digging the hole, it’ll be tougher to get out.
I say option c) Do nothing and trust the people you’ve employed.
Sometimes that not an option in a multi billion dollar business where the objective is to win. Even the Phillies fired Charlie Manuel after he turned that organization around because it wasn’t working anymore. Every failure needs a scapegoat, and it might just be Redmond this time.
Determining what is a “failure” 13 games into a season would be a joke. If they liked Redmond at the start of the year, that opinion should be the same. Baseball is not a game you can make panic moves.
It’s also not Redmond’s fault that the rotation is horrendous so far. Alvarez is hurt, Latos has been a disaster, Koehler pitches well until he hits one bad inning (see today’s start)…poor offense and poor pitching = no wins.
Ron Washington?
Don’t think that he’d quit the Rangers just to sign 2 weeks into the next season with someone else.
Washington won’t get another job in baseball. The coke and sexual harassment stuff are real issues.
Phils are the ones that need to Fire people first , both Amaro and Sandberg are over their heads.
While I think 13 games into a season is just too early to make any conclusions, it does feel like Sandberg isn’t ready to be a major-league manager. Great player, but his style just doesn’t seem to work at all; I understand he has a roster of mostly useless parts, but he’s not helping.
How much can a guy not on the field help? Sure he could make all the best decisions and put his players in optimal positions to succeed, and the Phillies still aren’t an average team. You need players.
Yeah, I have no idea how much a manager helps a team. Sandberg just doesn’t feel like he’s cut out for this, but he’s also saddled with an atrocious roster.
I don’t know, the Red Sox starting staff has the highest ERA in aLL of MLB as of yesterdays games, if the Red Sox staff is in the same scenario in a month their farm system stUds may become available.
Mike Redmond? He should change his name to Giancarlo Redmond. He would probably get an extension.
“Late last season, the Marlins extended Redmond’s contract through 2017.”
If the team is doing this bad come next month, then yes it’s time for Redmond to go. Otherwise, you gotta give the man time to get this together and help get his players’ heads in the game. A lot of these players in that majors these days seem to think Spring Training lasts until the middle of May.
Remember when Don Mattingly could have been on the hot seat?
Rumours..
Wish they’d fire my manager on my Sunday baseball team, he’s definitely the reason I’m only hitting .250
Mike Redmond has been in the hot seat since he took the job. The marlins have fired their managers pretty much every other year since inception
Okay, but, if Mike Redmond is on the hot seat, Ron Roenicke’s seat must be in flames.
hopefully they hire backman, anything to get that wife beating idiot out of contention for mets manager
Is Jack McKeon coming back?
Wally Backman, the guy who came out on the show Worlds Dumbest, whom got ejected for arguing balls and strikes??