The Brewers have announced that they’ve fired manager Ron Roenicke. The team says it will announce his replacement at a press conference at 10:30am Monday. The Brewers will not make any further changes to their coaching staff at present, Adam McCalvy of MLB.com tweets.
The Brewers posted a solid 342-331 record in four-plus seasons with Roenicke at the helm, and he led the Brewers to an NL Central division championship in 2011. The team also had winning records in 2012 and 2014, although it collapsed badly down the stretch last season. It exercised its 2016 option on Roenicke in Spring Training, and GM Doug Melvin said less than two weeks ago that he and owner Mark Attanasio weren’t even considering firing Roenicke.
The Brewers were off to a dreadful 7-18 start this season, however, that led to plenty of reports and speculation about a major shakeup within the organization. The team began its year with four straight losses and hasn’t gotten back on track, dealing with an injury to star catcher Jonathan Lucroy and subpar performances from a number of key players. The Brewers did, however, win their last two games, perhaps suggesting (as the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s Tom Haudricourt tweets) that they had already decided to fire Roenicke before this weekend.
USA Today’s Bob Nightengale (via Twitter) and others have already speculated about the possibility that Craig Counsell, who has worked with the Brewers front office since retiring as a player, could be Roenicke’s replacement. There’s also been speculation about former Twins manager Ron Gardenhire, although SB Nation’s Chris Cotillo tweets that Gardenhire will not be replacing Roenicke.
“This has been a difficult start to the season, something that we certainly didn’t anticipate,” says Melvin. “We appreciate all that Ron has done for our organization, and he has handled his duties with great professionalism and dedication.”
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
Yikes, kind of saw that one coming…but stinks when anyone loses their job. Looks like Brewers are about to unload.
Yeah – I mentioned two or three days ago that he seemed like he was looking to get fired. The writing was on the wall
“relieved of his duties”
I wonder how much they’ll take for Jean.
Considering he’s cheap and still under control, probably more than he’s worth.
No don’t move him, he’s part of the solution.
Probably trying to figure out if they need to blow the whole thing up and start over before the trade deadline rolls around. If that’s the case, Melvin needs to be shown the door too. He’s more responsible for the current state of affairs than anyone else.
Maybe I’m one of the few but I’d have to disagree. He’s done a pretty good job with this team, especially since the NL Central has actually been a pretty tough division the last 4 years. Plus throughout his tenure, the moves he’s made have overall been good (the Sabathia Trade back in 08, signing Kyle Lohse, acquiring Carlos Gomez, etc). He needs help from a payroll perspective but he’s never going to get it. That’s why this team will make the playoffs once in a while.
Sabathia trade isn’t looking so good now. He sold high on Matt LaPorta yes, but very low on Michael Brantley it turns out
Brantley wasn’t the centerpiece of that deal, LaPorta was. Given that LaPorta failed miserably and it took nearly 5-6 years for Brantley to develop into the hitter that he is today – and mind you he needs to put up a few more good seasons like last year to prove he’s for real – i’d still say the Brewers came out ahead there. They got what they wanted from Sabathia and in hindsight, the cost wasn’t too exorbitant. I’ll give Melvin an A for that trade. Risky, but it worked out.
Yes blow it up..Gomez,Garza,Lohse,K-Rod,Lind,Fiers,W.Smith
Should get 2 high end prospects at least for Gomez
Ron Gardenhire
The Brewers are in a bad spot. I doubt a guy like Gardenhire would take that position. Most managers know they can only do so much.
Many, if not most, coaches actually prefer to take on jobs where the team is rebuilding or has lowered expectations. They’re often given more time to develop the structure that they want, instead of needing to win right away.
I’ve never found that to be true in pro football or baseball.
Teams that are rebuilding have to hire first time coaches or 2nd tier coaches.
Never is a strong word! How about Rex Ryan going to the Bills? They’ve had one winning season in the last decade. Rex is widely considered a top coach in spite of his time in the New York circus.
Or what about Joe Maddon, believed by numerous sources to be among the best managers in the game? He got out of his contract to sign with the Cubs. They haven’t had a winning season since 2009.
Those are just two that instantly came to mind from the most recent offseasons.
I don’t think either of those apply.
Maddon signed with the Cubs after their rebuilding effort was already done with. The Cubs were considered likely to be strong contenders for the next several years.
The BIlls were 9-7 last year.
Anyway, I don’t know if Rex Ryan would be considered a top-tier guy who could choose exactly where he wanted to go (compared to guys like Bill Cowher or Jon Gruden).
You had me until you threw in Gruden! Man, overhyped coach!
For the love god, no. Gardenhire is not a good manager.
Not a shocker, but still unfortunate to hear, I never like early season releases when it comes to managers. I hope this is just a starting point for them though, because clearly the issues they’re having run deeper than their manager.
I’m a Pirates fan and can’t stand the Brewers… but I really can’t say anything negative about Roenicke. Seems like a straight shooter, and I hope he finds another gig again down the road.
Not a surprise, although the timing is a little strange: they won 2 out of 3 this weekend. It will be interesting to see if they go for a manager who is known for developing youngsters, and thus admit that they need to start over, or if Melvin is going to hire a veteran manager and try to turn them around.
As long as Melvin is around the Brewers are never going to hire a veteran manager. Melvin is not averse to canning managers to save his own hide. Hard to get a veteran manager to agree to walk into this situation, a likely long rebuilding process, and be the scapegoat if things don’t work out. Knowing how this team operates, I’ll be shocked if it’s not Counsell. Great guy and he may be deserving, but he’s totally unproven as a manager or coach. Could be a rough few years…
8 months too late
David Clarke gets my vote as about anything for Milwaukee and most of the entire northeast for that matter.
We’ve all forgotten those Garner/Lopes/Royster/Yost/Macha years pretty quickly, huh.
Hopefully Ventura joins him
Along with Farrell.
Farrell has won a World Series he has a better body of work then either of these two guys
I know, but they defenitely didn’t win because of his managing
I believe Farrell maybe too much of a player’s manager, like Francona. He’s better with pitching, but needs to put more of a wall up between players and the coaching staff than he learned from being under Francona all those years. Think it will be his eventual downfall, like it was for Francona.
The buddy system doesn’t work.
He’s better with pitching? Huh? I haven’t seen it.
Having a coach that’s good with pitching doesn’t mean you can throw a bunch of #4’s and expect him to turn them into a top rotation.
Top rotation? No, of course not. But five major league starters who are getting hammered like it’s a game of whiffle ball night after night? Something’s amiss.
someone had to walk the plank
The Brewers fired him, not the Pirates!
Arrr, Matey
The Mets are playing winning baseball so someone had to replace Collins on the hot seat. Roenicke drew the short straw.
Craig Counsell maybe???
He’s the logical choice
Hope Melvin is next.
I think Melvin is a pretty good GM. He’s playing with a deck of 51, like those GM’s in Oakland, Tampa, Pittsburgh and Cincinnati. They can get close from time to time by hitting on some draft picks and getting young talent from other organizations when it’s time to unload some soon-to-be FA’s. If Lohse & Garza could string together some strong starts in May, I’m sure he would love to turn them into some young talent and rebuild. Right now, they’re pretty much worthless.
The Brewers are middle of the pack in payroll. The Cardinals are usually $8-10MM higher than them in payroll. Sorry, that’s not an excuse in Milwaukee.
the brewers did beef up the payroll last year because they thought they had a window to challenge and it looked good for a bit, getting Lohse, Garza. On june 28th, they were 19 games over .500 and have had a 38-60 record since that time. It’s time to rebuild but unfortunately, the guys with the big contracts are untradeable.
what did i do?
Guess Counsell got the call. Too bad. Bobby Valentine was brushing up on his signals.
As much as I saw this
coming, I am totally against this move for many different reasons. How about we
put some talent out there for the guy to work with instead of guys who aren’t in
their prime anymore! Everyone once said the same thing about Ned Yost, and now
look where he has made it as a Major League manager. Yes Ron had some negatives
in the way he decided to manage the game but every human has disadvantages, and
the sad part is that’s what we judge people off of. I wish Ron the best of luck
on whatever he has planned for his future, and thank him for having a positive
impact on this ball club, and community as a whole. As for the Brewers they
need to realize they need to rebuild because this club doesn’t have enough
young talent to make a big run.
If Melvin didn’t see this coming…well, that’s on him, not Roenicke.