Two managers already have been fired without the season even reaching the quarter pole. That could reflect the pressure that arises from more teams than ever investing huge money to win or greater parity convincing organizations not to accept poor performance.
Or we can say the Brewers and Marlins are bad, irrational organizations.
After all, Milwaukee picked up Ron Roenicke’s $1.3 million option for 2016 in spring training and canned him 25 games into this year. And it was just last September that Miami gave Mike Redmond a two-year extension through the 2017 season and, nevertheless, fired him 38 games later.
So what these geniuses thought was a good idea almost yesterday turned bad quicker than milk in the sun — and before Memorial Day.
Maybe this will work. Maybe the Brewers and Marlins should be better and a different voice will evoke that excellence. In 2008, Milwaukee fired Ned Yost with 12 games remaining, hired Dale Sveum and eked into the playoffs for the first time in 26 years. In 2003, the Marlins axed Jeff Torborg at 16-22 and Jack McKeon took over. The decision was roundly criticized mainly due to McKeon’s age (72). The Marlins won it all that year.
Now here are the Marlins at 16-22, and the decision to have general manager Dan Jennings replace Redmond is being lambasted because, among other things, Jennings last managed at the high school level, three decades ago. He admitted at his introductory press conference Monday that even his mother asked if he were crazy for accepting this job.
Still, this could become McKeon redux. Miami does have talent, led by Giancarlo Stanton and ace Jose Fernandez soon returning from Tommy John surgery.
But it is more likely — as with the dismissal of Roenicke by Mark Attanasio — the act of an impetuous owner, Jeffrey Loria.
Actually, Loria has no equal in this forum. He is George Steinbrenner, minus any wit or gravitas. He now has had eight managers since McKeon left after the 2005 campaign, including Joe Girardi for one year after which he was named the NL Manager of the Year. He is a revenue-sharing moocher who will now be paying three managers simultaneously — Ozzie Guillen, Redmond and Jennings — yet will have no one with a general manager designation.
Jennings admitted this move was “out of the box.” More like out of your mind. This is not a knock on Jennings, a baseball lifer who will try to squeeze victories out of the winning team he believed he had assembled. It is not uncommon for a manager to, off the record, grumble about the roster assembled by the GM. From Jennings, that would be hysterical.
But Jennings also is part of the culture wrought by Loria, whose word is dust in a storm — pfft. Which makes you wonder what Stanton thinks of all this.
Stanton took the $325 million, so there will be no lines of sympathy twisting around South Beach. It was well established then that what Loria pledged on Tuesday would be challenged to hold until Wednesday. So Loria’s vow that the signing of Stanton was a beachhead in a new way of operating lasted even less time than, say, his similar words upon giving Jose Reyes $106 million. The Marlins continue to be as stable as a cardboard hut in a tornado.
They will try to win now with Jennings. But what happens if they don’t? Does Loria go to his familiar playbook of stripping payroll? Reyes ended up a Blue Jay before his contractual ink was dry.
Stanton’s pact has an opt-out after six years, in part because he wanted an exit strategy if Loria continued to behave like a guy named Jeffrey Loria. Does Stanton look around and see the same old Marlins and hope that an even earlier departure could be worked out? Imagine the bidding war for the best power hitter in the game (on pace for 48 homers this year despite the poor play around him). Yeah, we know Loria has said that is not happening, and the long-term signing of Christian Yelich and acquisition of Dee Gordon and others is supposed to stamp that.
But this is Loria. He is firing a manager he extended last September. The last time Loria committed this hard to win, Hanley Ramirez was traded in-season and Reyes, Mark Buehrle and Josh Johnson were dealt after the season.
Yep, maybe Jennings will find some Trader Jack magic and, like McKeon, guide the Marlins from below .500 to a championship. Loria and his cronies ran around the bases at the old Yankee Stadium to inelegantly celebrate that title about an hour after the final out. Classy chap.
Or more likely the repeat is simply Loria being the impatient Loria again — the new new plan already forming to replace the latest new plan.