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Just read it on Yahoo Sports/MLB. Didn’t see a thread to discuss so thought I would post. If its already out there somewhere then the Mods can delete this thread.
r/Rat
Yeah can tell the Nats want to get past the first round and figure coach had 2 years to do it and didn’t…
while the cards are ok with a below average coach in MM getting worse every year….big difference in franchise goals!
Dusty was a good manager. Decisions like this are why the Nats won’t be winning a championship anytime soon. They are really a joke of an organization. This will be their 4th manager in the last 7 years. The Cardinals have had 4 managers in the last 37 years.
The MLB Tonight ranking of Tactical and Strategic Managers that ran in June had Baker #23 of 30, or bottom quarter.
I have several friends who are Cincinnati Reds’ fans who would argue against Dusty being a good manager.
Part of the DC problem is ownership. The Lerners don’t want to pay market value for a manager. Two years ago, they made Bud Black a low, one-year offer, which he turned down. Baker, on the other hand, hungry for any managerial job on his fourth shot, took it.
Never thought Dusty was the best manager out there, but had Scherzer pitched like he is capable of in game 5, the Nationals would have played in the NLCS.
Dusty and Matheny are fairly similar, in that they are usually not thought of as the most astute managers in the game, but have had some good clubs. Dusty’s teams tend to tire of him though, while the Cardinals value stability and feel it outweighs any shortcomings their manager may have. Plus they must be of the opinion that with experience their manager will continue to improve.
Well at least with Dusty they didn’t have guys choking each other in the dugout.
The point is that a successful franchise doesn’t change managers every two years, especially when they are winning over 90 games per year. Is the ghost of George Steinbrenner running the team?
The Nats have gone on the cheap for their managers. My recollection is that George got who he wanted and did not accept second or third choices. The bottom line difference is that the Yankees still won with (or in spite of?) George.
To your other point, managerial stability, there are exceptions. The Red Sox, a very successful franchise, just announced their fourth manager in the last eight years. During the preceding seven years, they won one World Series, reached the playoffs three times and had four 90-win seasons, including both 2016 and 2017.
From the early 80’s to the mid 90’s the Yankees were terrible. Only when someone in the Yankees front office (Gene Michael) finally convinced George to stop acting so impulsively did they start to win consistently.
I don’t get the Red Sox either. Pushing Francona and Ferrell out the door doesn’t make sense to me.
Why would a top flight manager want the Washington job? Harper and Murphy are free agents after 2018 and apparently you get fired if you don’t at least reach the NLCS or World Series.
I think the players also had something to do with the Yankees results. While you are right, they had a long dry stretch from the early 80’s to the mid 90’s, look at what happened right before that.
From 1976-81, they made the playoffs five of six years with four World Series appearances and two titles. Four different managers took them into the post-season in those six years. So it likely gave George confidence that he could keep making changes.
Of course, stability is going to be better – when the teams have the right players who can win. The Nats certainly have a good enough roster to do it.
As for the Yankees woes in the ’80s and ’90s, there is that classic SI cover that came out in 1991 I believe that had Maris and Mantle on the cover, with the caption “Whatever Happened To The Yankees?”
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