For the final time in the decade of the 2000’s, your Oakland Athletics take the field for a game in the month of May. So far in May 2009 they are 10-18. The 18 losses this month tie for the third-worst month of the decade (20 losses each in August 2008 and May 2005; the other 18-loss month was July 2007). In this decade their overall record in May is 127-146 (.465). The last five Mays have been particularly sucktastic (55-83, .399).
Braden vs. Millwood at 12:05 Pacific.
A struggling Millwood has given the A’s quite a few baserunners…but Jack Hannahan keeps coming up with those men on base. ‘Nuf said.
Giambi!
Terrible, terrible pitch. G still isn’t getting around on fastballs.
Hannahan now with a strikeout looking, an infield fly rule popout and a strikeout swinging. If you need “Third baseman grounds into a double play” to complete the line on your Baseball Bingo card I bet you’ll win.
I like Wuertz with my FREE KRAUT.
Adam Kennedy managed to avoid contracting the Mayness that afflicted most of the rest of the roster. Helluva month.
That’s it. Kennedy is officially now the FKin’ coolest/awesomest A.
Time for Bailey to get angry.
What the fuck was that?
It almost pains me to say it, but it’s a real joy to watch Kennedy and Cabrera working together around second.
it’s almost as if they’ve done it before…
I was sitting here thinking that if Kinsler hits a home run, that’s it for Bob Geren’s A’s managerial career. The doubleheader sweep, the 14-1 loss and blown leads of 4-0 in the 7th and 5-4 in the 9th…that’s the sort of final vortex of suck that has consumed bad managers in the past. Instead, Kinsler grounds into the 4-6-3, Young taps back to Bailey and Bob soldiers on to Chicago. Nice win, although I feel strongly that the main effect is to delay the inevitable.
Because the team won today?
There’s no rule that says you only can fire a manager after a loss. I don’t think Beane/Forst will fire Geren now, because Beane’s m.o. isn’t to dump managers mid-season, even ones who weren’t his Best Man.
I don’t think we know enough about Beane’s “m.o.” as to firing managers who have turned in two straight losing seasons and are leading a team that is disappointing relative to spring training expectations in the third. He inherited Art Howe, whose first three seasons with the A’s were well under .500, and in 1998 the A’s were 20-28 after 48 games compared to this year’s 19-29, but that team was awful and nobody thought they would be competitive. I guess the 17-32 start in 2005 was Beane’s best opportunity for a midseason firing, but at that time Macha had 96 and 91 win seasons under his belt.
Beane has made midseason changes on the coaching staff. At a time when the manager still almost always selected his own pitching coach, Beane canned Howe’s buddy Bob Cluck in spring training and installed Rick Peterson. Later, Thad Bosley got the boot as the A’s hitting coach after the first couple of months of the 2003 season. I think an in-season managerial change, while not part of Beane’s history, is hardly unthinkable.
I’ll bet you
$20$20 million billion gazillion fafillion yen that Geren isn’t fired mid-season this year.I think he’ll be fired. If he somehow survives through June, those two East Coast road trips in July will take him to the guillotine.
I accept the bet, monkeyball. Even more reason for me to celebrate on the day of the happy event.
Note: Page saved as
PDFpoop on a sheet. Anybody who tries to edit $20 to make it $200,it ain’t gonna flyis gonna get all kinds of stink on ’em.Whoops, looks like I’m gonna need to shower.
I’m curious as to your reasoning — why do you think Beane will fire him?
To me it’s a macro issue, expectations vs. results. After a couple seasons of allowing the team to drift, neither winning nor putting together a core that would contend in the future, the Holliday trade was the first signal that upper management was giving Geren a “win now” mandate in 2009. In the first two months that has dissolved in an avalanche of blown leads and ugly losses. An experienced manager with a track record of success can survive that, but Bob Geren does not have such a record. As the first half of this season dictates another change in direction back to rebuilding mode, I expect Geren to be swept out along with the departing veterans.
Everybody has their own micro issues with their team’s manager, lineups and bunting decisions and what not. My own pet peeve is an execution issue, the number of times pitchers have failed to cover on grounders to the right side. What the hell were they doing every morning for a month and a half of spring training?
Either Tye Waller or Todd Steverson could be the interim manager for the rest of the season. Waller has a strong player development background. Steverson worked his way up through the A’s chain as a manager at three levels and elevating him to manager sends the message that the Diamondbacks didn’t send when A.J. Hinch took over, that dedicated men in the system can get a shot in The Show. In either case, the hallway in the A’s office that has photos of all the club’s managers would finally feature a person of color. Billy could then hire someone new for a fresh start in 2010.
This is why I will win the bet: you’re saying that Geren will be fired for not meeting your expectations.
I, however, own the A’s (hence, “we”) and therefore can assure you that Geren will be fired for not meeting my expectations.
That Lew would push Geren out is an even dumber theory than Soaker’s.
How dare you call me “Lew.” We damn sure ain’t friends.
I did babble on at some length but my “theory” is pretty simple: If you want to keep your job as a major league manager it’s a damned good idea to win lots of games. When you lose lots of games in your first two seasons and have the team on a 64-win pace on June 1 of your third year, expect to hear the ice cracking.
Now, sure, that’s “dumb”. It means that a clueless bozo who’s fortunate enough to manage a supremely talented team hangs around a lot longer than the brilliant tactician who communicates very well with players, coaches and management but is stuck with the Royals or Pirates or an A’s team that’s unable to consistently provide him with a roster of 25 healthy players.
I haven’t seen any evidence that Geren has communication issues, although that stuff isn’t usually revealed until after the guy is gone. Where he falls on the clueless to brilliant continuum is up to you. The question here is not whether firing Geren is objectively the “right thing to do”, it’s whether Beane will get frustrated enough with losing to pull the trigger. I’m guessing yes, monkeyball says no. The matter of what characteristics the ideal manager of the Oakland A’s should possess is left for another day.
The. Manager. Does. Not. Win. Or. Lose. Ballgames.
The question is not “Will Beane get frustrated enough with losing to pull the trigger?” — it’s “When Beane has previously made moves out of pique rather than rationality, has there been a relatively public Airing of Grievances prior to the Final Conflagration?”; and, “Hasn’t Beane usually been quite forgiving with underperformers, especially when they’ve enjoyed a personal relationship with him?”
(And that last one does not mean I think, as you apparently do, that Geren has somehow underperformed, as measured by W/L.)
As I always say in response to these things (Beane’s gonna flip his lid, Beane’s gonna make a deal based on ticket-buyer market appeal of Player X, Beane hates to lose so much he has to blame someone else), show me the evidence of such behavior in Beane’s track record, and I’ll start to think about your thesis as rational.