I wish I had some way to explain why the Miami Marlins fired their manager only to replace him with their GM, but I simply can't. It seems like everything the Miami Marlins do is confusing, and this is one of their most confounding moves yet. I may be way off. Dan Jennings might be the perfect person to lead the Marlins. But I have a feeling I'm not. It does, however, look like Jeffrey Loria is moving closer towards his goal of actually becoming Al Davis.
When Loria fired Mike Redmond after the Marlins almost got no-hit by the Braves on Sunday, he announced that the new manager would be introduced on Monday. That's code for "it's somebody within the organization." Most people assumed that meant one of the coaches would be promoted, like the Brewers did with Craig Counsell after they fired Ron Roenicke a couple weeks ago. But to say that going with the GM (whose only managing experience in a 30-year career was at a high school) who was responsible for constructing the under-achieving roster came out of left field would be an understatement. I doubt there was anyone outside of the Marlins organization who saw this coming.
Teams have had success with out-of-the-box hires before. Houston made the playoffs a couple times under broadcaster-turned-manager Larry Dierker, and Arizona won the World Series the year after they plucked Bob Brenly out of the broadcast booth. The White Sox' hiring of Robin Ventura despite his not having any previous managing or coaching experience seems to be working out OK so far, too. But it's important to note that all of those guys played in the Major Leagues. Dan Jennings did not.
Jennings made his mark in the Majors as a scout. But identifying talent and coaching it are different things entirely. And who's to say they translate? Just because you clearly know baseball well enough to sign guys like Giancarlo Stanton and Jose Fernandez and Henderson Alvarez into your organization doesn't necessarily mean you know when to make a pitching change or when to sit a struggling hitter. We all think we can manage in the Major Leagues, but the truth is very few people actually can.
Loria clearly has a short fuse with his managers. One of the articles I read today said that he's a big fan of George Steinbrenner, which is probably where he gets this itchy trigger finger from. But to me, he's more like Al Davis than George Steinbrenner. When Steinbrenner stopped firing his manager every other year, Joe Torre won four championships in five years. After John Gruden left the Raiders, the longest Al Davis kept a coach was like two seasons, and Oakland hasn't finished above .500 since they went to the Super Bowl a decade ago.
That Raiders team lost Super Bowl XXXVII to the Bucs in January 2003. In October 2003, the Marlins won the World Series under Jack McKeon, who was brought in as manager after Jeff Torborg was fired in mid-May (I think it was the same number of games, and the Marlins had the exact same record as they do right now). Florida/Miami hasn't been back to the postseason since, despite having guys like Miguel Cabrera, Josh Beckett, Jose Reyes, Stanton and Fernandez on the roster.
We all remember a couple years ago when the Marlins opened their new ballpark and they actually tried to be good for the first time since the 2003 World Series. That was the winter of Jose Reyes and Mark Buehrle and Ozzie Guillen. What happened? An epic failure of season that was bad even by the Marlins' historically inept standards. (They fact that they were actually trying to be good that year probably made it worse.) Who was responsible for constructing that team, and subsequently breaking it up the following offseason? Oh yeah, Dan Jennings.
Miami is still paying Guillen, which I think had a lot to do with the decision to give the managing job to Jennings. They're still paying Guillen, who was fired after only that one season. They're still paying Redmond, who was in his third season as Guillen's replacement. So, if they brought in somebody from outside the organization, even if it was just until the end of the season, that would be THREE different managers they'd be paying in 2015. Jennings was already under contract with the organization, so they didn't have to add that third manager's salary. For a money-conscious team like the Marlins, that had to have been a factor.
They've established a pretty impressive laundry list of managers who haven't lasted in Miami since McKeon retired. They replaced McKeon with Joe Girardi, who was Manager of the Year as a rookie skipper in 2006, only to be fired after that season because he didn't get along with Loria. Three years later, of course, Girardi won the World Series with the Yankees. After Girardi it was Fredi Gonzalez, who actually lasted three and a half years before he got the boot. Gonzalez then became manager of the Braves and has taken Atlanta to the playoffs twice. They actually brought an 80-year-old McKeon back for the rest of the 2010 season after letting Gonzalez go. Then there's Ozzie Guillen, one of their prize free agents in 2012. Guillen was already established, having won the World Series with the White Sox in 2005. After a 69-93 season and some not-so-good comments in the media, Guillen was gone. He hasn't managed since.
Including Jennings, the Marlins have had 14 managers in their 23-year history, and no Marlins manager has lasted more than three and a half years on the job. Loria hasn't owned the team the whole time, but those numbers are telling. And this revolving door in the manager's office has likely had an impact on the team's fortunes. They've never won the division and only made the playoffs twice (although they did win the World Series both of those years). For most of the remaining time, they've been a bad team playing in a mostly-empty ballpark.
Jeff Loria wants his team to succeed very badly. Perhaps a little too badly. Because his "win now" approach is actually a hindrance. He doesn't give his managers enough time to build something (Jim Leyland's 1997 team doesn't count since it was bought for the sole purpose of winning the World Series, then disassembled just as fast). If he did, he might be amazed by what he saw. Because Giancarlo Stanton is on the shortlist of the best players in the game and there's plenty of other talent around him. The Marlins are almost good enough to be very good really soon. If only their owner would stop getting in the way.
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