Your Final 2012 Manager/GM Hotseats and Predictions

Some managers have already been dismissed and others will be gone as soon as the season ends tomorrow night. Let’s go through the list of the obvious and otherwise.

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Manager Joe Girardi/GM Brian Cashman—New York Yankees

The Yankees are in the playoffs and barring a dreadful stumble in the final two games against a Red Sox team that’s waiting to be put out of its misery, they’re going to win the division. But, as the Yankees from top-to-bottom have repeatedly said, they’re not in it to make the playoffs. Anything short of a good showing in the ALCS and the manager could be in jeopardy. It’s not Girardi’s fault and if he’s going to be tossed over the cliff, I would advise him to handcuff himself to Cashman as they’re going over because it’s Cashman who should be in trouble.

From the trade that sent Jesus Montero and Hector Noesi to the Mariners for Michael Pineda and Jose Campos (both on the disabled list), to his questionable development of pitchers (Manny Banuelos is going to have Tommy John surgery), and his off-field mishaps, there are many reasons to say enough’s enough with Cashman.

In an ordinary situation, firing the manager/GM for a team that has won 90+ games and made the playoffs would be ludicrous, but the Yankees have a World Series or bust attitude and a $200+ million payroll. Add it up and people will be held accountable for a fall.

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Manager Bobby Valentine—Boston Red Sox; Manager John Farrell—Toronto Blue Jays

I’ll discuss them together since they’re all tied together.

Valentine’s putting up the front of expecting to be back because no one’s said anything to him directly and he has a contract for 2013, but he’s gone and he knows he’s gone. This Red Sox disaster was not due to the manager. He was part of the problem, but even had they kept Terry Francona or hired one of the candidates preferred by GM Ben Cherington, 2012 wouldn’t have gone much differently.

Farrell and the Red Sox are eyeing one another like desperately lonely singles at a middle-aged mixer and the Blue Jays will take advantage of that and get a player in exchange for Farrell. I doubt it’ll be someone as significant as Daniel Bard, but they might get something of use and not have to pay Farrell off if they wanted to fire him.

The Red Sox had better get Farrell better talent because his stoic countenance, handling of the media, and remembrances of years gone by as the Red Sox pitching coach aren’t going to yield any better results than what Valentine got without massive changes to the personnel. In fact, since Farrell’s in-game managerial skills are poor, the Red Sox might be worse with Farrell than they are with Valentine.

The Blue Jays know what Farrell is, are unhappy with his open flirtation with the Red Sox, and have seen his “strategery” on a daily basis for two years now. If there wasn’t this clear lust between Farrell and the Red Sox with the Blue Jays thinking they can get something out of it and not have to pay Farrell for 2013, they might fire him.

They need a manager who will handle the youngsters and correct mistakes as they happen; someone they can trust to make the sensible game decisions. I’d go with someone older and uncompromising like Larry Bowa, but if (when) Farrell leaves, they’ll hire a Don Wakamatsu-type. Most anyone would be a better game manager than Farrell. After a short honeymoon, the Red Sox will learn, much to their dismay.

The Blue Jays should wait to see what the Yankees do with Girardi. He’d be a great fit in Toronto.

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Manager Jim Leyland—Detroit Tigers

Much was made of the Tigers underachievement and that Leyland is working under a 1-year contract with no deal for 2013, but the Tigers problems weren’t the fault of the manager and they came back to win the AL Central. He’ll be back if he wants to come back, but I’m getting the inkling he might retire. The Tigers are a great spot for Francona.

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Interim Manager Sandy Alomar, Jr.—Cleveland Indians

The Indians are interviewing Francona, but the team is restarting their rebuild and won’t have the money to pay Francona or to bring in the players he’s going to want to win. It’s a no-win situation for him because he’d be risking his reputation by overseeing a team that’s starting over and would revert to the “nice guy and meh manager” rep he had with the Phillies before he wound up in Boston.

Alomar is a top managerial candidate, is popular in Cleveland and will get the fulltime job.

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Manager Mike Scioscia—Los Angeles Angels

The Angels missed the playoffs after spending a ton of money on Albert Pujols and C.J. Wilson; GM Jerry Dipoto and Scioscia are not exactly buddies; and owner Arte Moreno is understandably upset.

They’re saying that Scioscia will be back, but I’m not so sure. This is another great situation for Francona.

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GM Jack Zduriencik—Seattle Mariners

Zduriencik should be safe to at least fulfill the final year of his contract and see if the team improves in 2013.

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The entire Marlins baseball ops

From President of Baseball Operations Larry Beinfest on down to manager Ozzie Guillen, it’s been speculated that the baseball people in the front office were in trouble, then that was quashed after which it was said that Guillen is on the firing line.

I don’t see anyone as safe and I think owner Jeffrey Loria is simply going to fire everyone in a “Kill ‘em all and let God sort them out,” manner.

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Team President Frank Coonelly and GM Neal Huntington—Pittsburgh Pirates

After the Pirates came apart in the second half and the scandal of putting young prospects through Navy SEAL training, Huntington’s and assistant GM Kyle Stark were rumored to be in trouble; Coonelly put the kibosh on that, but Coonelly himself isn’t all that secure.

I think they all get fired.

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Manager Jim Tracy, Colorado Rockies

There’s an odd dynamic in Colorado in which everything is done in a friendly, agreeable manner. Former GM Dan O’Dowd willingly took a demotion in favor of new Bill Geivett wielding the power in the baseball ops. Manager Tracy has an indefinite, handshake agreement to stay as manager, but it sounds as if they’re going to make a change with Tracy staying in some capacity.

Presumably they’ll go with someone younger in the Chip Hale variety as the new manager.

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The Red Sox Should Just Fire Valentine Now

The Red Sox 2012 season is a washout. We all know that. More importantly, they know that. Already they’ve publicly said that Bill James is going to take a more prominent role in the evaluation of players. Whether that’s to keep him from commenting about current events as he stupidly did regarding Joe Paterno or that they want his increased input is known only to them, but it sounds as if they’re looking at what went wrong not just in 2012, but also in 2011, 2010, and 2009.

In fact, the mistakes can be seen to have extended as far back as to 2005 when the cohesive chain-of-command took a hit with Theo Epstein’s tantrum and “resignation” amid a power struggle (which he won) with Larry Lucchino. The Red Sox were not intended to be a team that tossed money at all their problems in an effort to win every…single…season, but to build an organization that was a moneymaker, that developed their own players, that signed free agents that fit into their on-field template and off-field budget, and endured the valleys that came along with the decision to plot their own course rather than look for every star that was on the market and pay for it.

The winter of 2006-2007 can be lumped in there too. Even though they won the World Series in 2007, it was the checkbook that was perceived to have been the “why” for their second title in four years. In reality, the players they signed—Julio Lugo, J.D. Drew, and Daisuke Matsuzaka—didn’t do all that much to help them that season. In the long-term, Drew was of use, but the Red Sox would presumably have preferred do-overs on the other two as well as Eric Gagne, whom they acquired during the season. In subsequent years, the still had notable success, but the developmental train became secondary to signing free agents. Any season not culminating in a World Series win was a disappointment and nothing they did—losing game 7 of the 2008 ALCS; making the playoffs in 2009; overcoming endless injuries in 2010 to win 89 games—was good enough. So they spent, spent, spent on players who were essentially mercenaries and poor fits for Boston.

They dumped manager Terry Francona when the team collapsed; Epstein left; and they became a case study for the logical conclusion of the mistakes they made in incremental stages to create the nightmare of 2012. Manager Bobby Valentine is the epitome of everything that’s gone wrong even though a majority of the poison had infected the organization’s blood. They’ve dispatched Josh Beckett, Adrian Gonzalez, and Carl Crawford; Valentine isn’t going to be back in 2013. They’re getting back to their roots from over a decade ago.

For right now, however, there is an opportunity to salvage this season and make it memorable for something other than a disaster: They can do to the Yankees what the Orioles, Rays, and to a certain degree the Yankees, did to them a year ago by knocking the Yankees out of the playoffs.

The Red Sox are playing six games against the Yankees with a 3-game series in Boston beginning on Tuesday and the final three games of the season at Yankee Stadium. The Yankees are reeling; their fans and media sycophants are panicking and cuddling one another in a delusional group therapy session, counting the days until the season is over and hoping that their condescension and arrogance isn’t reverberating on them in the most cruel and ironic way by authoring a collapse similar to those experienced by their two most hated rivals, the Red Sox and Mets.

I can tell you right now that if the Yankees don’t win the AL East, they’re not making it to the Wild Card play-in game. The Red Sox can take part in that if they win half of those games against the Yankees. Can they do it? Not as they’re currently constructed, and by that I mean with Valentine as manager.

He’s going to be fired; he’s become the embodiment of this organizational downfall in spite of him having nearly nothing to do with it; after his interview on Wednesday in which a joke was blown out of proportion to sound as if it was an “ugly confrontation” with an obnoxious radio host, his time in Boston is coming to a merciful end. It makes no sense to move forward with him after tomorrow, especially with the Yankees series starting on Tuesday. The Red Sox talent level and effort is currently that of a last place team, which is what they might be by Monday. The Yankees are fighting for their playoff lives. The current Red Sox players presumably know they’ll have a new manager in 2013, but there’s a rampant disinterest in how they’re playing now; an expectation to lose. A portion of that might be not wanting to play well enough to leave any possibility that Valentine is going to return. They’re not tanking, but they’re not enthused either. Firing him now and replacing him with an empty uniform to run the team could provide a spark and wake them up for the last three weeks and those six games against the Yankees.

Would it feel better going into the winter laughing at the Yankees and their fans for enduring a collapse that’s worse than what the Red Sox and Mets suffered? Of course it would.

Keeping Valentine postpones the inevitable and could help the Yankees, so just pull the plug now. They could leave a better taste going into the winter by dragging the Yankees into the same abyss that they’re currently in. If they pull that off, most of 2012 will be forgotten.

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