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BREAKING: Brad Mills Fired Along With Bobby Meacham and Mike Barnett - The Crawfish Boxes
Saturday, the Astros fired manager Brad Mills. The Astros, sitting at an MLB-worst 39-82 record, made what appeared to be the correct choice, should MLB tradition hold true. A Sunday loss to Arizona to complete the sweep of the weekend series drops Houston to 39-83.
To put a 39-83 record into proper context, should the Astros win literally every remaining game on their schedule, they will finish the season at 79-83.
While the Rockies are not in such dire straits as the Astros, the 46-73 Colorado Rockies are 5 games behind the Padres for worst in the NL West and 1 game behind the Chicago Cubs for the 2nd worst record in the Majors.
Crawfish Boxes had this to say about Mills' firing:
No, Mills just did what anyone in an impossible situation would do. He kept his head up, kept his integrity up and took care of his players. When you hear about a players' manager, it's a guy like Mills. He may not have always played the guys like we might have liked, burying young guys in slumps, etc. But, he always had their backs and cared a lot about how they played. The losses the past few seasons were rough on him.
There is truly no doubt in my mind that the past 2 seasons have bothered Jim Tracy. I do not consider the Rockies manager to be a "bad man" or anything nearly that personal. People are people, and these particular people simply have jobs that demand public accountability and lend themselves to people like me writing that they should no longer be employed by the baseball team that I choose to obsess myself with.
You see, many of David Coleman's (the author of the afore-linked article) points ring true with our preemptive look back at Jm Tracy. Namely the quibbles.
He may not have always played the guys like we might have liked, burying young guys in slumps, etc.
We certainly saw a lot of this over the 2010 and 2011 seasons in the forms of players such as Chris Iannetta and Ian Stewart. However, it also seems that Tracy has not "lost the clubhouse", so to speak. Jim Tracy is not Bobby Valentine; he hasn't drawn team meetings involving major organizational faces (that we know of) demanding whatever it is that Adrian Gonzalez and Dustin Pedroia want out of the Red Sox.
No, Jim Tracy has been merely unimpressive. He has had very promising teams under his watch, and only one of those teams has actually returned any results from their heralded talent and promise, and whether or not Tracy himself was actually the cause of this success is very refutable at absolute best.
Many of our commenters have surmised that Jim Tracy's employment with the Colorado Rockies will not survive this offseason. The question I have to ask is why the Rockies aren't following this conventional logic, the logic that says that a team with such miserable results after 2 incredibly disappointing seasons should most assuredly be firing their manager.
"But what's the point?" you may be asking. Well, there are a couple of points.
1. There is no way that Jim Tracy is the man to preside over what may potentially be a revolutionary, or utterly humiliating, experiment with handling a Major League pitching staff. Just no way. Fresh eyes and fresh minds WILL certainly be needed, should the Rockies choose to move forward with the Paired Rotation Concept.
2. The Rockies' sense of loyalty, while admirable, is publicly becoming a crutch for a lost organization. While ownership likely will not change anytime soon, making this show that 3 years of poor baseball, excuses be damned, should not and will not be tolerated.
3. It would be cathartic for frustrated fans. I realize that this is somewhat of a continuation of point 2, but there's a difference between making a strong PR play for the baseball community and at least attempting to show fans that the current state of things will change. I realize that I'm operating under the mindset that the Rockies are going to suddenly begin functioning as a more normal organization, but at least putting some signs forth that would suggest this seeming insanity is temporary might just encourage the fanbase that hope is on the horizon.
In summary, the only team worse than the Rockies has fired their manager. There really isn't much of a reason for the Rockies not to follow suit and let Jim Tracy go.
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Honestly, is this season over yet?