Unable or unwilling to revise their business model yet
dissatisfied with the results achieved thus far, the wounded and
sputtering Oakland A’s resorted to a 21st century solution. They
changed their appearance. By firing manager Bob Geren after 63
games Thursday and replacing him with Bob Melvin, the team has
applied little more than a cosmetic solution to problems that run
considerably deeper than the superficial.
OAKLAND
Unable or unwilling to revise their business model yet dissatisfied with the results achieved thus far, the wounded and sputtering Oakland A’s resorted to a 21st century solution.
They changed their appearance.
By firing manager Bob Geren after 63 games Thursday and replacing him with Bob Melvin, the team has applied little more than a cosmetic solution to problems that run considerably deeper than the superficial.
The issues before the A’s are physical and systemic and too immense for Melvin – or any other manager – to adequately address, much less successfully detangle.
This move indicates the A’s, who sit in last place in the American League West, are treating not the failing body but a pimple on their back.
Understand, Geren did his part to earn dismissal. He couldn’t maintain a harmonious clubhouse. There were repeated communication failures. There was the daily game of “Guess Who’s in the Lineup?”
Players over the years generally fell into three camps regarding Geren. They tolerated him because he was the manager, disliked him because they didn’t trust him or disrespected him because they all knew organizational wisdom and philosophical guidelines are devised, defined and set forth by general manager Billy Beane.
With all these forces working against Geren, a nine-game losing streak was merely punctuation for his exit.
So the task of winning under absurdly difficult conditions falls to Melvin, the former Giants catcher and Seattle Mariners and Arizona Diamondbacks manager who grew up on the Peninsula and played at Cal.
“Bob’s dealing with the same deck Bob Geren was dealing with the last four weeks,” Beane conceded during a conference call.
That deck is rigged against the A’s and whomever the manager happens to be. Melvin will attempt to bond with a club that Geren never really connected with. Or, at least, what’s left of it.
Frankly, there isn’t a lot of team to manage. The pitching staff has been battered by injuries. Five pitchers are on the disabled list, including regular starters Dallas Braden (out for the season) and Brett Anderson (seeking additional opinions regarding elbow soreness). Tyson Ross and Brandon McCarthy, both of whom started games, could be out through the All-Star break. There is no idea when, or if, Rich Harden might resurface.
Oakland’s arms, expected to be its oak-tree strength, have been reduced to wood chips and sawdust.
Compounding matters is that the A’s lack the offense to overcome weakened pitching. It’s as if they keep losing the directions to the plate. They don’t hit enough to sustain rallies or win streaks, don’t have the power to provide an inning-after-inning home-run threat.
Having been handed the keys to a dented jalopy with balding tires and wheezing engine, Melvin will try to steer the A’s back toward respectability.
“Bob’s got the rest of the year to make an impact,” Beane said. “I have a lot of confidence Bob will have a positive impact.”
Melvin may be a vastly superior manager than his predecessor, but he inherits the same thin, deeply flawed club with which Geren failed. And it’s a club that was assembled by Beane, within competitive confines and financial restrictions dictated by primary owners John Fisher and Lew Wolff.
The owners determine the payroll, the G.M. determines how best to use it. On the basis of results alone, neither Fisher nor Wolff nor Beane has been more successful than Geren. Oakland’s winning percentage since 2007 (.470) has been a team effort.
It’s well-known throughout baseball that the A’s under Beane have actively deemphasized the role and authority of the manager. He’s a functionary, a baseball soldier enforcing the desires of the G.M. – and as dispensable as the players.
Though Melvin won a National League Manager of the Year award in Arizona, it will be difficult to fairly assess his work over four months in Oakland. He won’t be able to use the projected pitching staff, at least not in 2011, and he can’t force a sub-mediocre lineup to hit like the Texas Rangers.
He can succeed in areas in which Geren failed, notably by communicating effectively and promoting esprit de corps and establishing some level of independence.
But the remaining 99 games will make no more of a statement about Melvin’s managerial ability than about the efficacy and support of his superiors, for when an A’s manager fails, it is, after all, an organizational failure.
By taking action, the A’s provide the appearance of accountability. They replaced one Bob with another, who under similar conditions almost certainly will meet a similar fate.
This is no remedy. It’s more like whitening the teeth of a sickly patient.
— Column by Monte Poole, The Oakland Tribune
