Felipe Alou has a fine reputation among baseball fans, baseball analysts and baseball men. Nevertheless, he was fired Thursday, and with good reason.
1998 65- 97
1999 68- 94
2000 67- 95
2001 21- 32
221-318, .410
No, winning's not everything. And while some of you will fault me for applying statistics and logic to this situation, I do hope you'll tolerate yet another table ...
Expos OBP NL Rank
1998 .310 Last
1999 .323 Last
2000 .326 15th
2001 .316 12th
The Expos actually seem to be improving this season in the OBP Department, but it's quite possibly not a meaningful improvement. The Braves rank 15th in the National League in OBP, but they're only four points behind the Expos, who are 11 points behind the 10th-ranked Diamondbacks. Which is to say, Montreal's got a significantly better chance of moving down in the OBP rankings than moving up.
Defenders of Alou like to point to his earlier successes -- the Expos won 94 games in 1993, were in first place when the idiots destroyed the 1994 season, and won 88 games in 1996 -- and I'm happy to agree that Alou was a good manager.
Then. But people change. Most managers become less effective as time goes by. If there were no time limits on the ability to manage well, then Whitey Herzog and Sparky Anderson and Tommy Lasorda would still be wearing spikes and doubleknit uniforms.
There are three obvious, specific, and related rational reasons for Alou's dismissal.
One, as pictured above, they haven't won. Aside from the Expos, six other major-league clubs have failed to win at least 45 percent of their games since 1998.
The Devil Rays have been baseball's worst team since '98, winning just 40 percent of their games. And they've got a new manager. The Marlins have been nearly as bad as the Expos since '98, but they did show signs of life last year, when they went 79-82 (and they're at least respectable this year). They just fired their manager anyway. The Royals have won only 43 percent of their games since '98, but they did go 77-85 last year, plus their management and ownership is patently incompetent. The Pirates have also won 43 percent of their games since '98, but they did switch managers after last season. The Tigers have won only 44 percent of their games since '98, but switched managers after the '99 season and won 79 games last year. And the Twins have won 44 percent of their games since '98, but are off to an amazing 34-16 start this year.
The Expos had been the only major-league team that's been awful since 1998 and had not either (1) put together at least a halfway-decent season or (2) gotten a new manager.
Why haven't they won? As pictured above, Montreal's hitters haven't been getting on base. I believe plate discipline is something that can be influenced by the manager, and plate discipline is certainly something in which Felipe Alou has shown little interest over the years.
That's Reason Number Two. And Reason Number Three? The Expos have produced some good hitting talent in the minor leagues -- young talent is, of course, the lifeblood of cash-poor franchises -- but that talent has born little fruit at the major-league level. Peter Bergeron, Milton Bradley, Geoff Blum, Michael Barrett, Shane Andrews, Brad Fullmer ... these young players were all supposed to be good, and none of them really developed under Alou's tutelage. Sure, every prospect doesn't pan out, and perhaps one or more of these fellows were over-hyped. But aside from Vladimir Guerrero and Jose Vidro, there just haven't been many success stories lately.
Look, I'm just a baseball writer who never played the game past Little League. But it seems to me that if a manager's team loses, year after year after year, and he can't teach his players the value of plate discipline, and his promising young hitters don't develop ... well, maybe there's a better man for the job. I'm not convinced that Jeff Torborg is that better man, but on the other hand he's now spent years in the broadcast booth, which these days seems to be one of the prime qualifications for the job.
And speaking of prime qualifications, since when did "playing in the majors" become one of them? Here's yet another table, which I'll explain after you look at it:
Walter Alston 1
Sparky Anderson 1
Joe McCarthy 0
Earl Weaver 0
The first column consists of Hall of Fame baseball managers, and the second column lists the number of seasons each man spent playing in the major leagues. Actually, Alston just barely qualifies for his 1, as his major-league "season" consisted of precisely one at-bat.
That is to say, Dan Miceli's an idiot. Or, rather, what he said about John Boles last weekend was idiotic. Boles is a victim of, more than anything, unrealistic expectations. Given their talent and their payroll, the Marlins have been playing about as well as they should, and the preseason talk of postseason contention was at least a little silly. Is John Boles the greatest manager who ever lived? Probably not. But if the Royals ever get around to firing Tony Muser, they could do a lot worse than make Boles one of the first stops on the Rolodex.
Rob Neyer is a Senior Writer for ESPN.com. His column usually runs Monday through Thursday. You can e-mail Rob at rob.neyer@dig.com.
| |
|
