Now that the baseball season's over, unemployment will inch up just a bit higher...

Hargrove, Manuel Get Canned

Love Hargrove's reaction: "I guess they wanted a different personality." Like, one that can win a few games?

[ September 29, 2003, 11:35 AM: Message edited by: William1865 ]

Why don't the Orioles try getting some players who can help a manager win games for starters? Unless the San Francisco Giants fire Felipe Alou and the Orioles sign him, I don't think the Os are going to get a better manager than Hargrove. They will likely end up doing much, much worse.

I have seen many Orioles games over the past 4 years, and although I personally find Mike Hargrove a bit of a curmudgeon, I don't ever recall him making a managerial error. He seemed always very focused on making the Orioles as competitive as he could with the players that he had. I don't think anyone expected the O's to compete with New York or Boston, but I think what did Hargrove in was losing consistent ground to an improving Toronto team--that has had even more financial problems and has also had to trade away quite a bit of talent over the years. Mike Hargrove could definitely be a good fit with the Chicago White Sox.

Admittedly, Hargrove works for a crappy team, but if you can't put together a winning season over four years, I think there are obviously some problems somewhere. And no matter what the situation with the team, I think the manager has to take some responsibility.

Hargrove inherited a team full of aging players who weren't superstars at their peak. They lost ground to Toronto because Toronto wasn't dumb enough to let their players reach their mid-late 30's before looking for replacements, and Toronto has a productive farm system. I'm not a huge Hargrove fan, but he did show he could win with a talented team in Cleveland. It's the GM that needs to be fired.

Baltimore fans were absolutely livid early this season, because of the belief that Peter Angelos was throwing this competitively non-viable team on the field. With the lack of talent on this team, I think Hargrove did well to win 71 this season. Didn't matter who was managing this team, they had no chance. Oh, how I miss the the 70s and early 80s, when they won 90+ EVERY season.

I suspect these two firings will be the only ones announced until the WS is over. MLB frowns on big announcements during the playoffs, and since today was the only off day before they begin, the teams that had already made this decision wasted no time in pulling the trigger.

That's not to say someone else might get ousted, as I'm sure there are some teams that are mulling over their decisions.

The Oriole situation is abysmal. The team has a lackluster roster, and it always galls me that teams try to hang the blame for cheap spending on the manager. I suspect the replacement will realize that his future there will be a temporary one. The O's just don't have a commitment to escaping mediocrity.

Under the category of Managers Who Should Have Been Fired, But Were Instead Given Contract Extensions:

Jim Tracey, Los Angeles Dodgers

from Jim Allen:

Under the category of Managers Who Should Have Been Fired, But Were Instead Given Contract Extensions: Jim Tracey of the Los Angeles Dodgers

In agreement with you. Have been fascinated by the "what did they do that for?" reaction from much of the sports media and Dodger fans.

~Adam

The Orioles are still paying (literally) for the Albert Belle signing. Although I feel bad for Hargrove (it wasn't his fault), I think that the Orioles will truly get back to square one and start rebuilding this winter. They showed signs of that this summer, with the trade of Sidney Ponson who will be a decent-name free agent, for younger pitching. They probably will go and get a couple of name free agents (Ponson back? Palmeiro? Pudge? Vlad?) but hopefully they are building some in AA and AAA that will show real talent on the big league level in the next 2-3 years.

As far as the White Sox, Manuel didn't do the job with the talent so I see why he lost his position. He'll bounce back, I'm sure, with another team. The only problem is, the White Sox now are starting to look almost as old as Arizona and San Francisco, without the postseason experience. At least they have younger pitching, a couple of very promising position players, and a true star in Magglio Ordonez.

Your points are right on the money, DestinyRules and JC....Anyone who thinks that Mike Hargrove was the reason for the Orioles mediocre record this season (or during the past four years, for that matter) clearly doesn't know much about baseball....Grover got more out of inexperienced, young players than virtually any other manager I can think of....the true culprit in "Charm City" is not only Peter Angelos (who has demonstrated time and time again that he knows NOTHING about baseball when it comes to personel decisions involving team management) but former GM Syd Thift (who executed the infamous fire sale in July 2000 during Hargrove's first season as manager when he purged the team of virtually every veteran overnight and got 16 players in return, NONE of whom excluding Melvin Mora have done anything in the majors) along with present incompetent co-GM's Mike Flanagan and Jim Beattie, whose "brilliant" decisions since taking over less than one year ago have been to sign free agent pitchers Omar Daal (4-11, 6.34 ERA), Rick Helling (released in August after leading AL pitchers in HR's allowed) and trade proven quality veterans Jeff Conine and Sidney Ponson for little in return -- and you are blaming Hargrove for "only" winning 71 games with a team of AAA players!? (albeit including a number of young hitters that should have a promising career ahead of them -- namely Gibbons, Bigbie, Matos, and Roberts, among them).

The ironic part of this situation now as one of the local sports radio hosts mentioned this afternoon is that the most qualified managerial candidate available for the O's to sign is none other than -- Mike Hargrove....after all, his strengths are only that he communicates well with his players and lets them all know what their role is on the team (just look at the glowing praise that was heaped upon Grover all year long, particularly from veterans like Conine, Hentgen and Fordyce), gets them to play hard every game, shows tremendous patience when players inexperienced at the major league level make mental errors that cost them countless games (how do you think hotheads like Piniella and Bowa would have reacted in similar situations?) and has conducted himself with the utmost class and dignity despite being jerked around and lied to by team management for weeks on end....the ridiculous conduct and dishonesty of Grover's "superiors" was demonstrated again as recently as LAST NIGHT when they still claimed that "no decision had been made regarding Hargrove's future" only to inform him of his firing at 10AM this morning. :confused:

And, finally, as if Angelos, Flanagan and Beattie hadn't already demonstrated their utter lack of professionalism and integrity they informed Hargrove of his dismissal just before he was getting ready to leave with his wife and children to attend the funeral of his father-in-law in Texas, who died unexpectedly on Saturday....I can't think of a more classless act than that -- especially coming from the senior management of a sports franchise that used to embody integrity and success throughout the 70s and 80s.

The "impressive" list of front-runners to succeed Hargrove (who "only" won five division titles and guided his team to a World Series berth during his tenure in Cleveland) include Jerry Narron, Gary Allenson, Bob Boone and Eddie Murray, NONE of whom have even half the managerial ability or experience of their predecessor....Grover clearly won't be out of work for long and will undoubtedly prove his skills once again as an outstanding major league manager while the ownership/management team in Baltimore will continue to scratch their heads and wonder why they are still in the A.L. East basement -- apparently there are no mirrors in the exec offices at Camden Yards to let them know where the blame truly lies....how sad can it get? -- if only someone could fire an incompetent owner this mess would be resolved. frown

[ September 29, 2003, 08:39 PM: Message edited by: gamecock ]

And we wouldn't want to do ANYthing to upset the MLB brass, would we?

Roll your eyes all you want. MLB deliberately prevents the MVP-Cy-Rookie awards from being announced during the playoffs. And that's even taking into consideration that the votes on some of those awards are set to be cast soon, and may have already been cast in some cases.

MLB also "persuades" ownsership from announcing coaching changes during this period. Not to say it hasn't happened.

Great stuff there, Gamecock. I'd add the late 60's to your time frame of when the O's were a class organization.

There was another "Mike Scioscia denies moving to Dodgers" thing in the paper the other day. But really, the biggest change for the Angels was when Disney decided that they wanted out of the baseball biz--no "synergy" to be had--and got rid of the awful Mike Tavares (who, as head of Disney Sports had a large hand in running the Mighty Ducks in to the ground after such a promising start) and let Bill Stoneman do his thing.

The new owner, Artie Moreno, got a HUGE roar of approval at yesterday's Fan Appreciation Day. And he's promised to open the purse strings so that the Angels can pursue a shortstop and a quality starting pitcher. See: Miguel Tejeda and Bartolo Colon. Much as I love David Eckstein, he played way over his 5'8" head in 2002 and is better off as a 2B platoon player with Adam Kennedy. If the Angels get those pieces and the other starters can stay healthy for a whole season, they'll be contenders again next year.

I completely understand the firing of Manuel. The Sox have seriously underachieved with him at the helm. He's been with the team six season... most of which the Sox were expected to contend for the division title. He only won one, and then got swept right out of the playoffs. I think he's awful at handling a bullpen as well. The last 2 years at the start of the season, the Sox had one of the top closers in the game. By midseason, Manuel had destroyed their confidence enough to cost them the closer's role. If it had happened once, I could say it was the pitcher's fault, but just look at Manuel's track record with closers.

As for the comment about the Sox being old... I disagree. I doubt either Roberto Alomar or Everett will be back, and Sandy Alomar will likely be a reserve. That leaves Frank Thomas and Jose Valentin as the only regulars over 30. Bartolo Colon (who I hope is back) and Esteban Loiaza are both over 30, but Mark Buehrle and Jon Garland are not even 25 yet. The team still has a lot of good years ahead of them... with the right manager...

In another "Big announcement during the postseason" type deal, the Mariners have "parted ways" with GM Pat Gillick.

I think I can hear MarinerDuckBoy, Marinersfan and others cracking open the champers, even from Los Angeles!

Oh, I know, AU. I am aware of MLB's unwritten rule about postseason accolades and other such events being announced after the playoffs. I don't have a problem with that, for the focus should be on the playoffs themselves.

I was just poking fun at "upsetting" the MLB brass.

Players win. Managers "take responsibility."

Two peripheral notes:

ALL the postseason award balloting is done. That's so writers won't be swayed by any postseason action.

Speaking of the Orioles, talking about Melvin Mora as an All-Star last June looks silly now, huh? He was injured nearly the entire second half, but that's why they play 162. Stick with those who've done it for more than 8 weeks.

Shiver me timbers, I agree with Bill W. about something. Sign of the Apocalpyse etc.

But what's the alternative to the way the All-Star game rosters are picked? Have the game after the WS (ala the Pro Bowl)? Have it in spring training, the teams selected from the previous year (and risk someone blowing out a knee or something)? Or ???

Just weigh the *current* season about 10-20% in All-Star voting, and the rest on the previous season and career. Actually, picking Mora as the sole Oriole reserve wasn't too bad, since there was no other compelling candidate at the time.

C'mon we agree at least monthly, Jim!

Back on topic, who gets Torre when Steinbush fires him? wink (Mrs Torre, I suspect)

It will be very interesting who they hire to replace Stand Pat. I think they need to hire a guy with GM experience. Pat chose not to return but will stay on as a "consultant".

Who died and gave you Peter Angelos's brain?

The manager gets some responsibility in the sense that someone's head has to be put on the chopping block, but it's HARDLY Hargrove's fault the Orioles MANAGEMENT and PLAYERS suck. The Orioles are the Arizona Cardinals of Major League Baseball. Period.

Whoever picks Mike Hargrove as a manager will likely make a MAJOR upgrade over whoever their field boss was last year, unless the Giants inexplicably fire Felipe Alou or the Cubbies shockingly can Dusty Baker.

He made two bone-headed managerial moves this year alone: He forgot how many visits to the mound were made and had to take Jorge Julio out of a game in the ninth inning and put in Buddy Groom before he was ready April 8 against the Deviled Eggs, I mean the Devil Rays. On Aug. 16, the Os batted out of turn against the Yankees (how Joe Torre missed that one is beyond me). C'mon Cattledog! I'd have thought you'd remember the August 16 gaffe against YOUR Yankees!

Good point, DestinyRules....as Tom Boswell said in his column in the Washington Post:

If you want irony, listen to the qualities the Orioles will now seek in a successor: "First and foremost, knowledge of the game. You look for communication skills with the players. You look for character. And you look for some toughness," said Executive Vice President Jim Beattie. If the Orioles hadn't just fired Hargrove, then Hargrove himself would probably be the leading candidate on their list in all those categories.

The quotes coming the O's executive managerial team AFTER the Hargrove firing make them look even more foolish and incompetent than they already were....EVERY quality that Beattie listed is Hargrove's EXACT strength.

Oh well, despite his desire to stay in Baltimore there's no doubt in my mind that this will turn out to be the best thing that could have happened to Grover -- he will be hired by a class organization (please, do NOT let it be the White Sox who I'm sure Hargrove realizes is nearly as poorly run as the O's) where he will succeed mightily and be managing in October once again in the near future....Houston or Seattle would appear to me to be ideal destinations given their talented rosters and late season collapses (assuming one or both of their ownership groups decide to improve their club with a dramatic upgrade in the field boss position).