In Other News, Pain Hurts...
Bob Nightengale (Sports Weekly's resident Giant lover) says this week that the decision to fire Depo wasn't made until he insisted on hiring Terry Collins. If this is true (and coming from Nightengale, that's a 50/50 proposition), then McCourt has been caught in another lie.
With McCourt's search for a GM turning into a bad family sitcom episode (the one where the oldest son drops his girlfriend hoping to upgrade, only to find option B,C, and D are unavailable and has burned the bridge with the girlfriend), it gives reason for concern that a cornered McCourt can make a potentially even worse decision than he has up to this point. The secrecy surrounding this process leads one to believe that whatever contingency plan was in place has been blown to hell. To assume there is no real plan right now wouldn't be hyperbole at this point, but a very plausible scenario. What McCourt has done is create a Theo-or-Bust situation that will net him even more poor PR when they can't land him.
A real exchange I had with a co-worker today:
Co-worker: "So who do you want as GM?"
Me: "They already kicked my choice to the curb. Let me guess, you want Theo Epstein?"
Co-worker: "Yeah."
Me: "So you want to replace the old GM with pretty much the same type of guy plus a World Series ring?"
Co-worker: "Well, that World Series ring is a big thing."
As I walked away, I couldn't help but wonder how much help that World Series ring is to Bob Brenly nowadays...
(And no, I am in no way comparing Epstein and Brenly)
posted by John @ 6:37 PM
3 comments
3 Comments:
While I am disgusted with McCourt's firing of Depo, I do think McCourt has a point about Collins if indeed Depo was going to hire him as the manager.
With his mutinous stints in Houston and Anaheim, Collins has proven that he is not a good clubhouse guy. He may have changed, but he still has that perception and there still exists the possibility that he may become a cancer again even though he claims he's reformed (Bradley anyone?)
Plus, Collins is the guy that the Angels got rid of to hire "Dodger great" and "World Series Winner" Mike Scoscia. The media would use this point as a tool to further prop up the Angels as LA's team. Of course winning would change all that, but what if bad luck struck again in 06? McCourt could probably survive another bad season with a familiar face, a percieved winner, involved in some sort of management position. Could he survive with Collins?
If, and that's a big if, Depo was going to hire Collins, I believe McCourt had good reason to be against such a move. Was it a fireable offense? Probably not. I'm sure Depo and McCourt could have and should have worked something out.
I'm curious too as to why Depo didn't think about the consequences of hiring Collins from a PR standpoint? Should he have? Or is it right to damn the torpedoes?
DePo would have gotten bad press no matter who he hired as a manager. I can't think of anyone who doesn't fit one of these two descriptions.
1) Lacks major league managerial expirence.
2) Has been fired from a managerial position.
Each one gives you good filler for a column.
I didn't have any problem with Terry Collins. In my book, anyone who has problems with Mo Vaughn is fine by me.
It seemed people what people were looking for in a manager was:
1) An asskicker.
2) Someone who was on the same page as the rest of the organization
3) Someone with Dodger ties
4) Someone with experience
So why the Collins backlash? Because he couldn't get along with Mo Vaughn in Anaheim? Is that a negative? So what if he has a little bit of redass in him?
He didn't fit the ideal vision of each aforementioned standard, but who did?
I'd be interested to go back and gauge the reaction to Phil Garner's hiring midseason in Houston and see how many people said he was too hard on his players, didn't have an impressive track record, wasn't an NL type manager and didn't come from within the organization.
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