October 16, 2006
Macha Man No More
Another managerial job opened up as the Atheltics fired Ken Macha.
FOXSports.com has learned that the A's have fired Macha.
The A's averaged 92 wins and captured two AL West titles in Macha's four years as manager. Macha, however, had an uneasy relationship with general manager Billy Beane and, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, also had problems communicating with players.
Well, he communicated well enough to get them to put on a great season-ending push to the division title. I saw a rumor about this earlier, but I expected it to be like last year, when the A's and Macha broke up and then got back together. Funny that Joe Torre survived a drubbing by the Tigers and Macha didn't.
Please, please, please, hire a manager that understands the Moneyball approach to the game. Davey Johnson is available!
Update: A search for Ken Macha on Baseball Musings brings up mostly negative comments.
Posted by David Pinto at
04:48 PM
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Management
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Yes, I think Dierker would be good also.
I'd like to see Dierker get another chance as well.
I think if the A's had won just 1 game in the 2nd round, Macha wouldn't have been canned so quick. But he didn't even have the A's playing urgently when they needed to. They looked lackidaisical at times...some of those errors were ridiculous and some of the Tigers hits, were badly played by the Oakland defense.
Lackadaisical play and poor defense is Macha's fault? If players can't "get up" for a playoff series no manager is going to change this.
Suddenly the Oakland defense degrades and it's Macha's fault? Did Macha change between the divisional and league championship series?
They were beaten by a team playing better.
Simply winning is not enough for some people to keep their jobs these days (see: Hargrove, Mike). Eventually you gotta win the big one.
I wonder if Bobby Cox did not win the '95 series if he would still be around??
