The Phillies hired three ex-managers as coaches yesterday, and Jim Salisbury sees this as putting Manuel on the hot seat:

If Pat Gillick's lukewarm endorsement on the final day of the regular season wasn't enough to make you believe that Charlie Manuel's seat will he hotter than a waffle iron come April, then this little bit of mathematics should be.

The new members of the Phillies' coaching staff have a combined 4,305 games of big-league managerial experience.

Gillick says that Jimy Williams, Art Howe and Davey Lopes are here to help Manuel and the 25 players who will try to break an embarrassing 13-year playoff drought next season. We believe Gillick. We really do. He is personally fond of Manuel - it's difficult not to be - and would like nothing more than to see his good-guy skipper ride down Broad Street with confetti on his shoulders and a contract extension in his hand.

But if the 2007 Phillies get off to another slow start... Watch out, Charlie. You may be flying in first class with your replacement.

Let me suggest something else. Maybe these three are better coaches than managers. The Yankees did the same thing when the hired Pena, Bowa and Mazzilli, three failed managers, but pretty good coaches. Just because you're a good coach doesn't mean you can be a good manager:

The employee's incompetence is not necessarily exposed as a result of the higher-ranking position being "more difficult" -- it may be simply that the position is different from the position in which the employee previously excelled, and thus requires different skills, which the employee may not possess. An example used by Peter involves a factory worker whose excellence at his work results in him being promoted into a management position, in which the skills that got him promoted in the first place are no longer of any use and even prevent the employee from successfully performing his duties as a manager.

I think of Ray Knight and Don Zimmer here. Each had qualities that made them great coaches, but when given full control of the team they faltered. Maybe Gillick is hiring them for their ability to coach, rather than as possible replacements for the manager.