The Marlins moving Dan Jennings to the dugout is meeting with univeral derision. Here’s Jerry Crasnick:

In reality, the biggest drawback is that managing is really difficult. And Jennings is about to discover some hard truths on the fly, with only a coaching stint at Davidson High School in Alabama on a résumé that extends back more than 30 years. Maybe a trip to Dairy Queen took the edge off tough losses in the Mobile County Public School system, but that’s not an option now.

Scott Ridge:

Stil, the unorthodox move raised eyebrows around baseball, and even in Jennings’ own family.

“Even my mom, who I love, she asked me, am I crazy? ‘Have you lost your mind?’” Jennings said.

Craig Calcaterra follows up on the mother quote:

And crazy or sane, he’s team superstar Giancarlo Stanton‘s seventh manager in six seasons, which is pretty cool unless you’re invested in Stanton being happy and content and stuff.

It strikes me that there is a conceit here that is likely to come back and bite Jennings. It’s easy to sit at home and watch a game and say, “I could manage better than that.” I used to think I could probably broadcast a game better than some announcers until I was involved in television production and saw that it was in fact a very tough job.

I think the right comparison is Trey Hillman.

And I will never forget coming back to the States and talking to one of my best friends in the game, telling him that Hillman was smart, impressive, engaging and all those good things.

He listened. Then he said this: “Yeah. He’s never been in the big leagues.”

If there’s a tombstone for Hillman’s career as Royals manager, those are the words that should be carved on it.

I suspect things may end even worse for Jennings.