Tag Archives: Bob Geren

June 9, 2011

Geren Fired

Baseball Musings gets results. From Wednesday night:

The Baltimore Orioles defeated the Athletics 3-2 Wednesday night, the ninth straight loss for Oakland. They’ve scored 26 runs and allowed 53, and the team was shutout twice. Something needs to be done. I almost think they should send down everyone they can send down and replace them with however is at AAA or AA. Maybe the manager needs to smash some items in a team meeting, or maybe they need a manager who wants to win at all costs.

Oakland fired Bob Geren this morning.

Geren’s four-plus season tenure at the helm in Oakland was marked by numerous injuries, a lack of offense and high-profile departures as he was unable to post a winning season after taking over an AL West championship team from Ken Macha. Geren posted a 334-376 record, including a 27-36 mark this season that has left Oakland eight games behind Texas in the AL West.

The A’s currently have four starting pitchers on the disabled list, including a season-ending shoulder injury for Dallas Braden. Oakland also was without injured All-Star closer Andrew Bailey for the first two months and is last in the American League with just 223 runs through the first 63 games.

The Oakland starters are 14-15 with a 3.06 ERA, so I don’t think the pitching is the main culprit here, even with the injuries. The offense just can’t score.

They replace Geren with Bob Melvin, who may be the most sabermetrically inclined manager they hired under Beane. It always disappointed me that they didn’t hire someone like Melvin sooner.

May 24, 2011

F on G

2 Replies

Via Big League Stew, Brian Fuentes complains about Athletics manager Bob Geren:

Fuentes: There’s just no communication. Two games, on the road, bring the closer in a tied game, with no previous discussions of doing so. And then, tonight, in the seventh inning, I get up. I haven’t stretched, I haven’t prepared myself. If there was some communication beforehand I would be ready to come into the game – which I was, when I came into the game, I was ready. Just lack of communication. I don’t think anybody really knows which direction he’s headed.

How much different is this compared to past managers?

Fuentes: It’s a pretty drastic difference.

Last season, Bill James came up with the concept of work regularity scores, based on the idea that pitchers actually do better when they are given roles and regular work, rather than setting schedules based on opponents (for starters) or bringing in pitchers based on a situation (relievers). If you look at Brian this season, his regularity scores were very good (25 is the highest) up until the San Francisco series, when he scored two 15s, indicating very different use than normal. In this case, it messed up Fuentes so that he’s given up five hits and three walks in two innings over his last four appearances, all resulting in losses. Brian may have a point.

September 11, 2010

Geren Extended

Walking Morneau

1 Reply

If I were the GM, and my field manager did this, I would fire him:

The A’s thought they had a plan to shut down Minnesota when Twins manager Ron Gardenhire sent Justin Morneau up to pinch-hit for Brendan Harris in the ninth. Morneau, the Twins’ hottest hitter who doubled and homered in their win over Oakland on Friday night, was ill before the game and could hardly stand but Oakland opted to intentionally walk him.

Morneau was replaced by Hardy, and after A’s reliever Brad Ziegler (2-3) walked Nick Punto, Denard Span hit into a fielder’s choice to move Hardy to third. Tolbert then lined a 1-0 pitch into left-center to drive in the eventual winning run.

“I didn’t want (Morneau) to beat us right there,” A’s manager Bob Geren said. “He’s one of the best hitters in the game right now. It was the walk that put him in scoring position. As it was, we had two outs and the guy (Tolbert) snuck one through the infield.”

There was one out and the bases empty when a sick Morneau came to bat against a pitcher who gives up a home run every 96 at bats. The odds of an out pitching to him are just too great to intentionally walk him and put the go-ahead run on. Geren cost the Athletics a win in that one.

Francisco Liriano was nasty, walking two and striking out ten in seven innings of work. He’s looking more and more like a worthy replacement for Johan Santana every game.