Actually, maybe Ausmus should be fired?
I'm not in that camp, before tonight my only real knock on the guy was how the team was so streaky. But tonight is pretty bad. Tigers gave away 2 outs, one Nick C booting a pretty easy play and then Kinsler with a play out of the early 2000's Tiger playbook, throwing home when no one was going home rather than taking an out at first. 5 runs later a good performance by big pasta is wasted.
I think too often 'fire the manager' is said by fans as a cure all for frustrations. But tonight moves the needle for me.
The players screw up a couple of routine plays, and your solution is to fire the manager?
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I dunno what you think will change by firing the manager. The Tigers just aren't very good. If anyone should be fired it's Dave Dombrowski, who has gutted what was a perennial World Series contender and left the farm system completely barren.
To be fair here, he also built the championship contender.
Dombo built two World Series Champions in Florida: one through free agency and one through the draft. He didn't stick around to see the second championship, but he did build the team. AFAIC, he is doing a great job in Detroit, even if he hasn't gotten "over the hump." Surely you can remember what the Tigers were like before Dombo and Leyland came to Detroit.
The last time the Tigers got rid of someone as successful as Dombo was when they ran Sparky out of town. How did that work out?
He may need to be fired, but I agree, that is a dumb reason to base any certainty on whether he should be fired or not. As bad as they have been, they are only 3.5 games back.
The dugout water cooler isn't as cool as it should be and the sunflowers aren't salty enough... fire Ausmus! Yeah, that makes sense. I'm sure that will stop the rain too.
Are you some kind of communist? The softball game is on.
He took them to the World Series twice. Won 3 AL Central and only has one losing record as a Tigers manager. To say he's a terrible manager is a disservice to his HoF career.
Baseball is one of the sport where the best team doesn't necessarily win the WS and there's a lot of luck involved in the playoff with a lot of variables among the players with batting average being fluctuate from game to game.
wasn't saying he was a terrible manager, just thought he made some dumb decisions in the playoffs. I am a sabermetrics guy though and jim definitely wasn't so I had issues with the old school "Lefty v. Lefty" "Righty v. Righty" matchups even when situations didn't call for it.
Not a bad manager, but a good manager would have found a way to win a title with the teams he had. When you have one of the most dominant hitters of all time and a rotation of Verlander, Scherzer, Fister and Sanchez... you have to win at least one WS.
the pitchers were lights out against BoSox yet they were down 2-1 in the series because their hitters couldn't hit worth a shit. Is it Leyland's fault that they couldn't hit?
In the last World Series, SF just pretty much dominated the Tigers starting pitchers. Is it Leyland's fault that they all sucked in the World Series?
The Tigers have one of the best hitter of the generation, but that's just one out of 9 players hitting. One cannot carry the team especially when that best hitter of the generation hits .330 which means he's out at over 65% of the time.
The first WS was a team that had zero business being in the WS. This is the team that got hot and stayed hot. It's understandable that they lost to the Cardinals even though it was filled with a shit load of errors (again, is it his fault that they got errors?).
was a great clubhouse guy, but a disaster of a tactician. He was great for getting guys to perform and perform well over a 162 game season. But as for making important decisions in terms of winning a single close game? Terrible.. IMO He single-handedly cost the Tigers a large number of ciritical games with pretty idiotic moves, and he had no idea how to deal with his bullpen unless they were lights-out. Sure, if he had guys in the bullpen who were unhittable (like Valverde that one year), then he knew what to do with them, but if he had to actually manage and figure out who to put out there situationally, it was pretty bad. Yeah, his players should have (and didn't) bail him out of several of those moves, but he often put players in positions to fail, and they failed.
Game 163 in 2009 was one of the worst display of managerial incompetence I've ever seen in an elimination game The.Twins could have paid him to throw the game and he might not have made worse decisions.
I still think he was overall a very good manager, because I've rarely seen a better guy in the clubhouse who kept team morale so high and had guys ready to play hard all the time. But man, when you needed to win a close game? I had no faith that he would make a good move.
balls than strikes tonight. I'd call it a lucky performance.
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Good comparison. Brad is in way over his head. All he can do is play percentages and has no feel for the game, despite his history as a MLB catcher. Every one of his decisions seem to back fire on him. He has cost this team at least 10 games in the past 1.25 seasons and does not seem to be learning how to manage situations.
The team is very streaky and goes on long losing streaks often. They were swept by an inferior Baltimore team in the playoffs. The team does not seem to respect him, and if you look at his body language and dugout presence, he has no authority and always seems to be consulting Gene Lamont before he makes a decision. Very similar to Hoke in his delegation and inability to make sound decisions.
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Plus the guy has no mojo.
Ausmus can't coach, but he does know how to whine and pout about bad calls. Anyway, why should I care. Go Yankees!
This team just looks old and lacks energy. Be careful what you wish for, because if Ausmus gets fired there is a good chance that Gene Lamont takes over. I am close to abondoning ship on this team though.
But, the manager is always the scape goat. Over the last 7yrs or so. All everyone does is blame Leyland or Ausmus. Maybe they're not the problem, maybe the problem is the one constant that's been with the team for the last 11yrs, Dave Dombrowski. He builds the team, from the shitty bullpens to the weak bench. Dave is a great GM, but maybe he needs to go as well....
Also, what this team really needs is Torii Hunter, team misses his leadership.
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but Gene Lamont would be an improvement. It blows my mind that we have Ausmus and Gardenhire isn't coaching anywhere.
I wanted Gardenire ever since he was fired by the Twins. Why the hell did we keep Ausmus after that miserable playoff performance against the O's?! At this point, I'm willing to tank this season if it means change is finally made.
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The one I wanted at the time was Charlie Manuel. Sure, he was almost 70, but he got thrown under the bus as Philly imploded, and he said he still wanted to manage.
Gardenhire might be a nice pick, but he's got to go get a pitching coach as well. Perhaps there is a reason Jeff Jones has been fired 3 different times by this organization.
This Tiger team is dangerously close to being a carbon copy of the mid-to-late 90's Cleveland Indians teams that hit the snot out of the ball and got close, but no cigar.
This is the Tigers' last hurragh. If they don't win it all this year this team is toast.
Reports are they don't have enough money and/or a willingness to re-sign David Price. They also aren't going to have enough money and/or a willingness to re-sign Yoenis Cespedes.
Regardless, this team is pretty screwed going forward. We're on the hook for at least 4 more years of Verlander at $28 million a year.
We've got a rapidly declining Anibal Sanchez for at least 2 more years at $16.8 a year.
That absolutely horrific VMart contract that was garbage the day they signed it with $18 million per year over the next 3 years.
Oh and we're also still on the hook for Prince Fielder, $6 million a year through 2020.
If this team looks dead by the all star break it's 100% time to start trading guys for prospects and/or dumping contracts to build toward the future.
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