What now for the Arizona Diamondbacks?

tells me that Yankees Scouting Director Damon Oppenheimer is a front runner for the GM position. I can take one look at the majority of the Yankees farm system and decide that I don’t want that.

Now there’s something that wakes you up :o

Initial thoughts without reading anything are that this is a very sad day but perhaps a very needed move for the long term.

No ill feelings and thankyou to both of them for their service

nice time graph. Looking at that I can’t think of anything that Byrnes can directly be blamed for.

EB getting a huge contract? We would have rioted if the DBacks didnt do that.
Trading Valverde? This trade was in our favor until this year and seems to work out fairly well.
Got Dunn and Haren, both moves that were made to increase the chances of a deep playoff run.

I feel his one mistake was Hinch, I wish it didn’t need to go down like this.

Two, the players sound like Hinch was a soul sucking dementor. I also believe his had little to no chance after Bo-Mel left.

Im tired and can’t properly convey what im thinking ehh i did well enough.

he just doesn’t have the horses to compete

then it was always going to be the end of June. Let him finish off the tough month and give the new manager his first games at home.

As for Gibson, you could either say that he has been there through the downturn in results so is part of the problem, or that he an insider knowledge of what has been going wrong and so can fix it quickly.

Time will tell I guess.

Valverde was traded to the Astros, not the Tigers.

article, Jim.

Brandon Webb announces he can pitch next week for Gibson. I kid, I kid.

However Webb and Snyder definitely both seem rather happy to see Gibson managing now instead of Hinch (as Palooka Joe indicates).

And the Jeff Passan column was brutal (and pretty accurate in my opinion).

Who hired all these musical chairholders? Isn’t it K-K-KEN?
Why isn’t he being held to task by, er, whoever he answers to?

Why are Byrnes and Hinch gone, but Stottlemyre and Sherlock still here?

…. And I have this feeling getting rid of Byrnes will bite us in the ass in that sort of Carlos Quentin in his first season with the White Sox way.

And as I mentioned last night, I hope we don’t make a habit of setting fire to the manager yearly, that’s not the way to build.

And I give it 3 weeks before people call for Gibby’s head (interim status be damned)

Hinch gone im okay with, even if Gibson has 0 Manager exp. he has been on the bench a few yrs, he has more baseball knowledge than Hinch i would guess, and he Also has the Respect. Which i believe is the biggest factor. You always hear about Players respecting their Managers, and i think Hinch really had none. And made some odd decisions.

I do wonder if we may see Mark Grace’s hat in the ring for Coach as well by end of season. Freddy sanchez would be nice to see as well. So im for this part.

As far as GM..Ya, this could be bad. Granted, he did come from the BoSox and i think some of his trades he made with us reflect his leash he had in boston..And by leash i mean cash he had to work with. If he made a big deal there, and it back fired, they had the payroll to rebound from it. We didnt, and we have suffered for the bad moves (Byrnes, Valverde,Bullpen)

considering how many pitches he threw for Hinch in the regular season.

So the team sucked ass last year because no one could hit and the BP couldn’t get anyone out in the 8th inning.

I may not be the biggest AJ Hinch fan but he wasn’t the problem as a manager, maybe he was a problem in the dugout if the players refused to perform for him but perhaps that is what all this boils down to.

Hope they like Gibson, because if they don’t perform for him, even though they respect him, it means that this whole thing should be blown up.

Did it really have to end this way?

I won’t pretend to know what the impact of Byrnes and Hinch really were. None of us are on the ground there and it’s just impossible to know what’s really wrong with this team from the outside. All I know if Byrnes is “highly regarded” by the rest of baseball. From the majority of moves he’s made, and the types of players he’s aquired, Ive been a big suporter.

When Byrnes brought in AJ I was definately willing to withhold judgement. Truth be told, I was excited to see why he would put his reputation on the line like that for a manager that was sure to bring him a shitstorm of critism. I figured there must be a really good reason AJ was brought in, and Im disappointed we aren’t going to find out.

But here’s my question; why didn’t AJ join the team as a bench coach, or start at AAA, or anything that would have eased him into the role? Should Byrnes have known that in a “win now” type of year that you should have an experienced manager instead of someone obviously learning on the job? Seems like AJ, with his background, would have been an ideal candidate to manage a rebuilding era team, then move with them into the competative years, having first gained the player’s trust.

It feels to me that AZ could have had it all but we’ve ended up throwing it away.

to add a National League team to your portfolio?

Byrnes HAD to be expecting this from DAY ONE if the Hinch experiment didn’t work out. Exactly what Jim said, showed some loyalty… but come on. This was expected.

But there are 3 press conferences.. 10 am, and i believe the other 2 are at 2 and 2:30, could be wrong. Last one is with Gibson.

from the news conference

It’s on KTAR 620 right now- if you aren’t in the Phoenix area, you can listen to it at sports.ktar.com.

Is talking about the Rockies. Great.

blahblahblahblahblah

buyin’ his comment on the team not driven by public opinion?

Really? Then why is Josh gone again?

He mislead me when is answer to a question was.. “minimal”. lol

Rambling and rambling and rambling…

Inspiring, somebody ask a question about bacon!

I don’t know about you guys, but I certainly feel like I’ve been advocated to.

contentious(sp?) to anyone else?

KTAR right now

players not getting on board first comment from the host

from the players than people suspect. Giving AJ credit for manning up and admitting that “he” felt the team wasn’t responding to him.

I would have much rather kept Hinch and fired Byrnes. 2 managers in 2 years. This does not bode well for short term free agency.

To trying to make this a better team. So many times you hear about management not putting in the effort… I can see the effort, now it’s time to see the effect of what this does..

Radio host love Gibby, but are asking if anyone has seen him go off while on the bench.

Host, saying that if he now becomes one (fiery manager), players will notice that and call him out for not being “real” since this would be out of character for him.

He is making the point that as professionals, the team should get out there and play. If you have to like the manager to do your job, you are wrong.

if you can’t do your job because you can’t get behind your manager.

I can’t listen on the KTAR site for some reason.

So glad we have full fledge sports radio in the valley. I remember back in the days when it was only on in the evenings and on one station

GIbby is set up to fail. “Make good” is a terrible position for someone because he can’t get in the faces of the people who need ‘motivating’ because they’ll simply be passive aggressive, rather than take him seriously.

Make him manager with the ability to kick butt, or hire someone with a proven winning record as a manager and let him do his job. Either way would be okay with me, but simply making this an audition makes him vulnerable to player egos.

long term strategy? thinks a fire sale is around the corner. or else why were both these people let go?

“Hall says Dipoto will have a big voice in what the team does at the trading deadline.”

That’s what I’m afraid of! He’s got 30 days……..

He won’t be burdened with defense playing for D’Antoni. Too bad they resigned Fry.

Back to baseball. . .

Poll.

then how can they be under-performing? "

think LaRussa and Torre would also have and under performing team with this group of guys. Everyone but Upton is up for sale. (all their opinion)

“You’re getting paid a boatload of money, just shut your face and play hard.”

shut your face and play your ass off"

this line can be used in any sport

Boston needs a catcher. Send Snyder.
Then find a way to bring to bring Cliff Lee here.

Nvm, he wants to play for a winner.

I hate Angry Hair Guy ads.

The voice over just said “Stottlemyre is leaving.” Have we heard anything about that?

:D

They had some technical difficulties that prevented a live airing.

The new version of the back-from-ad audio doesn’t have the Stottlemyre reference anymore.

The D-backs were set to fire Hinch and Byrnes, insisting there was no ultimatum on each other.

about this ‘getting behind the player," stuff. It’s a scary image anyway.

if it takes a manager to motivate the players, then we need new players!"

seems to be a theme for these two and I must agree, a valid point

“everyone wanted AJ to fail at the first (????) You are getting paid to perform NOT to love the manager” missed this clip

is a hack journalist that has done pointless hit pieces on Arizona before. Personally, I give his opinions about as much weight as Rick Reilly now that he’s become old and grumpy. Other journalists get this move, like Ratto at CBS.

In any case, fare thee well, AJ Hinch. Now you can run along and be an astronaut, or maybe a heart surgeon, or any of the other countless jobs for which you have absolutely no experience. You were able to swing it once, after all.

Link

"We went through a process of looking at A to Z of what we can do to make things better," a testy Kendrick, clearly not happy with some of the questions from reporters, said. "It was a six-week process." "Unfortunately for him," Hall said of Hinch, "I think everyone wanted him to fail. He had a lot more command than most people know. His coaching staff was behind him and I think a lot of the players were, too. Yesterday, he said ‘I understand this.’"

get those lips from off the rear of kendrick

And in a season of major change in Arizona, the next person to leave town is likely to be the one guy who’s been hurt the most by the poor offense and shaky relief pitching — ace pitcher Dan Haren.

Though the offense and bullpen has been quite crude to all SP’s, wouldn’t we all say Rodrigo has been hit most with inept offense (Though to be fair Lopez’s counterparts are quite good). IMO, a few of Haren’s losses have been because he HASN’T been his normal self this season.

Link

The thing about firing Byrnes is, you can point to a half-dozen moves that didn’t work out, point to the win-loss record, and you have your justification for the decision. But I don’t think that’s why he got fired. I think it came down to the fact that his relationship with President/CEO Derrick Hall had become entirely unmanageable. In some ways, it’s probably a result of the Jeff Moorad departure. Moorad sort of provided the buffer between baseball operations and ownership and when Hall became CEO he didn’t really take on those responsibilities, at least not in the same way as Moorad. I’m not saying it’s Hall’s fault, it’s just the way it went down.

But I think along with the Byrnes/Hall relationship, the fans’ angst was most likely a huge factor in the moves. It seems that a large portion of Diamondbacks fans – and not just the esteemed commenters on this web site – lost faith in Byrnes due to the Hinch hiring. The fans didn’t believe in Hinch from Day One, so when this club continued losing, that hiring gave fans a chance to say "I told you so." Let’s hope Ken Kendrick and Hall truly believe this move will make their baseball operations staff better and aren’t just doing it to appease fans. We know how fan-based decisions have tended to turn out for this organization in recent years.

Ah, sod it. Go read the whole thing. He also has some good stuff on the difference between the perception of Gibson and how he has behaved around the players so far.

There was a mention of a “Fire Sale.” Now is not the time for one, this team is tottering right now toward a total collapse and wondering if you have a job here or someplace else doesn’t do a lot for you. Gibby is the Guy for the job. My kind of a ball player, tough, throw back to old time baseball and believes Long fly balls caught at the fence are just an out, no matter how close to being a dinger.
Hey, I hope everyone knows these ball player did not come from special place, not bred to be ball players, no, just guys like the ones you meet every day and the ones you went to school with. Being a professional baseball player may make you a star, but inside they are what they were. Just like anyone else, they have their fears, their worries and insecurities. If Snyder says something it comes from Snyder but it might well be a reflection of the team.
Some of these guys have an Ego the size of Texas; some of them are just not coachable and cannot or will respond to a coach. Sad to say it happens at every level from Little League up.
I think Stots is gone, just a matter of time, don’t know about the rest though, maybe maybe not.
But it was time for the change, the leadership was not there. Even if you don’t like a guy you work for if he gives you a reason to do your job you respect him, I don’t think there was much respect for AJ.
Good Luck to them, I don’t think they can drop any lower than they are now.
So how do we get rid of Hall and Kenrick. Kenrick the guy that comes up with the gem that he has heard rumours that Gonzo used steroids while the team is struggling, like that stupid idea would help. Nothing like passing rumours on about one of the top guys on your team.

Ash, i like. Gambo will be a hoot today

Josh Byrnes was trying to trade 3 players

Mark Reynolds to Atlanta, Seattle
Chris Snyder to pittsburgh
Chad Qualls for nothing.

is leading off.
I don’t like it.

Old school, baby, old school.

that the D’Backs just “tore apart one of the best front offices in baseball” is disingenuous at best and flat out B.S. at worst. In the first place, it is clear that Byrnes would still be GM if he hadn’t chosen to be insubordinate in refusing to fire Hinch. As far as firing Hinch is concerned, it was necessary and inevitable as Hinch himself acknowledged.

Moreover, if the front office is one of the best in baseball, how do you explain the last two years and the death spiral this team has been in since April 2008?

I think the changes were necessary and will prove to be a crucial turning point for this franchise. It can only get better from here. Now, if they will just think outside the box and hire Kim Ng as the new GM, I will relocate my lost enthusiasm for our local baseball club.

as we listened to Derrick Hall on the TV broadcast talking about Jerry DiPoto. Hall started off by saying that Jerry had a tremendous career as a relief pitcher. “Put him in the bullpen, then!”, my son quipped.

so good.