Oakland A’s fire Bob Geren

Things have gone horribly wrong for the Oakland A’s. Heading into today they have lost nine straight, and their plan of waiting for the offensive to improve (which has yet to happen) may have been ill advised. With all of that going on General Manger Billy Beane decided it was time to fire Manger Bob Geren. Mid season firings rarely worked and I am even less impressed with the decision to bring in Bob Melvin who himself was fired from the Arizona Diamondbacks. Melvin could not get the job done there and while he will only be in Oakland through the balance of this season I don’t see how bringing in an outsider is the answer.

This is not entirely Geren’s fault, but many players have complained about his lack of communication skills, but Beane was not only waiting on the offense to get better he was depending on the pitching staff to carry them like last year. This team has suffered some key injuries, like most teams do, to help carry the load. That simply has not happened and Geren is the fall guy for al of this.

Beane was in a tough position here, not only is he largely responsible for the make up of this roster, Geren was also his close personal friend. Geren was even his best man, so the decision to fire him had to be a tough one. The one big plus in all of this is Melvin has excellent people skills and will be well liked by his players and the media.

Winning with this team was a struggle for Geren, he also worked hard to gain the respect of his players and those of us media types and that never really game. Houston Street, Brian Fuentes, and Rob Bowen have all recently gone public with their dislike of this man. In the end he failed to get his players to buy into his message and one cannot manage anything like that.