A's Bob Geren gets an F

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August 6, 2:11 PM

by David Bush, S.F. Baseball Examiner

 

 

Bob Geren has been given his three strikes

Their collapse since the All-Star game should show the A’s management that it’s time to change course. What they are doing no longer works.

 Every team, even world champions, hits cold spells and losing streaks. That’s why the season is 162 games long, to enable talent win out over good fortune.

  But this A’s streak has some ominous signs, and it starts with the manager. Bob Geren, or whoever is calling the shots, is clearly floundering. I’m not one to say “Fire the manager’’ at the first sign of trouble. I have always been lenient towards struggling leaders, urging that they be given every chance to succeed or fail. Well, Geren has had his chances and it’s time for him to go. And he should take most of his coaches with him, leaving Curt Young behind.

   One of the problems began when the team let third base coach Rene Lachemann go in the offseason, and replaced him with Tony DeFrancesco, who had been the manager at Triple A Sacramento. Lachemann, a former major league manager and baseball “lifer’’ might not have been the most imaginative coach around, but he was diligent and observant. “Why wouldn’t you want Rene Lachemann on your coaching staff?” wondered an A’s staffer when Lach was fired.

   DeFrancesco, a successful minor league manager, never played, managed or coached in the big leagues before this season. His inexperience showed. Even Geren admitted the mistake and moved him to the less demanding position of first base coach after one too many runners were thrown out at the plate. But shuffling coaches this late in the season is a sign of desperation, and sends the message that whoever is in charge is not sure what he is doing.

     And mismanaging a coaching staff is one thing. Mismanaging a team is something else, and Geren is doing that, too. Nothing was more predictable than Huston Street’s dissembling Tuesday night in Toronto. Even the most mentally stable athlete would have trouble performing after being treated the way Street has been by the A’s

   From spring training the closer has been the subject of trade rumors. And while A’s management finally agreed to keep him appraised of any development, he still had to be unsettled. Then last week Geren tells him he’s going to be the closer “some of the time”. What is that supposed to do to a man’s confidence?

  Decades ago relief pitchers, and some starters, pitched whenever the manager said they would. Today it might the fifth inning, tomorrow the ninth.  Nobody thought anything of it. But now roles are defined, and when they are blurred, players get disoriented. If  you’re the closer, you’re the closer. If you’re not, you’re not. Indecision on the part of management translates to confusion on the field. Street, whose reliability as a closer has been exaggerated over the years anyway, will not thrive under these conditions. Geren should understand that.

   It’s hard to blame him for his constant shuffling of the lineup. Injuries cost him some of his most productive hitters for long periods. But he has been passive in the face of an offense that has been standing around watching, literally. The A’s take far too many called third strikes, especially with runners on base. The coaching staff has to encourage them to be more aggressive, and if it takes a lot of hit-and-run plays to do it, then that’s what should be done. Getting an occasional runner thrown out at second is better than watching strike three with the same runner standing there.

   The season is too far lost for a change in managers to do any good now. But it might not hurt to get a running start on next year if the right man is available. GM Billy Beane will be reluctant to fire someone who served as one of his groomsmen, but it is necessary.  

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