Acta Out?
Is the curtain coming down on Manny's act? According to Ken Rosenthal, Acta could be axed following this weekend's series at Tampa Bay. The info comes from Ladson-esque "major-league sources" but it's hardly a far-fetched rumor. (As an aside, are "major-league sources" sources in the big leagues or sources who are a really big deal? Is Rahm Emanuel a major-league source? But I digress...)
Robothal's "sources" indicate that the unenviable task of managing the rest of this season in DC will fall to bench coach Jim Riggleman. Riggleman took over as interim manger of the almost equally terrible 2008 Seattle Mariners before coming to DC to backstop (backstab?) Manny. There's no word yet on who will be promoted to bench coach to play MacDuff to Riggleman's MacBeth. Where have you gone, Pat Corrales?
It's my view that canning Manny is unjustified and will be at least unproductive if not actively counter-productive. I've said so repeatedly. But the numbers don't lie. 15-42 does not portend job security. Likewise, Acta's career record of 147-231 is hardly confidence inspiring. If your solution is to replace him with someone with a track record just as bad, over a much larger sample size, well that's where you lose me. Maybe Manny "deserves" to be fired in some sense. But if the goal is to improve the team, shouldn't you shoot for somebody who would be an improvement? And if Riggleman's just a stop-gap, what's the point?
In one sense though, this is a good thing. The lines of authority are as clear as they've ever been on South Capitol Street. If things don't improve there are no more buffers between the President and the people. June 13, 2009 is Inauguration Day for the Kasten Administration.
3 comments:
Especially when you consider that Riggleman doesn't have a terribly impressive record as a manager either, I also am wondering what the point is of just bringing in an interim manager. It almost seems like Manny Acta is being blamed for all of the organization’s troubles even though it’s partly just the fact that we have some talent both on and off the field that simply needs some time to develop.
Whatever the decision though, I think they need to make it soon and stick with it for the rest of the season. With a relatively young team, I think we need our players to have some confidence in their coaching staff and front office. That's hard to do when there is all this talk about Rizzo only being an acting GM and the fact that people have been calling for Acta's head for a long time now.
Having confidence in the organization can help the players perform better on the field, which would in return probably also result in fewer people complaining about the club’s manager.
I personal don't like ragging and harassing...
Nice posting.... yeh!
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