It’s no secret, MCeezy and I have been begging for Bob Geren to be fired for the better part of two years. Recently there’s been more of an internet buzz jumping on that bandwagon as he seems to make more and more questionable calls as the season went along. Finally this June 9th, the A’s made a move to get him out of town. It must have been hard for Billy Beane to fire his BFF Geren, but he finally sucked it up and made the much needed change. To say the team didn’t seem like they liked playing for Geren is the understatement of the year. Hell, I could barely figure out why he was making a lot of the moves he was, and I’m sure a professional player had just as hard a time making sense of his in game moves. Honestly it was like trying to figure out what happened to Lebron in Game 4.
Geren for the most part was a puppet for the front office like most of the A’s managers over the last decade plus. All his job really was supposed to be is relaying the messages from the front office to the players, and he couldn’t even handle that. When Fuentes said he never talked to Geren about his role in the bullpen, and former A’s player Huston Street said he was the worst baseball person he’s ever encountered, I think we all knew that he had completely lost this locker room. If that’s pretty much your only job, you should at least be talking to your players. The conspiracy theorist in me wants to credit the players for going on this current nine game losing streak playing as bad as possible in an effort to get Geren fired once and for all. They were in first a few short weeks ago, and now they are in dead last in the AL West 8 games out of first.
I don’t know a lot about our new interim manager Bob Melvin. He had a couple good years in Arizona going to the NLCS one year, but had a couple REALLY bad ones after. I’m glad they didn’t hire him on for good and are just trying him out for the rest of this year, so we aren’t stuck with him if he sucks too. He also had a stint with our AL West rival the Mariners, so he’s familiar with the division. I did read that Melvin grew up in the Bay Area near Palo Alto, and even played for the Cal Bears, so hopefully he has some A’s pride deep down. I hope they let him hire a new hitting coach, because that’s where we need the most improvement. Well, that and maybe a room full of hyper-barrack chambers to prevent all our guys from getting hurt like they have been.
By
cali4dre
chappy81
dyslecix
mceezy
Doin Work 
June 9th, 2011 at 11:07 am
So for now Beane gets a pass while Geren is told not to let the door him in the ass on the way out of the building ? LOL,LOL,LOL !!! Nice !
I suppose this is how you do it in the mighty O ? ’til infinity yeah !
tophatal ……
June 9th, 2011 at 5:01 pm
Beane has a LIFETIME pass in Oakland, Al…. The guy’s immortal out here. Shoot, Brad Pitt is playing him in an Aaron Sorkin / Bennett Miller movie coming out in a few months. He can do no wrong… he had no problem putting together contenders with Art Howe and Ken Macha. He’s not the problem. Now all we need is for someone to buy the team…
June 10th, 2011 at 8:07 am
mceezy
So on whose decision was it to hire Geren in the first place ? Beane or Wolff’s ? Or was it them simply collaborating together to pull a name out of a cloth cap ? Yeah someone to buy the team ? I seem to remember saying that to you guys to which the response at the time was neither here or there ?
Building teams to contend is one thing but it obviously is hard to endure when you see in an instate rival come away with all the goods isn’t it ?
What now ? Another wait and see process ? Has Wolff even been inclined to show any type of interest in an offer to begin with ? That’s not something you guys have even discussed as a premise to begin with .
tophatal …………
June 10th, 2011 at 4:02 pm
I don’t really blame Beane for what Geren did. I blame him for holding onto Geren a little too long, but overall he’s a great GM that finds some good talent. If he can’t find us a good hitter in the next couple years (via draft or trade), I might have some second thoughts…
Oh and since Wolff took over, we aren’t even really spending on our farm system like we used to, which is the ONLY place we spent money during the early 2000’s. He just pockets the money now I think…
June 10th, 2011 at 8:43 pm
How different would the A’s look with Berkman instead of Matsui?
Beane has an understandably long leash in Oakland. He’s not going anywhere for a while.
June 13th, 2011 at 8:01 pm
Well, first of all there would be no runners for Berkman to drive in, but secondly, the A’s definitely made a run at him. He just never called back…..
June 14th, 2011 at 8:55 am
Yeah I know they went after him. He signed with StL so he could drive in Holliday and Pujols, so I guess he saw Oakland’s trouble coming coming. I thought 8 million for him to play OF was a bit steep at the time, but he’s been worth it. How different would StL look without him?
June 9th, 2011 at 11:57 am
Scary to know you guys have that sort of pull.
I better mind my P’s an Q’s.
June 9th, 2011 at 2:24 pm
Beane and Wolfe call us before they make any trades or transactions to see if it’s okay by us 🙂
June 9th, 2011 at 12:20 pm
Dude really nice article I liked it
Good read, even thought i dont follow A’s Baseball
June 9th, 2011 at 12:33 pm
Now if the Giants would do something about the Tejada situation…
June 9th, 2011 at 1:30 pm
JW
You’re asking way too much of the Giants’ front office at present ! Sabean has to do some puckering up to do first ….. . the biddy lil’ bit_h that he’s now become !
June 9th, 2011 at 1:31 pm
chappy
Some Things Are Best Left Unsaid …………. But F#k It I’m Going To Say It !
June 9th, 2011 at 2:09 pm
Ha, I saw the news and immediately thought of you guys. I’m happy you got your wish. Does this cancel out some of the bad news on Brett Anderson?
I read yesterday that the Giants were going to dump Tejada as soon as Sandoval comes back next week. I’m not sure where I saw it, though.
June 9th, 2011 at 2:33 pm
Yeah I’d say it cancels out the bad news on Anderson. Hopefully his meeting with the other Dr. Andrews turns out negative, so he doesn’t have to do the whole Tommy John surgery… I guess if he needs it though nows a good time so he’s ready sooner than later…
I have no idea why the Giants didn’t spend some extra money to keep Juan Uribe. I mean, what’s $2M more a year for a guy you know will work out and helped you get to the WS. If it weren’t for some of those homers he hit, they wouldn’t have even made it to the WS!
June 13th, 2011 at 3:18 pm
No TJ for Anderson. That almost makes me more nervous for down the road.
June 13th, 2011 at 3:36 pm
Yeah tough to tell if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. Hopefully they can at least figure out what’s wrong with him in the near future!
June 9th, 2011 at 4:55 pm
This day HAS been like Christmas! From 9am on the excitement carried me through the day. Even decided to shut work down early today… Doin Work was my first stop online when I got home to see what you wrote. I too am really glad it’s just on an interim basis. I’m not ready to commit to a long-term manager just yet. But I didn’t see guys like Waller, Gallego, or Romanik filling the role this year, so I like hiring outside the team.
I don’t expect a 9 game win streak all of a sudden, but I do expect to see the guys playing like they care a little bit. Hell, now that Geren’s out of town, maybe all those injuries will start to subside!!!
June 10th, 2011 at 4:22 pm
Yeah, they’re going to need to break that 20 game win streak record they got awhile back to get in the AL West race. I’m with you, I hope this makes them play some watchable baseball, because it’s been ugly this year fielding and hitting wise… It’s actually made me want to avoid them the next time they’re down here playing… Am I already rooting for Seattle to win the division? I think so…
If Melvin is over .500 the rest of the way, I’d be down to give him a full year at the helm, otherwise, I’d rather hire from outside as well. Our coaching staff isn’t all that impressive as candidates…
June 10th, 2011 at 1:07 am
I don’t know about this whole situation but I feel that it’s really important for a baseball manager to have a good repour with his players. So much of baseball is emotional and if your manager doesn’t connect with his players than pretty much all his lost. This seems like a step in the right direction for Oakland.
June 10th, 2011 at 8:29 am
Don’t worry…in no time at all you will hate Bob Melvin too…
June 10th, 2011 at 5:44 pm
Hahaha, trust me…. I’m keeping my expectations low.
June 12th, 2011 at 8:18 am
Pockets’ the money being the right thing and that’s something that has been replete amongst the owners who benefit from the asinine tax sharing system .
Wolff makes even Peter Angelos seem amenable when it comes to spending money on a team .
tophatal ………….
June 15th, 2011 at 10:37 am
[…] second to fourth during that losing streak. We thankfully have a new manager (Bob Melvin) that I wrote about last week, so now I can’t work in any disses about the team overcoming Geren’s minimal coaching […]