D’BACKS, IMPATIENCE WON’T PAY
Firing front office after 23 months would be absurd
The Arizona Diamondbacks are a mess. Again. Diamondbacks ownership is strongly considering making sweeping front- office changes, firing some highly respected men. Again. If owner Ken Kendrick and President Derrick Hall fire chief baseball officer Tony La Russa and his staff, including general manager Dave Stewart and assistant GM De Jon Watson, the D’backs will be changing GMs for the seventh time in 11 years.
Stewart and Watson will have been given 23 months to turn around the franchise.
It’s time for Kendrick and the rest of the ownership group to look in the mirror.
It’s insane to fire them after just one crummy season and the dismal early returns of a trade gone wrong.
If other clubs took this approach, Kansas City Royals GM Dayton Moore would have been fired after 2008 — seven years before winning the World Series.
Texas Rangers GM Jon Daniels would have been fired in 2006 after trading first baseman Adrian Gonzalez and starter Chris Young to the San Diego Padres for pitchers Adam Eaton and Akinori Otsuka — three years before winning the first of consecutive American League pennants.
Dave Dombrowski would have been fired in 2003 after the Detroit Tigers lost 119 games — three years before they reached the World Series.
Now, with an Aug. 31 deadline looming to exercise the options on Stewart and Watson, with La Russa’s contract expiring after the season, the Diamondbacks are considering firing the trio, according to a high- ranking executive with direct knowledge of their plans.
The person spoke to USA TODAY Sports on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the subject.
The Diamondbacks, who spend more energy worrying about their image than perhaps any other team, are on the verge of becoming the game’s laughingstock. Let’s see if we got this straight: You hire La Russa and Stewart to run your baseball club, and when they debate whether it’s time to fire manager Chip Hale and promote Phil Nevin from Class AAA Reno as their interim manager, they are stopped.
Sorry, they are told, it wouldn’t look good.
La Russa and Stewart make beleaguered starter Shelby Miller available at the trade deadline, seven months after acquiring him, and work out a trade with the Miami Marlins.
The Marlins, according to a Miami exec-
utive with direct knowledge of the trade, would have sent three starting pitchers back in return. Sorry, stopped again.
Yep, it just wouldn’t look good, not after surrendering what they gave up to get Miller from the Atlanta Braves in the first place.
Now, eight months after deciding it was cool to spend $ 206.5 million on Zack Greinke, thinking the team was on the verge of greatness, the Diamondbacks want to fire their management. Yes, and start all over again. “We haven’t decided yet on the contracts,” Hall said. “We will evaluate everything. We are all obviously disappointed.”
The Diamondbacks have no plans to exercise anyone’s contract option by Aug. 31, delaying their official decisions until after the season.
“We had one good year, and if you look at what’s happened on the field this year, then one bad year,” Stewart said. “I think we deserve a tiebreaker.”
They improved by 15 games last season, to 79- 83, and had postseason aspirations after signing Greinke, trading for Miller and acquiring shortstop Jean Segura. Instead, they have been baseball’s most disappointing team, sitting last in the National League West.
Their major league- best 24- 8 spring training record turned out to be a mirage, with center fielder A. J. Pollock breaking his right elbow, Miller crumbling under expectations and the D’backs never recovering.
Now, with tensions already high, embarrassment has turned to anger, with ownership threatening to clean house.
“I think our group has earned the benefit of the doubt,” La Russa told USA TODAY Sports. “But it’s their decision. The way I look at it, if you get an oppor- tunity, you don’t complain about the length of the opportunity. ...
“This is a game based on results. There was good improvement in ’ 15, and in ’ 16 was the opposite of that. It’s disappointing. We’re all upset about it.
“If somebody in charge is upset enough, they’ll make a change.”
Sure, La Russa and Stewart acknowledge, there have been mistakes. But if you want to rip them apart for the Miller trade, you better praise them for acquiring Segura from the Milwaukee Brewers. Segura not only is hitting .318 and leading the league with 156 hits, but the D’backs were able to unload $ 6.5 million in infielder Aaron Hill’s contract.
The Diamondbacks front office, with specific orders to shed payroll upon arriving, sliced $ 103 million in present and future guaranteed salaries, with 28 of Stewart’s 39 trades involving a reduction in salary. Have they all worked out? Nope. Have they all been busts? Not a chance, with the average age of their in- coming players just 23.
“When you’re trying to trade some money and come back with real prospects,” La Russa said, “that’s hard to do.”
Really, there’s nothing that can be done to change Kendrick’s views about his front office. If he has already made up his mind to fire everyone, a few September victories won’t change it.
Yet, if he exhales, he’ll understand no team gives its GM and his staff only a two- year window to turn it around.
There’s no harm in giving La Russa, Stewart and Watson one more year.
If they’re out of the playoff hunt at next year’s trade deadline, let them trade away Greinke, too.
These decisions can wait, until next year, not next month.