News broke Saturday morning that after a 13-25 start to the season, the Baltimore Orioles would be firing manager Brandon Hyde. Hyde was in his seventh season as the Orioles’ manager and was responsible for getting Baltimore into the playoffs in back-to-back seasons for the first time since the 1996 and 1997 seasons.
Hyde is the third manager to be fired this season, joining former Pittsburgh Pirates manager Derek Shelton and former Colorado Rockies manager Bud Black. The common theme between these firings is easy to see, as all teams have records well below the .500 mark and a postseason appearance for any of those teams looks bleak.
Beneath the surface, though, those managers should not be blamed for everything that has gone wrong for their former teams. It goes far beyond the decisions the manager makes on a daily basis and goes directly up to the front office.
Baltimore, Pittsburgh and Colorado all ranked in the bottom 12 in money spent on free agents last offseason. Colorado was dead last with just $3.5 million spent on free agents. Baltimore was No. 24 on the list with $14 million spent and Pittsburgh was No. 19 with $34.5 million spent.
That’s a total of just $52 million spent, an average of $14 million per team. A lack of spending usually means a lack of major league caliber talent, which has now led to the dismissal of three managers.
It is time that front offices take ownership for their lack of spending, rather than making the managers scapegoats for their awful decisions. For the most part, the trio of Hyde, Shelton and Black did the best they could with what they were given by ownership. They put the players they had on the field and, yes, the results will always reflect the manager, but they should also reflect the front office.
Nobody is expecting Colorado to go out and spend over $700 million in free agency like the Dodgers did. People do expect competitive baseball teams, and as long as front offices fail to spend money, teams like the Rockies, Pirates and Orioles will have bad seasons and the managerial role will be a revolving door.
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