The D'Backs announced yesterday that they fired manager A.J. Hinch and GM Josh Byrnes, replacing them with Kirk Gibson and Jerry Dipoto, at least on an interim basis. There's no question that the 31-48 D'Backs are having a disappointing season, but that doesn't mean baseball fans agree with their decision to dismiss the ones in charge.
Were the D'Backs right to fire Byrnes and Hinch?
Click here to take the survey and here to view the results.
Byrnes isn’t anything special. AJ Hinch should’ve finished out the season.
It was definitely time for a change with this team. Personally, I liked Josh Byrnes and was happy with almost all of his moves. He is highly thought of around baseball and will not be out of work long. His one mistake was hiring, and reportedly refusing to fire, a manager that had no experience and couldn’t motivate the young talent.
Be nice to have more options in the poll.
Byrnes needed to get out of there, but you can’t blame Hinch for not having a pitching staff to work with. Should’ve let him ride out the season.
I feel the opposite. Byrnes is a good GM. Hinch, I don’t really have an opinion on. He wasn’t given much of a chance, by ownership nor the team.
I agree with this. Seems like Hinch didn’t have a handle on the clubhouse. Byrnes deserved to finish out the year at least.
I like Hinch, but he’s never had any managerial experience. Byrnes wasn’t bad, although he’s made some bad moves, he’s made some good ones as well. Should’ve let Hinch go and keep Byrnes (regardless of Byrnes’ stand on Hinch).
Well, we’re at an impasse, then.
They didn’t really give Hinch much time. I don’t think anyone could’ve turned the D-Backs around in that amount of time.
Surprised so many people are anti-Byrnes.
Agreed. No GM is perfect, but he did a lot more good for that organization than he did bad.
Hinch was an awful game-time manager who had absolutely no rapport with his players (a fact he recently admitted in an interview) and had generated an unfailingly abysmal record.
Byrnes came into an organization flush with the promise of years of Mike Rizzo drafts. He then proceeded to trade away (or give away for fifty grand, in the case of Dan Uggla) nearly all of the talent gathered in those drafts, getting in return a highly talented but highly salaried ace in Haren, a wildly overpriced mid-to-low-tier starter in Edwin Jackson, a wildcard in Ian Kennedy, the utter disaster that is Chad Qualls and the mercurial Chris Young.
The Haren deal alone is costing the team about one-fifth of its payroll, and has already cost the services of low-salaried top starter Brett Anderson, similarly low-cost probable all-star OF Carlos Gonzalez, and now nearly-ready minor leaguers like Cunningham and Carter. Since that deal, the DBacks have only developed one starting pitcher (who was himself given away in the disastrous Edwin Jackson swap) and no starting OF (Gonzalez would look good here; for that matter, former washouts like Scottie Hairston and Carlos Quentin would be improvements).
Byrnes also committed one of the cardinal sins of the GM world: he built his 2010 team largely around players he knew were likely to be difficult to keep productive and on the field, players like Conor Jackson and Brandon Webb. Until you’ve seen an injured player back on the field at a competitive level over time, you have to know they can’t be counted upon, that anything you get from them is a bonus. Instead, Jackson was allowed to consume ABs in LF while Ryan Roberts marked time, and the likes of Billy Buckner, Cesar Valdez and Kris Benson were shuffled in to cover for Webb rather than putting out a million for a minimally capable warm body just in case he wasn’t ready to go.
No, Byrnes wrecked the minor league organization, put the guy responsible for carrying out that wreckage in the major league dugout, then deliberately put a team on his field that wasn’t deep enough to cover even one failure, let alone several. No. Time for him to go. Time for as many of his mistakes as possible to go, too. Hinch is only the first.
Nearly forgot: Byrnes also tried to give away Chris Snyder before the season. The same Chris Snyder who gave the club a 1.0 WAR in just 56 games when Miguel Montero went out. Any GM willing to gamble on the promise of a John Hester (whose only significant showing of said promise came in a 2009 AAA season inflated by a ridiculous .387 BABIP) in the event of a catching injury needs to go.
Well. I’m not entirely sure Hinch should have been hired in the first place, and the reality of the baseball world is that when a team so underperforms expectations there is going to be change, and that change usually starts with the manager. I have no problem with letting him go.
As far as Byrnes, I think he was a pretty good GM and I do not believe he deserved the axe if we’re basing it on job performance. However, if he really did outright refuse to fire Hinch when ordered by management then he should be fired.
The GM’s job is to build the best possible team within the constraints imposed by the owners. If they tell you you have a $10MM payroll, you start selling players off and put together the best $10MM team you can. If you’re told to get a new manager, you get a new manager. Of course, as GM he should absolutely voice his input and the owners should seriously consider what he has to say; that’s what they’re hired for. But the ultimate decisions are with the people in possession of the checkbook.