6:41pm: For his part, Diamondbacks chief baseball officer Tony La Russa says no decision has been reached just yet, writes Steve Gilbert of MLB.com.
“I just think that at this point, we’re at Aug. 18, I’ve been around three months, I’ve observed a lot, talked to and met with a lot of people in the organization. I have a much better idea. I just think the official comment is, we’re at Aug. 18, the season is a month and 10 days from being over. So it won’t be long until you have to trot out your plan officially,” La Russa said.
10:09am: The Diamondbacks are planning to keep manager Kirk Gibson in his role next year, Bob Nightengale of USA Today reports on Twitter. Arizona does not expect to make any official announcement at the moment.
Gibson, 57, has been at the helm in the Arizona dugout since mid-season 2010, and signed a one-year extension before the year that places him under contract for 2015. But his future — and, perhaps even moreso, that of GM Kevin Towers — came into question early this year with the team’s struggles. Things haven’t really turned around since; the D’backs have moved out of last place in the NL West, but only because of a Rockies freefall. The club ultimately added Tony LaRussa on top of the pair, installing him in the newly-created “chief baseball officer” role.
LaRussa, himself a Hall of Fame manager, has been evaluating things over the last few months and will presumably look to make any major organizational changes in rather short order once the season concludes. It remains to be seen, of course, whether this reported continuity in the field staff will carry over to the front office.
cue gif of Keith Law’s head exploding
I’ll be curious to read what Arizona fans have to say about this. From an admitted distance, I think Gibby has been in over his head.
he has not been good…the whole retaliation thing looks childish and particularly short sighted given how terrible the team has played. that said, i have a soft spot for gibbie and would be ok with him sticking around one more year, particularly if its a rebuild. Towers on the other hand has been absolutely terrible and should be fired as soon as possible.
It could be worse…you could be a phillie fan
Wow, your comment made me feel so good I cancelled my therapy session.
The retaliation thing is just a part of baseball that fans have seen for decades. I do agree that Towers has got to go. Give Gibby another year and see what he can do.
But the dbacks under gibby have made this a larger focus, and moreso than any other team in the league. maybe if they were a little more focused on winning then on retribution for perceived disrespect, they would have more success
I think the media has made it appear that way because of KTs statements about hitting people. Look back at the 2001 WS Champ diamonbacks and you will see that RJ, Schilling, amd Miguel Batista always had their teammates backs. Miguel Batista would go up to teammates that were hit and ask them who they wanted from the other team to get hit. The 24/7 sports news media just needs headlines and Internet clicks so they blow things way out of proportion
To add to your point, the East Coast media has the Pirates as their darlings so it was blown way out of proportion; last year was the same with the Dodgers. The Brewers and to an extent the D-Backs are just being petty at this point.
not sure you can call the brewers petty. if they are, it’s only because gibson had his pitcher hit braun this year because dbacks lost the 2012 NLDS (about 1.5 years after the fact)
He is not a great manager. The d-backs has taken 2 many steps back instead of getting better.
As a Dbacks fan I’m ok with this. Most of our steps back are viewed to be Kevin Towers fault, not necessarily Gibbys. So with La Russa in and Towers on the out, I believe most Dbacks fans don’t mind seeing Gibby manage one more year. ( personally I really wanted Matt Williams as our skipper) Go Dbacks!
Agreed. Gibson isn’t always the best strategist, but he can motivate and does well getting guys to buy into the system.
I admit I am 100% ignorant with this and you probably know better than me, but it seems like both Kirk Gibson and Matt Williams could use some managerial fine tuning.
Williams seems like he’s having issues with Harper, and Gibson seems like he has issues with players that aren’t gritty. I’m not sure if he was the reason Upton was traded, but at the time, I remember feeling like he was. If that is the case, Towers made an even bigger mistake by allowing his manager to dictate the roster.
But if I started a baseball franchise tomorrow and both of those managers were available for hire, I wouldn’t even consider them. Again, this is mostly an outsiders perspective as I don’t closely follow the D-Backs (even though I live ten minutes from Chase Field).
You’re not wrong, Williams and Gibson seem to like to call players out for being “lazy” and it backfires. That just breeds resentment.
It’s gonna be ugly when AZ visits PNC Park in 2015.
Why is that? Is it because Goldie broke his hand because Pirates pitchers have terrible control and have hit more batters than any other team?
No, because pitching inside when batters crowd the plate, and pitching to hit someone, are two very different things.
If you hit my best player because of your pitching strategy, I am going to hit your best player so you rethink your strategy. Some fans don’t understand that baseball is a game of strategy.
So, eliminating the inside of the plate is good pitching strategy?
It can be (that is why it is called a strategy)
Cam, the Pirates have hit more people this year than any other time. They pitch inside, which is fine, but if you take out another team’s players, especially their stars, there is a price to pay. Baseball rules were created to protect a team’s star players or else all of the star would get hit often. Why pitch to a guy, why walk a guy, when you can hit him with a pitch and take him out? Answer, your star gets hit. It’s a fine way to police the game and the Pirates should have expected it.
Vonjunk, with all due respect, I do see where you’re coming from. I like the self-policing in baseball to an extent.
I just don’t think this case is a good example of it. There was no malicious intent to take Goldy out. The pitch came a little inside, Goldy was leaning in, and something that happens every day in baseball without injury, turned into the worst case scenario. The complaint isn’t the pitch at all, it’s the result, and the result is sad indeed. If Goldy isn’t injured, no one really cares. That did not deserve deliberate retaliation and taking a guy out. Not in my eyes.
As an example I used once before, if someone bumps into you in the hallway because they weren’t looking where they were going, do you turn around and punch them in the face? Is it the action you care about, or the result?
Let’s just all throw sliders down and away, that’ll keep everyone quiet.
Again, I do see where you’re coming from though, I respect that.
Intent does matter, every team could say they didn’t mean to hit the other team’s star. If the Dbacks hadn’t retaliated it would be open season on their players. Now teams in the league know to be careful pitching to their stars (intentional or not) and that they should fear taking out their star. The Pirates were asking for this a long time over the season by hitting so many batters. They had been lucky not to take out another team’s star pitching inside all year. Any other team would do the same thing. The difference may have been that Gibson is always so obvious about it.
Goldschmidt hardly crowds the plate. He stands almost too far off of it.
I hope that’s a joke. The pitch wasn’t even that inside. Goldy moved his hand into the pitch. The fact that the Diamondbacks responded the way they did shows more about their class (lack thereof) than anything the Pirates ever did. Nobody on the Pirates wanted Goldy out, but someone definitely wanted to hurt McCutchen.
I see this as Tony’s first terrible decision if true, but I honestly don’t believe it.
I’m not thrilled with this news. However, I take ANY and ALL reports of this nature with a huge grain of salt until I see official word. Gibson has not been a very good manager and I would like to see him replaced.
Why hasn’t he been a good manager? This season and previous seasons he wasn’t given a lot of talent per Towers interest in signing middling, aging and often under-performing vets to long term contracts.
I don’t like Gibson at all after his team intentionally hurt our best player, but he’s not to blame for the train wreck in Arizona. For that, you can blame Kevin Towers.
Wow, really?
The entire organization is contaminated with bad apples. Kendrick, Towers, LaRussa, Gibson, all are bad for the game and need to go.
LOL at LaRussa being bad for the game
Notorious headhunter that admits to hitting other batters. He most recently did it regarding McCutchen. He’s not a very good person.
I wonder if Jason LaRue thinks LaRussa is bad for the game.
So telling the truth and explaining the philosophy of 95% of managers to ever coach the game makes you a headhunter? I guess every other manager is a headhunter too.
Intentionally injuring one of the greats of the game is bad for the game. I’m sorry you somehow think it’s okay because other people do it, too. It’s that kind of thinking that is the problem; I’m sure many other managers/GMs wouldn’t have admitted to it or openly cheered for it. No one considered Goldschmidt’s beaning intentional except the Dbacks.
Considering it’s the Dbacks Organizational philosophy to openly play dirty, which isn’t endorsed by any other team, I’d say it’s absolutely toxic to baseball and should be seriously punished by MLB.
What great did he intentionally hurt? Not one. McCutchen isn’t a great and even if you think he is, he himself said that the pitch that hit him was not the cause of the injury.
It doesn’t matter if a beaning is intentional. Baseball’s unwritten rules and culture have shown that if a team’s best player gets hit it is extremely likely the other team’s best player will get hit.
on purpose?
As a Dbacks fan.
Why?
Gibby will most certainly be gone. I don’t see LaRussa’s ego letting him NOT bring in his own guy to manage the team. Towers has to be gone as well. What is left from the Justin Upton deal exactly?
Really all that is left is Brandon Drury. A 3b prospect that raked at Single A Visalia and is now raking at AA Mobile. Other than that Delgado has been a bust, Martin wasn’t much, and Spruill has been a joke. Oh and Ahmed is actually hitting is AAA but then again so does just about everybody.