In honor of the firing of Bob Geren, The Common Man updates and re-presents his study from a year ago in which he examined whether changing managerial horses in midstream actually helps teams. The short version: eh, not really, at least from a won-loss perspective. But it’s entirely possible — and in the case of Geren, probable, based on what we’re hearing — that not changing him would have been way worse due to the risk of even more clubhouse strife.
Oh, one other random note on Geren: John Shea of the Chronicle tweeted a little while ago that Billy Beane said that one of the reasons the move was made now was because Bob Melvin was available.
Hey, good luck to Melvin and the A’s and everything, but he’s been available for, like, two years now, and he hasn’t exactly made anyone jump at him. And I’m sure that, had Beane waited three months to fire Geren, Melvin would have been available then too. So, nice not to throw Geren under the bus here, Billy, but there was a reason why he was fired today, and it had little to do with the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to snag The Bob Melvin.
