Leyland Should be Fired

His accomplishments as a manager are legendary. He has a way of getting things out of his team that never existed in the first place. His Florida Marlins’ team had no business making the playoffs in 1997, let alone winning the whole thing. The metamorphosis he inspired with the 2006 Tigers, taking them from the worst record in the majors all the way to the pennant, was equally stunning. He’s a three time manager the year winner, and only one of seven managers to win pennants in both leagues. His credentials speak for themselves, but that was then, this is now. It’s time for the Tigers to fire Jim Leyland and move in a new direction.

Truth be told, right now you could put Joe Torre, Tony LaRussa, Leyland- you could even march Connie Mack’s ghost out to the dugout and it wouldn’t matter, this team isn’t playing up to its potential. You can’t fault Leyland for Placido Polanco and Curtis Granderson deciding to follow their career years from last season with career lows in virtually every statistical category, or for Miguel Cabrera crudely underachieving thus far. He can’t go out there and throw the ball for a pitching staff that has posted a combined 4.81 ERA, the second worst total in the American League. There’s only so much a manger can do.

So no, you can’t hold Leyland responsible when Justin Verlander spends the afternoon grooving balls down the middle of the plate, or for the fact that his team has been stocked with no fielding, glorified designated hitters, hell, you can’t even blame him for Magglio Ordonez’s efficiency for grounding into double plays. But when you hand a man the keys to a $138,685,197 vehicle, the second richest in the league, certain expectations arise. Battling with the lowly Kansas City Royals to stay out of last place come June isn’t one of them, especially when they are in this position, in large part, due to horrible personnel decisions and sloppy play.

One of the things that I love about Leyland is that he is so old school. You have to love a manager that always has a Marlboro pursed into his lip, but his total disregard to statistics, and the rather simple laws of probability are inexcusable. You don’t need Billy Beane to tell you that a guy hitting .245/.287/.351, that’s so slow he could be beat in a foot race by either of the Fielder’s, has absolutely no business batting leadoff, right? So why is it that Leyland, at times, felt that it was in the best interest of this club to pencil in the owner of those ghastly numbers, Ivan Rodriguez, at the top of the order? It seems to me that logic would suggest moving this guy down in the order to minimize his appearances, so that he doesn’t hurt the team with his inability to hit the ball, would be the, well, logical thing to do. To be fair, it’s been 12 games since Rodriguez has hit at the top of the order, but this shouldn’t be happening at all. Ever.

With Gary Sheffield on the disabled list, and Jacque Jones gone, two of the major blows against Leyland have been solved for him. Neither one of these guys should have been in the line-up on a daily basis, not when they were hitting .213/.344/.331 and .165/.244/.253, respectively, before departing the team. Sheffield, however, will be back, so rest assured, when he does return, he will resume his duties and will likely be slotted right into the heart of lineup, statistics be damned.

Although, a, ughh, interesting development has risen since Joens was cut. Marcus Thames has been called upon to fill the void created by Jones departure, but he too has been underachieving, so at times Leyland has looked for other options. Interestingly enough, he has toyed with the idea of using Carlos Guillen in the outfield, which also allows Brandon Inge to get some time at third base.

I’m all for Inge getting on the field because he is certainly more defensively adept than Guillen, which, thus far, has been a major problem that has plagued this team. But this move begs the question: wasn’t Guillen moved from short because he has a weak arm and bum knees? So isn’t it a little counterproductive to ask this guy to start chasing down liners in the gap and to throw base runners out from 300 or more feet? So, excuse me if this seems obvious, but wouldn’t it make more sense to just move Miguel Cabrera to left? He has experience in the outfield, although, it should be noted that he is equally inefficient defensively, but he has a cannon for an arm, which is not being used at first base. His negative impact would be camouflaged a bit in left, and the strain on Guillen’s knees, which have plagued him in the past, would be circumvented.

The pitching staff is also being handled terribly. How can players succeed when they are being used improperly? The starters are just awful right now, but the bullpen shouldn’t be in the shape they are in. Take Zach Miner for instance, throughout his career he has been used in long relief situations and as a spot starter. For some bizarre reason, this season he is being used as a specialist, late in games, with runners on base. He’s never succeeded in these situations, and his new role has caused his ERA to shoot up from last season where he recorded a 3.02 to 5.40 this year.

Should the blame go on Pitching coach Chuck Hernandez, or does it fall on Leyland for being oblivious to his player’s strengths and weaknesses? I think his track record says it all.

This is something that has been coming since last season. If you recall, last year this team had the best record in the majors entering the All-Star break, due to Leyland’s mismanagement of his bullpen, and the fact that he stuck with Gary Sheffield in the three spot despite hitting .203 after the break, they missed the playoffs.

That’s what happens when a team stops responding to their manager. In 2006 the team’s turnaround was credited in large part to an inspirational scolding from the hands of Leyland, maybe they need that again, just this time from a fresh voice. It seems that his message is falling on deaf ears, but his passive nature also isn’t helping anything. Sometimes even superstars need someone to light a fire under them.

The players on this team have all but called Leyland out for this, earlier this season Justin Verlander was quoted as saying that the laid back nature of the clubhouse wasn’t conductive to winning. “We’ve tried the laid-back approach, and it isn’t working. We need to start developing a go-get-them approach,” Verlander explained.

As is his nature, Leyland responding by saying that with all the talent on the club that there wasn’t much he could do, then he proceeded to throw them under the bus. “For whatever reason, there is something of a lethargic approach,” Leyland replied.

What Leyland doesn’t realize his inactiveness is the real lethargy that is plaguing this club. He needs to motivate this team, the problem is, it’s probably too late.

You simply can’t win when you lose close games, and after a while, you can’t just blame the players. You have to have that fire that Verlander speaks of. This was supposed to be a club that scored 1,000 runs, they were the second coming of the Big Red Machine, or the Murder’s Row. So far it has been anything but.

This is a team that is in serious trouble. The offense, which was supposed to score more than 1,000 runs this season, has posted four or fewer runs in 34 of their 61 games. In those 34 games they are 1-33.

It all comes back to simple fact that the team is not playing well. It’d be easy to blame Dave Dombrowski for putting a huge emphasis on hitting, with a complete disregard for pitching, but the fact of the matter is that the hitters aren’t performing either. A large reason for this is because there is no accountability. These guys know that Leyland isn’t going to bench them if they don’t run a ball out, or if they aren’t concentrating, or if they continue to duff ground balls. He’ll continue to trot them out there day after day, regardless of how they perform, or in this case, under-perform.

Someone has to get in there and change the losing culture, if Dombrowski doesn’t move to fire Leyland; it’ll be his head on the chopping block. Maybe they should both go. Someone has to take the fall; a $1.38 million dollar loser just isn’t acceptable.