Bob Geren Fired By Oakland A’s, Replaced By Bob Melvin

Plenty of managers have had records like that and survived to finish the season, or even multiple seasons beyond a poor start. Geren, though, hadn’t done well in his four-plus seasons in Oakland -- his best year being a .500 finish -- so the A’s likely figured, pull the plug now rather than later.

This appears to be an early firing -- but there have been plenty of others this early in the season, and some even earlier. Going back to 2000, there have been 16 other managers who were fired before the All-Star break, and some before the snow melted in their town.

Courtesy of Baseball Reference, a reminder of how Geren lost his job:

There wasn’t a column for withering rebukes from former players, but so far we have two. From Huston Street, via SF Gate:

From ex-A’s catcher Rob Bowen:

↵Finally the A’s have realized Geren has destroyed a dozen pitcher’s careers and doesn’t have a clue how to manage a big league club↵Once I figure out what all that subtext really means, I’ll update this.

A couple of weeks ago, in the wake of dissension in Bob Geren’s ranks, I wrote :

Sometimes players make their managers look smart, and sometimes managers make their chroniclers look smart. So thank you, Bob Geren.

In March, my take on the American League West favorites (in my estimation) concluded with this:

Gonzalez (2.62 ERA) and Cahill (2.65) have been fantastic.