From the start of Bob Geren's tenure as manager of the Oakland A's, he was doomed to fail.
The reason being is the style of managing he employs and it has nothing to do with the trades that Billy Beane has made during the time he's been manager.
The excuse of injuries as well isn't an easily bought excuse either because every team in baseball has to deal with injuries at some point during a season.
The difference is a good-to-great manager knows how to motivate and get the most from his players.
A manager will also know what kind of way to communicate with the players to suit their personality. A mediocre-to-downright awful manager does not have any idea how to communicate and treats each player the same way.
From the time Geren was hired on as manager his personality has shown that he would never become an effective manager. That was proven in 2007 from players speaking about his style. One player called him "wishy washy" and another said "oblivious."
Further into the article which was titled "Bradley says Beane 'used me up in '06.' It also states from the San Francisco Chronicle that players spends too much time in the clubhouse, he's overly friendly with players, he basically was then called oblivious again, and he won't discipline a player who deserves it.
I took a class called Principles of Management and in that class we went over the different types of managers. It had scales where each one had a different goal in mind and it is seen in their style.
Where one manager may be more concerned with the end result of the product and another manager cared too much about their employees and that meant that production suffered and deadlines weren't being met, etc...
Geren falls into the category of caring so much about his players that the results do not get anywhere close to where they need to be. He's too afraid of hurting a player's feeling then to let them know their play hasn't been acceptable.
If that was showing in 2007 and that's the management style that Geren falls under, then the A's were screwed from Day One. He is not a manager that is going to have any success and that has been proven time and time again.
There can be excuse that the team hasn't been hitting, but if that was the case then why was Ken Macha successful and Geren hasn't?
The A's offense had been slipping and falling off the table, but the A's still managed to win under Macha, but rarely have shown glimmer of any type of sustainable success under Geren.
For the 2008 season there was hope, but that quickly fell apart once the trade of Joe Blanton, Chad Gaudin, and Rich Harden happened.
Yet, the funny thing about the Blanton trade is that Blanton was struggling throughout the year for the A's.
Gaudin and Harden were harder to lose because Gaudin could start or come out of the bullpen, and when Harden was successful he was one of the most dominating pitchers in the league.
The A's were in contention of the Angels through the first half of the season, but in the second half that is when it fell apart. Why? The players on the A's gave up.
Yes, there was young talent that came up after the trades, but still being only four games out was no reason to panic, and just give up the season and good or great manager would have realized this, but not Geren.
Geren allowed panic to set in and started believing the excuses that the A's were rebuilding and that the team wasn't going to make the playoffs.
Although I'm not a fan of Tim Kawakami, he makes some good points. Especially in early May when the A's got rocked by the Detroit Tigers and the Tampa Bay Rays.
Here's a quote from Kawakami's article "string of massive, dispiriting blowouts? Check, to the tune of 47-13 in the last four consecutive losses, to switch the A’s from a +4 run-differential to a staggering -30. Four short days did that! Doesn’t look good. Isn’t good. Horrible, actually."
This is from the article titled "Could the A's fire Bob Geren? Is Hershiser the Possible Answer?"
Another quote from the same article is this "I’d imagine Wolff would direct much of his ire upon Geren, just to shake things up."
How about from Nico on Athletics Nation with a title of "Geren's Ineptitude Exposed Again in Double Header Sweep."
Nico is quoted as saying this "This double-header was painful for me to watch, but not because the A's lost twice, not because the A's fell 10 games under .500, not because the A's dropped to 10 games out of 1st place.
"The most painful part was the occasional shot in the dugout of Ron Washington, whose intelligence, intensity, and high expectations cannot be denied by anyone who has followed his career."
The article goes on to explain about some of the decisions Geren has made. For example playing the infield in with no outs with runners on second and third with Brett Gardner up against Dana Eveland.
Another one was the fact that in the first inning with Edgar Gonzalez pitching, Geren chose to walk Chris Davis intentionally to load the bases. Even though during the first game of the doubleheader he struck out all four times.
There's another quote what I couldn't agree more with and it states "Bob Geren is simply not fit to manage a major league baseball team. Even stupid managers don't make some of the decisions he has made...and it's not like his team plays good fundamental baseball, or exudes any noticeable intensity or joy in the dugout or on the field.
"A's players (who are both young and limited in talent and need every advantage they can get) and A's fans, deserve better."
Again, Geren's inability to manage the team is the biggest problem with the A's. His lack of knowledge of the game, his lack of making the correct decision, the inability to use the bullpen properly, and again caring too much about players' feelings and not caring enough about the end result.
It is only a matter of time before A's fans will exuberantly wave goodbye to the worst manager in A's history, and I can't wait!
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