Riggleman takes over another moribund last place team
DMZ · July 13, 2009 at 9:24 pm · Filed Under Mariners
We mentioned this repeatedly last year, but we here at USSM have an immense amount of respect for the job Jim Riggleman did trying to keep the M’s together and playing in a lost season. Well, he gets to try again, as Manny Acta’s been fired in Washington-the-non-state.
Good luck, sir.
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And to think, last year at this time we were in the position the Nats are in right now.
Hell, we got swept by Nats at home!!!!
What a difference a year makes.
Hahahaha, I just realize that I’d also laugh my ass off if somehow the Nats “lost” the Bryce Harper sweepstakes the same way the M’s “lost” the Strasburg sweepstakes a year ago with Riggleman as interim manager.
realized*
Riggleball in Washington DC, I hope he stays on next year I love his methods and for that team they maybe his best bet.
I saw this earlier today and couldn’t help but feel bad for the guy. He really seems like a stand up guy but wow, yet another franchise destined for crapville. They got a new GM (not by choice, but the whole stealing money from prospects thing) and it just seems that franchise is happy being the worst run in baseball.
This may unfortunately be the only way Rim can get a managing job. Maybe he’s resigned himself to that fact, and thus only interviews with teams that appear to be terrible.
In any case, best of luck, Jiggleman.
Is there any chance the Nats will stink for many seasons, amass a stable of good draft picks, and then take a Tampa-style great leap forward? As much as that franchise has been through in recent history, it seems like they of all teams are the ones who deserve some good karma.
ERA is not a good measure of pitcher value. Neither are wins. The M’s defense turns balls put into play into outs at a rate better than every other team except the Rays.
Do you seriously think the M’s have the second-best defense and that makes the hitters look good? Or the attendance numbers? Because those missing hits are going somewhere.
They’ve been trying that for many years. The leap’s harder than it seems.
But then there was that one time where we won three games and lost our shot at Stephen Strasburg. Not sure if it was Riggleman’s fault or not.
Oh, how far the franchise has fallen since the promise of ’94. If there were just one reason for the strike to have been avoided…
Ah, Riggles…best of luck to you, sir!
Maybe the Nats won’t wind up breaking the ’62 Mets’ 120-loss record this year after all.
Slippery, I’m not sure the Nats are due any good karma. They let Bowden take the fall for swindling prospects of lots of money, and I have trouble believing it was just one guy who knew what was going on.
No, I’m fairly certain they are getting just what they deserve. The people I feel sorry for are the fans who have to be served that crap, with no hope of ever getting better, and players like Zimmerman who go out every day and kill it despite his team being horrifically bad.
Including whatever poor die-hards were still left in Montreal…who nowadays don’t even have crap to be served.
As for Zimmerman, you just know he’s got his agent on speed dial…counting the days ’til he gets “parolled” from that miserable franchise and can actually go play for a contender somewhere.
If that’s the case, maybe he shouldn’t have signed that five year extension with them less than three months ago. That’s a lot of days to count, and a lot of time for that speed-dial not to get used. Though I expect the $45M makes the whole thing a bit easier.
I said it at the time and I’ll say it again, Jim Riggleman was a gentleman and a mensch when he managed the M’s last year. He wasn’t the right manager for them in 2009 (the guy they hired was the right manager, duh), but he deserved another shot. That being said, no one deserves the job of managing the dreck that is the Washington Nationals franchise. And the reason for it is what MLB did from the day they brokered the Henry/Loria/No One swap among the Red Sox, Marlins and Expos through the day they extorted the money from the District and the Lerner family. They would have done better to disband the franchise and make a new expansion franchise than leave a team without so much as the scouting reports on its own players (instead, residing with the Marlins, a division rival), restricting their ability to sign draft choices and free agents and make trades, making them bounce around the perimeter of the United States and then play in the rathole that was RFK (where I once took a very important conference call in center field for an hour where I disturbed no one because there wasn’t anyone within 200 feet of me).
That being said, I wish him all the luck in the world.
My bad, Joser…though for $45 Mil, I might be tempted to be a bit masochistic and wait to see if the FO can somehow steer that team in the right direction.
I’ve never been one to think that what a manager does in the dugout helps or hurts the team too much.
I do think, though, that some off the field things help. That’s where coaching (for those who will listen anyhow), and holding guys accountable for their mistakes can help long term. Maybe it isn’t measurable in wins, but if it clicks something for one guy – that’s a win.
That said, Riggleman can’t turn dirt to gold. But, I hope that the way he manages a ball club gets noticed this time and he gets a shot full time. Hopefully on a team that isn’t constructed with a bunch of non athlete corner outfielder/1B/DH types, though.
Maybe it was a veerrry cunning long-range plan….
Jimterim.
He’s making a career cleaning up messes. Kind of like that Amy Adams movie.