DePodesta fired
LA Times, elsewhere.
The Dodgers didn’t have a great season, certainly. But what’s most interesting to me is the extent that the daily press in LA took him down. DePodesta was subject to almost constant criticism of his every move that often ranged freely into personal attacks on him (Jeff’s talked about this here only a few weeks ago). Dave and I both said that we thought the Dodgers had a horrible off-season (others disagreed), and the season turned out badly.
But does his on-the-job performance justify getting canned this early? It seems as if they’re reacting much more to the perception of his work, rather than what he actually has done since coming on, and have decided to bow to the meme-makers.
Sports columnists across the country must be breaking out the champagne. If you’re nasty enough and loud enough for long enough, and your ownership’s weak-willed, you can bring down a GM in two years.
Comments
101 Responses to “DePodesta fired”
Depo’s major acquisitions, by 2005 vorp (and I’m sure I’m missing some):
kent/60.5
drew/31
perez/8.7
lowe/25.3
bradley/24
penny/31.2
cruz jr/17.6
choi/14.0
weaver/28.5
…and, for comparison, beltre/15.1
…and lo duca/21.4
(He was harshly criticized for letting those last two guys go). This simply could not have been a baseball decision. Depo must have done some things to anger ownership, personally, because his track record of decisions is actually very good.