MickeyDavis wrote:The longer we wait the more I think RR comes back. They'll replace Narron and another coach or two and that will be it.
The Milwaukee Brewers announced Friday that manager Ron Roenicke will return next season despite the team's epic late-season collapse that knocked it from first place to completely out of the playoffs.
The news was not so good for two members of Roenicke's coaching staff, however. As expected, hitting coach Johnny Narron was dismissed, and the Brewers also decided not to retain first base coach Garth Iorg.
"Over the course of the last few weeks, we have evaluated the work of Ron and his coaches and believe that this is the best course of action to take," said general manager Doug Melvin. "We appreciate the work that Johnny and Garth did for us through the years, and moves like these are never easy to make.
"We have already started reviewing our player personnel and will continue to address the factors that led to our disappointing finish to the season."
The rest of the coaching staff returns: bench coach Jerry Narron, pitching coach Rick Kranitz, bullpen coach Lee Tunnell, third base coach Ed Sedar, outfield coach/assistant hitting coach John Shelby and coach Mike Guerrero.
Though already signed through the 2015 season with a club option for 2016, Roenicke's status as manager was thrown into question after the Brewers suffered a historic late-season collapse to fall out of the playoff race.
After leading the NL Central for 150 days, the Brewers won only nine of their final 31 games to finish in third place. They became only the fifth club in major-league history to lead a division for that length of time and not make the playoffs.
The main culprit in the dramatic meltdown was an offense that stopped generating runs. While going 9-17 in September, the Brewers scored 71 runs for a paltry average of 2.73 per game. They scored 0, 1 or 2 runs 17 times during the final 31-game slide.
With players slumping and/or battling injuries, Roenicke had only so many options in changing his batting order during that period. But his job in running the club still was put under considerable scrutiny by Melvin and team principal owner Mark Attanasio.
Melvin traveled to Los Angeles to meet with Attanasio before Roenicke was brought into the discussions. Melvin said he wanted to take the emotion out of the team's collapse before any decisions were made regarding Roenicke and his coaching staff.
The Brewers finished with an 82-80 record, the third winning record in Roenicke's four years as manager. Pittsburgh and San Francisco claimed the NL wild-card berths with identical 88-74 records.
In Roenicke's rookie managerial season in 2011, the Brewers went on a second-half tear to win their only NL Central crown and finish with 96 victories, a franchise record.
That team won the NLDS in a tense five-game series with Arizona, the Brewers' first post-season series triumph since 1982. The Brewers were eliminated in the NLCS in six games by division rival St. Louis, which went on to win the World Series.
In 2012, the Brewers struggled throughout much of the season before catching fire late and climbing into the wild-card race. They were eliminated from playoff contention in the final week and finished with an 83-79 record.
A horrendous 6-22 May in 2013 knocked the Brewers out of the division race at an early juncture. That team continued to play hard until the end, however, finishing at 74-88.
Unheralded entering the 2014 season, the Brewers surprised everybody by bolting to a 20-7 start despite a difficult early schedule. They hit their first major skid entering the all-star break, losing 11 of 13 games but remaining in first place in the division.
Despite going through more ups and downs, the Brewers were 73-58 after winning, 10-1, in San Diego on Aug. 25, holding a 1 ½ game lead over St. Louis and six games over Pittsburgh. But they lost their next nine games in a skid that extended to 3-16 and finally 9-22 over the final 31 games.
I'm against picketing but I don't know how to show it.
How accurate is the trackers they use?
