{"id":638402,"date":"2026-04-29T12:14:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-29T12:14:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/638402\/"},"modified":"2026-04-29T12:14:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-29T12:14:11","slug":"after-recent-mlb-manager-firings-why-would-anyone-want-this-job","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/638402\/","title":{"rendered":"After recent MLB manager firings, why would anyone want this job?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Has there ever been a worse time to be a big league manager?<\/p>\n

In the wake of the Philadelphia Phillies becoming the second team in the past week to fire their skipper, the question isn\u2019t just a sentence in a column. It\u2019s bounced around the game since Boston Red Sox manager Alex Cora was shockingly fired<\/a> \u2014 along with five coaches \u2014 on Saturday night after just 27 games. Rob Thomson, who the Phillies fired on Tuesday<\/a>, exited with the best winning percentage (.568) for a Phillies manager since the 19th century.<\/p>\n

Yes, this is a highly competitive, highly sought-after profession. But what, some fear, is becoming of it?<\/p>\n

There is so much time left in the season. And if you talk to the Boston and Philadelphia front offices, that\u2019s the point in making these firings early. The clubs can still turn things around, make an adjustment, or \u2014 the most likely scenario \u2014 the big league rosters full of established players just start to play better. What a novel concept.<\/p>\n

Patience, it seems, is only a virtue when front offices are espousing their own plan. Then they can talk about seeing the bigger picture and giving time for players and systems to flourish. Isn\u2019t it funny how, when a should-be contending roster struggles out of the gate and people start getting concerned, no one has any problem with a bold strike then? Blame the manager.<\/p>\n

Well, the middle manager really<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It used to be that executives would circle Memorial Day as the time to really take stock in records, stats and managerial performance. Last season, the Pittsburgh Pirates fired manager Derek Shelton on May 8. The Baltimore Orioles dismissed Brandon Hyde nine days later. This year, two high-profile teams dismissed their manager in April. What\u2019s next, spring training?<\/p>\n

In all seriousness, why would anyone want to do this job?<\/p>\n

Pros: It\u2019s well-paid \u2014 starting salary is around $1 million \u2014 and you\u2019re on TV.<\/p>\n

Cons: There\u2019s no job security, you have no say over your roster and you will be blamed for your team underperforming. (You probably won\u2019t get much credit if they win either \u2014 sorry!)<\/p>\n

Cora is being paid for two more years after signing a lucrative three-year extension in 2024. Managers, even new ones, generally get three-year deals. But even that has gone by the wayside at times. The Astros hired veteran Dusty Baker following their sign-stealing scandal to a one-year deal with an option for 2021. The Angels, who have had a revolving door in the dugout, hired first-time manager Kurt Suzuki this winter on a one-year deal.<\/p>\n

It sounds more like an audition than a powerful role that, at its best, manages a clubhouse and fosters a culture.<\/p>\n

And don\u2019t get any manager \u2014 current or former \u2014 started on lineups. There are guys who say they\u2019d quit tomorrow if they couldn\u2019t make out their lineup and those who signed on knowing they wouldn\u2019t have that authority anyway.<\/p>\n

Players aren\u2019t stupid and they know who has pull in the dugout and who doesn\u2019t. Increasingly, it\u2019s becoming the guy above the manager, the boss\u2019s boss, who is getting involved in everything from who bats seventh to who pitches in the eighth inning.<\/p>\n

Not that there isn\u2019t ever a reason to make an in-season change. It can be a good thing. The Pirates were .500 last year after moving on from Shelton, which was a huge improvement from the six weeks prior. Thomson was named the in-season interim in 2022 and led the Phillies to a National League title. But in a world where parts of the manager\u2019s job are increasingly being taken away, the leash that they\u2019re given to keep their jobs seems to keep getting shorter.<\/p>\n

There are still well-respected names in the sport in the dugout: Craig Counsell, A.J. Hinch, Terry Francona and Dave Roberts, to name a few. But following a winter in which there was a lot of resentment, frustration and head-scratching <\/a>regarding roughly half of the nine available manager jobs, the path to get a job, and keep it, has never been more difficult to discern.<\/p>\n

Do you need managerial experience? Coaching experience? Playing experience? To merely be a disciple of the front office? All, any or none. Confused yet?<\/p>\n

Still, there are only 30 of these jobs available in the world. To think the candidate pool would start to significantly dwindle would be foolish, right? Maybe.<\/p>\n

Or maybe if the game keeps trending this way, potential managers and former managers will start to explore an alternate career track, one that\u2019s extremely well-paying but \u2014outside of Boston \u2014 considerably safer: the front office.<\/p>\n

Once the pressure starts to ratchet up, you can just fire the guy below you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Has there ever been a worse time to be a big league manager? In the wake of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":638403,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[64,63,5156,591,1721,2365,85],"class_list":["post-638402","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-boston-red-sox","tag-mlb","tag-opinion","tag-philadelphia-phillies","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/638402","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=638402"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/638402\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/638403"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=638402"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=638402"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=638402"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}