Spring Cleaning

Jason Michael Barker

Pretty harsh, don't you think, firing both the manager and general manager after an 0-6 start? The Detroit Tigers did just that Monday, bidding farewell to manager Phil Garner and general manager Randy Smith. Garner was in his third year with the club, Smith in his seventh.

It does sound harsh if you look only at what has transpired this season -- six games is a pretty small sample, and even the 1996 Yankees started 1-3 -- but looking back just a few years will make you wonder why this move wasn't made sooner. We'll start with Smith, who was there longer and presumably more to blame for the Tigers' failings.

Smith took over in 1996 and the Tigers, led by new manager Buddy Bell, promptly went 53-190. That team finished dead last in the American League with a .322 on-base percentage and an astronomical 6.38 ERA. They improved to 79-83 in 1997, but proceeded to lose 97 and 92 games each of the next two seasons, at which point Garner was hired.

Garner is an interesting case, in that he leveraged one winning season -- 1992, his first as a manager -- into nine seasons of losing. It took seven straight years with no better than a third place finish for him to get fired in Milwaukee, but he still found a way to get hired in Detroit, where he was 145-185. He never came close to the 92-70 record he posted with the Brewers way back in 1992, and his career mark stands at 730-829 (.468).

Looking at his clubs, it's easy to see why Garner has never won very many games. For starters, his clubs don't walk. Beginning in 1992, his Milwaukee clubs placed 10th, 9th, 6th, 11th, 9th, 13th, 9th and 4th in the league in walks. Interestingly, that final club featured a number of high-walk hitters and also finished fourth in OBP, but just ninth in runs scored due to a lack of power. Garner's Detroit clubs finished 9th and 12th in walks.

He also failed to develop young pitchers, and in some cases even derailed them. In 1992, Garner rode a pretty good pitching staff very hard -- 261.2 innings from Bill Wegman, 246 from Jamie Navarro, 231.1 from Chris Bosio, and 100.1 in a half-season from 24-year old phenom Cal Eldred. Wegmen and Bosio were veterans, but neither pitched 200 innings again.

Navarro, 25, pitched eight more seasons but had an ERA under league average just twice, while Eldred pitched 258 innings the following year and has never been the same. Several years later, Garner pulled a similar trick with Jeff D'Amico, although to be fair D'Amico began having injury problems in high school and has never really been 100% healthy for any significant stretch.

In Detroit, Garner was a bit easier on his young ace Jeff Weaver, though Weaver did toss 229 innings last season. It's also worth noting that he's the only starter under age 28 the Tigers used regularly during Garner's tenure, though that likely would have changed this season.

Before being hired in Detroit, it was clear Garner didn't understand walks or pitcher abuse, and he didn't exactly have a proven winning record. Yet he was hired anyway largely because the man doing the hiring was Smith, who doesn't come with a stellar track record himself.

Not only have the Tigers averaged 93 losses per season over Smith's tenure, but for the most part his big moves have failed. He gave up quite a bit to get one year of Juan Gonzalez, who sulked, sucked, and then walked away as a free agent. Last winter he let the club's best hitter, Tony Clark, go on waivers. Clark isn't the greatest and has injury problems, but couldn't he have extracted at least an A-ball pitching prospect from some team?

Perhaps more importantly, he failed to build the club to fit Comerica Park. As Gonzalez showed, it doesn't favor sluggers and should instead be filled by players with decent speed and good gap power. Some more walks would help too. The Tigers also finished 13th in ERA last season, a remarkably bad figure considering their home park, and Smith leaves with the farm system in marginal shape at best.

But enough about the firings themselves -- I doubt you'll find many who disagree with removing Phil Garner and Randy Smith. The question remains, however: Why did team president Dave Dombrowski wait so long to make the move?

When Dombrowski was hired back in November, everyone knew he'd wind up the general manager eventually. Why not fire the pair then, make himself GM and bring in a manager of his own choosing? By waiting a week into the season, he's essentially rendered this season useless.

If you bring in a new manager early enough, he has time to set the tone and put his mark on the club. As it stands now, they're probably looking at interim manager Luis Pujols for the rest of the year, followed by an off-season search for a new skipper.

Finally, if Dombrowski really made this decision based on the Tigers' 0-6 start, then he's incredibly shortsighted. I don't think that's why he made the move, however, and in the end they should be much better off with him at the helm. The Tigers have the advantage of not playing in either the AL West or East, where it wouldn't take a miracle for them to be a playoff contender. At the very least, he has showed interesting in building a strong farm system and should improve the club in that regard.

about the author

Contrary to the rumors on the 'net, Jason Michael Barker has not been contacted regarding the Tigers managerial position. Feel free to offer him a job managing a Dairy Queen instead at jmb@strikethree.com.

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