WK Fired: Bad Timing?

[RedsManRick]

What does mean? Seriously, I don't understand the point inferred by this statement, yet it's ubiquitous.

Why is firing Wayne now bad timing? What about firing him now is particularly worse for the organization than firing him in July or November?

I suppose one could look back and suggest that he should have been fired earlier, before he committed money to Fogg and Patterson. But you could carry that argument back as far as you wanted, with no logical stopping point. I don't think that sort of retrospective is fair.

Perhaps I'm wrong, the but the general gist of the comment seems to be that, if the Reds had made the decision to fire him, that they should have waited? The only questions that seem relevant to me are

1.) What additional harm is done by the timing of this decision?
2.) When would the time timing have been good?

[Cyclone792]

I think his firing has less to do with baseball reasons and more to do with "other" reasons. And if that's at least partially correct, then it's good to cleanse the organization of those "other" reasons rather than letting them continually build up.

Too many subtle hints are out there, and I just don't think "not winning" is a valid excuse 21 games into a season; the Reds are 9-12, not 4-17 or something. Something else was going on that triggered the boss.

[OnBaseMachine]

If they were gonna fire him then I'm glad to see them do it now rather than wait until after the draft and trade deadline.

[WMR]

What I would give to know "the whole story" about all of this.

[BRM]

I don't think "not winning" only refers to 2008.

[flyer85]

It's only bad timing because it could have been done in the off-season when a different GM could have addressed the glaring catching problem and the known redundancies of players that ended up on the made the 25 man roster. The issues that are a problem now where there during the entire off-season.

[Cyclone792]

I don't think "not winning" only refers to 2008.

If that was the case then the boss should have - and I think would have - canned Krivsky last fall.

Cast will come out and say in two dozen different ways in the presser today that it's a move made because the Reds weren't winning - and it will help keep the ugliness under the rug for the time being - but just think about it: turn two losses into wins and the Reds are 11-10.

[flyer85]

turn two losses into wins and the Reds are 11-10.

... and the fact that the Reds bench and catching situation is a disaster would still be glaringly obvious

[HokieRed]

There's a saying about retirement that as soon as you begin thinking about it you might as well go ahead and do it because you already have. By the same logic, I consider WK to have been fired on the day Walt Jocketty was hired.

[REDREAD]

What does mean? Seriously, I don't understand the point inferred by this statement, yet it's ubiquitous.

Why is firing Wayne now bad timing? What

In my opinion, as soon as Cast has made up his mind, the sooner he axed Wayne, the better.

My guess is that Wayne knew he was on thin ice this offseason. Cast probably laid it on the line, that he had better show progress towards making a winning team.

I think we have to question Wayne's ability to build a winning team, period.
Wayne recognized we needed a closer, but then spent the bulk of his effort on starting pitching while ignoring the rest of the roster.
He had a bunch of dead weight on this roster and did not move any of it, figuring that Cast would bail him out.

I would've preferred Wayne to get a bit creative. Someone suggested trading one of our albotrosses for Wes Helms. That would've been a good move to make. Would've liked to see Wayne move Freel for another below average player that at least was potentially useful.

[nate]

I say the timing is strange because it seems like a new GM would have more opportunity to shape the organization during the offseason.

[bucksfan2]

What does mean? Seriously, I don't understand the point inferred by this statement, yet it's ubiquitous.

Why is firing Wayne now bad timing? What about firing him now is particularly worse for the organization than firing him in July or November?

I suppose one could look back and suggest that he should have been fired earlier, before he committed money to Fogg and Patterson. But you could carry that argument back as far as you wanted, with no logical stopping point. I don't think that sort of retrospective is fair.

Perhaps I'm wrong, the but the general gist of the comment seems to be that, if the Reds had made the decision to fire him, that they should have waited? The only questions that seem relevant to me are

1.) What additional harm is done by the timing of this decision?
2.) When would the time timing have been good?

Wasn't Patterson invited to spring training as a non roster? I would assume that part of the deal he signed was that if he made the team he would make $3M a year but I think Patterson is more a Dusty move than anything. As for Fogg, if he can stay on this team the entier year and pitch to his norm then he is worth the $1M he signed for.

I neither like the decision as a whole nor the timing of the decision. I think Bob wants a winner, which I do as well, but I think he is going about it the wrong way. The time to buy yourself a winner has come and gone. Even the Yankees have decided that you need to build from within in order build a champion. I think when you look at teams shelling out long term contracts to players who have a year or two of success under their belt you have to be extra cautious in the FA market. I would imagine that down the road contrats that Longoria got will become more common place.

I really wonder how Jocketty is going to come in and fix the Reds biggest problem, the outfield. What is he going to do, both Dunn and Jr have veto power and the CF position is up for grabs with both Freel and Patterson out of options. Maybe the time for Bruce to come up is now but his left handed bat may not be what this team needs. The infield is set with EE, Keppy, Phillips, and Votto. The pen has been fairly good so far this season and the only pitching position up for grabs is the 5th slot.

One of the current problems with this team is the lack of wiggle room with the roster. Where do you add the bat? How do you add that bat? How are you going to change the makeup of this team when in reality the guys you would need to move in order to do so you cant.

[RedsManRick]

Given how often I've seen the comment, I'm a bit surprised to not see those defending it. I think all of us find the timing unusual, but I've seen the word bad or poor used explicitly at least a dozen times. Setting aside the weirdness of the timing, what makes the timing particularly "bad"? And given that, when is the ideal time to fire a GM?

My answer is that the worst timing would be in July for a team in the playoff hunt, as the new GM would not have sufficient time to build the relationships or scout the system necessary to set up the team for the stretch run. Late April timing is curious, but not particularly harmful, in my mind.

My answer for the best time? As soon as you know you want to.

It seems the real complaint isn't that firing him now hurts the Reds moving forward in some particular way. Rather, it's that if he was on the way out, why didn't Castellini do it sooner? Is that accurate?

[membengal]

Rmr, I think that last part is how I have been interpreting the complaints on timing. As in, why wasn't WK gone before this last off-season if that was the way they were eventually going to go.

[princeton]

unless the scouts abscond, then it's a good time to do the firing if it was going to happen anyway. Let Jocketty figure out next year's OF.

great question: would Jocketty have hired Baker?