I heard Bob C fired the Kriv-dog b/c he refused to sign Coombs to a long term deal.
Seriously, I'm 50-50 on this. I like a lot of things that Krivsky did. The Farm system seems to be much more stable, and while he doesn't get full credit for the Cueto's, Votto's, Bruces & Bailey's in the sytem, he does get credit for some or most of their development. He's been the opposite of Jimbo. If JimBo was here, Bailey would have been in the majors out of the gate last season, and probably would have made his debut a season before. Krivsky has proven to be patient w/ the young talent in the system, forcing them to remain on the same level. While he may be overpatient at times (see Bruce), I think in the long run its far better than the way Leatherpants rushed the next best thing up the big leagues hoping to make a big splash.
Krivsky also gets high marks for picking up Hamilton, Phillips and yes, even Ross. While Ross is certainly not the greatest catcher/hitter around, given the general dearth of catching in the big leagues, he was able to acquire at least min. production out of Ross for basically nothing. I think the production Ross has given the Reds (or some may say the lack there of) has been far greater to the organization than what the cost would have been to pick up a Salty or Johny Estrada or other "name" catcher that has moved around the last few seasons.
On the negative side, its been widely reported how Krivsky rubbed people the wrong way. Even worse was the repeated bad contracts to guys like Stanton & Castro. For a team like the Reds, you have to make every single buget dollar work for you. You can't afford to continually eat the contracts of a Milton, or Belisle or Stanton or Castro. All that does is take away the amount of money lying around to extend out an Adam Dunn long term.
I see a lot of worry about Jocketty trading away the farm to help the big league team. Somebody fill me in, Did Jocketty do a lot of that in St Louis? I know there were some trades, but they also put a pretty darn good team on the field for several seasons in a row. The Reds have not had a darn good team since 2000.
Once Jocketty came here, I thought it would pretty much take a playoff type season for Krivsky to return next season. I'm surprised it happened this early; there must have been a straw that broke Bob C's back. Perhaps a combination of things that convinced him it was time to make a move before this season is lost.