Doc sez Krivsky FIRED!

[*BaseClogger*]

I think there are three things that possibly lead to this firing:

1. Hiring of Dusty Baker

2. Disagreement over whether or not to re-sign Dunn

3. Krivsky and Jocketty couldn't work together

[Mario-Rijo]

Originally Posted by REDREAD

DanO fought for his job too. I would have no respect for Wayne if he didn't fight for his job.

Wayne deserved the pink slip. Hopefully brighter days are ahead.
Cast was more than patient with Wayne. For those that think Cast was too impatient, how much longer do you give Wayne? Realistically, you can't give a GM a 7 year trial. You have to cut bait sooner than that if no progress is being made.

Good organizations have stablity only because they have good people in charge and those good people have earned the right to continue. Stability for the sake of stabliity makes no sense.

How about the length of the contract that he was given? That's the thing for me is that so many FO's/owners in sports complain about players and contracts but they turn around and do stuff like this. The guy was given a nearly bare minor leagues to work with, a 25 man that was more like a 3 or 4 man w/ massive amounts of 4A types or role players and with very little money to work with? And the worst part is he was able to improve not only the minors but the 25 man also with very few mega-contracts. And IMO only Cordero's contract could be considered overpaying (unless Arroyo continues to stink it up) at least from the contracts that WK had a part in. Sure he gave more $$$'s to about 4-5 guys than he should have but by no means in todays game is 3 or 4 million a mega contract.

Too me it was headed in the right direction and as soon as Jr's money was off the books that would have really given Wayne something to work with.

[Benihana]

Originally Posted by dougdirt

All GM's make bad moves. Wayne made a TON of real good moves as well. A lot more to outweigh the bad ones. Fast forward to July and what the roster is probably going to look like:
Votto, Phillips, Kepp, EE, Dunn, Bruce and Griffey. Harang, Cueto, Arroyo, Volquez and Bailey. Cordero, Burton and Bray. Honestly, is that team going to lose more than they win? Not very likely. Not in the long haul of a season. Yeah, Cormier sucked, Castro sucked, Stanton sucked.... he also is paying next to nothing for Harang, Volquez, Phillips and Keppinger. Dude has some head scratchers in there, but his entire body of work is very good. This team has the right pieces in place and he put them there.

Agreed. I also feel bad for Wayne Krivsky.

I've been told this move was made simply for two reasons:
1) Castellini loves Jocketty.
2) Krivsky had serious "people problems"

The word I got is that it really didn't have anything to do with the team's record, that was just an excuse. And that actually makes me feel much better about Castellini.

[Hoosier Red]

Originally Posted by REDREAD

Actually Milwaukee did know. Their GM acknowledged that Cordero came to them and expected the Brewers to top the Reds offer. The Brewers refused.
Cordero was going to whoever wrote the biggest check. Not a whole lot of skill in closing that deal.

IIRC Cordero's people didn't let the Brewers know who was offering that. The Brewers were a bit skeptical of this "mystery" team and refused to get into a bidding war.

[Mario-Rijo]

Originally Posted by REDREAD

I could see a case where Cordero said "Hey, the Reds offered me X" and the Brewers GM was taken by surprise. He refused to top the Reds bid, and Cordero was a Red an hour or two later.

But there seems to be a false perception that Wayne did some kind of major covert operation and the Brewers GM didn't have a clue until he we found out too. That's false and quite silly.

True I think it would be silly of us to think the Brewers didn't know until after everything was a done deal. However I think Wayne keeping things hush had to have helped some.

[NC Reds]

I won't lament too much if Jocketty shows commitment to young players and re-signs Dunn to an extension.

I don't trust him on either count though. I was not a Krivsky fan, but a dismissal this early in the season reeks.

[Sea Ray]

Originally Posted by OnBaseMachine

I disagree with Sea Ray. I absolutely believe Wayne Krivsky will land another GM job someday. Maybe not right away but he'll be a GM again. I thought he did a solid job overall and he should learn from his mistakes the next go around.

BTW the worst move he made (Kearns/Lopez trade) is starting to look like it could favor the Reds when it's all said and done. Bray is dominating AAA hitters and Daryl Thompson has regained his stuff and is dominating AA hitters so far.

We'll see. He did make some good moves and I think he was a better GM than O'Brien but he does leave behind of history of eating contracts that he negotiated and a trail of not having good people skills to others in the front office as well as the press. Those are negatives that he now has on his resume that he didn't have 3 yrs ago.

[Benihana]

where can i see the press conference?

[OnBaseMachine]

Wayne was talking on Reds Live and said he'll still follow this team and root like hell for them. You could tell he was barely holding back the tears.

[KronoRed]

Ahh...the sweet smell of dysfunction and chaos, Bob is scary.

[OnBaseMachine]

Starting over…again

By Hal McCoy | Wednesday, April 23, 2008, 05:05 PM

The first thing that came to mind when Bob Castellini spoke was former Russian premier Nikita Khrushchev pounding his shoe on a podium at the United Nations and saying, “We will bury you.”

Castellini, his face a solid concrete etched in solemn passion, looked down when asked, “Why now? Why fire general manager Wayne Krivsky now?”

Then his head shot up and he said, “We’ve come to the point where we just aren’t going to lose anymore.”

You could almost see Krivsky’s successor, Walt Jocketty, cringe at those words, although he later said, “I’m not worried about it, I do it because I want to do it, not that I need to do it.”

Castellini said the reason for Krivsky’s dismissal can mostly be found in the won-lost column. Is that fair? 9-12? Twenty-one games. Even Tony Perez lasted longer than that into a season, 44 games as manager before Jim Bowden fired him.

“Nobody in the organization is happy with our 9-12 won-loss record,” Castellini said. “We’ve had two losing seasons under our new ownership and we’ve started out this season poorly, on a won-loss basis, and that’s the primary reason we made the change.”

Castellini was testy when asked about continuity — four managers and six general managers (two were co-GMs on an interim basis in the last six seasons.

“We haven’t had six, we’ve had two,” he said, using semantics. The organization has had six GMs since 2002 — Jim Bowden, co-interims Brad Kullman and Leland Maddox, Dan O’Brien, Krivsky and Jocketty. “The franchise has…yes.”

So is he concerned about continuity? “Absolutely I am. Absolutely. I respect the question, but this has been a very tough decision. Krivsky did a whale of a job in some areas.”

Jocketty jumped to Castellini’s rescue.

“I believe in continuity,” he said. “Very much so. But sometime it takes a little time to get thins the way you want. There are a lot of quality people and quite a few quality players here and now we have to find a way to make it work.”

Jocketty says he is impressed with the staff, on the field and in the front office, and doesn’t anticipate any changes.

Manager Dusty Baker, the fifth manager in six years (Bob Boone, Dave Miley, Jerry Narron, interim Pete Mackanin, Baker) addressed the continuity issue, too. Asked about the importance of continuity, he said, “I think it is very important. Wayne did some great things here. He built our farm system. It is very important to keep some consistency, which is one reason I kept the coaching staff.

“I mean, you listen to quarterbacks complain about four offensive co-ordinators in four years. Doesn’t work. Good organizations keep a lot of the same people for a long period of time,” Baker added.

Krivsky appeared in the back of the press box after the Jocketty press conference and said his removal was a shot out of the dark. He said Castellini asked him Tuesday night to meet with him Wednesday morning at 8:30 and Krivsky didn’t see the axe above the door.

“It came out of the blue, it really did,” said Krivsky. “Completely shocked. I didn’t see this coming at all. What hurts so much is not to be able to see the job through. I had visions of being in the clubhouse with people pouring champagne over everybody. I’m hugely disappointed I’m not able to finish the job.

“I fought for an hour to keep my job,” he said. “I fought hard for my job. I love it here. I loved my job. And I had laughs. You have to have laughs in this job and I did in two years. I only wish it was 22. It wasn’t my call. But I disagree strongly with the decision. I still think I’m the right guy for this job. But Bob will admit he is an impatient man. I’ll sleep good tonight…well, maybe not tonight.

Jocketty is confident he can do in Cincinnati what he did in St. Louis, turning a similar market from moribund into a winner, seven playoffs in 13 years.

“This franchise is very similar to what we had in St. Louis, a winning tradition, great fans, great community, but they hadn’t won in a long time in St. Louis, either,” sjaid Jocketty. “There are a lot of similarities between St. Louis and Cincinnati. This is a storied franchise with tradition. Dusty Baker and I are very motivated, guys with a vendette and a little chip on our shoulder.”

That’s because Jocketty was fired in St. Louis after last season and Baker was fired in Chicago after 2006.

Asked about his basic philosophy, Jocketty said, “Win.”

That’s what they all say.

“

“Look at an unbiases source like Baseball America, who had the Reds farm system rated 27th to 30th when I got here, now they rank us in the top three or four,” said Krivsky. “In two years? Dam right I’m proud of that. I’m humongously proud of that. We’re one of the most respected organizations in baseball and I’m damn proud of that.”

http://www.middletownjournal.com/o/c...overagain.html

[nate]

Originally Posted by REDREAD

DanO fought for his job too. I would have no respect for Wayne if he didn't fight for his job.

Wayne deserved the pink slip. Hopefully brighter days are ahead.
Cast was more than patient with Wayne. For those that think Cast was too impatient, how much longer do you give Wayne? Realistically, you can't give a GM a 7 year trial. You have to cut bait sooner than that if no progress is being made.

Good organizations have stablity only because they have good people in charge and those good people have earned the right to continue. Stability for the sake of stabliity makes no sense.

At least 'til the end of his contract.

Now the period you give to someone as "patience" starts over.

[Falls City Beer]

Originally Posted by KronoRed

Ahh...the sweet smell of dysfunction and chaos, Bob is scary.

Yeah, it looks ugly from the outside, but sometimes great things require some political violence. If the whole organization has to be revamped from top to bottom once again, then yeah, it has been a horrible disaster. But if this is the shock that galvanizes the corpse, it will not have been in vain.

[westofyou]

As I was getting ready to file this article, the news broke that Wayne Krivsky was going to be fired and replaced by Walt Jocketty. The only surprise is the timing, which seems silly. When Bob Castellini hired Jocketty and Dusty Baker, it was clearly that Krivsky’s days were numbered. I can’t say I understand the decision to let him go three weeks into the season; it’s not like you shake up a team by firing the GM.

Krivsky’s work in Cincinnati was a mixed bag. He had an absolutely terrific record on minor deals, acquiring contributors such as David Ross, Jeff Keppinger, Brandon Phillips, Dave Weathers, and others for next to nothing. On the other hand, he may be best remembered for his biggest deal, in which he dealt away Austin Kearns and Felipe Lopez in an attempt to bolster the Reds’ bullpen back in 2006. The trade was a disaster, and overshadows what was actually a solid record outside of it. Krivsky inherited a flawed team, and if he didn’t push it into contention, he made it marginally better over the years by identifying upgrades. Certainly Jocketty has a longer and more impressive c.v., but this decision is more about personal relationships—Castellini and Jocketty go back a long way—than performance. It was inevitable, but that doesn’t make the timing any less strange, and in fact, counterproductive. When the Reds win down the road, as they will, Krivsky will deserve a significant piece of the credit that will no doubt go largely to Jocketty.

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/ar...articleid=7414

[princeton]

Originally Posted by OnBaseMachine

“Nobody in the organization is happy with our 9-12 won-loss record,” Castellini said. “We’ve started out this season poorly, on a won-loss basis, and that’s the primary reason we made the change.”

Reds are going to out-Steinbrenner everyone.