Nationals' manager Riggleman resigns

[RedFanAlways1966]

Me, me, me... <sigh>

Goodbye, Jim Riggleman. The Nats can win-or-lose with or without you. If I were a MLB GM, you'd never have to worry about my phone number appearing on your caller ID.

[cumberlandreds]

Originally Posted by Big Klu

Does Ray Knight still work in the Nats' broadcast booth?

He does the pre and post game. He also fills in as analyst when FP Santangelo is off.

Riggleman was just too arrogant to realize that decent to average managers are a dime a dozen. He wanted an exstention and the Nats called his bluff. I doubt he will ever get another manager or coaching job again in MLB. I don't why he just didn't stay around until the end of the season and take their money. If the Nats didn't extend him then he could walk away with a much better face on the situation. Now he looks like a quitter and whining cry baby. The Nats are above .500 this late in the season for the first time since 2005. Their first year in DC. If they had stayed that way at .500 or better the Nats would have had no choice but extend him at the end of the season. Its too bad for the franchise. They were actually starting to build a little excitement in DC for this team. Now the air has been let out for the moment. If they keep winning Riggleman will become just an afterthought. If they go back to losing then the good will they have built will fade away again.

[RedsBaron]

Riggleman will almost certainly never manage in the majors again. He quit on his team. If he had the managerial resume of a Hall of Fame caliber manager, or if he had been a Hall of Fame caliber player, then he could recover from this. He doesn't, he wasn't, and he won't.

[Roy Tucker]

Originally Posted by westofyou

[url]“I’m 58,” Riggleman added. “I’m too old to be disrespected.”

If I'm not mistaken, this is grammatically incorrect. "Disrespect" is either a noun or a transitive verb. Transitive verbs needs a direct object, e.g. "don't disrespect me". No direct object means an intransitive verb.

And I'm 58 and I get disrespected by everyone all the time. Join the club, Jim. Don't get too full of yourself. If you think you have it made, you don't. They can always do without you and always go find someone else. You aren't that special. Don't press your luck.

[cumberlandreds]

Riggleman has 662-884 lifetime record. 140-172 with the Nats. I don't think I would be demanding anything with a record like that. I linked an article from WTOP in DC and you read the comments of people in the DC area. The opinios are wide and varied to say the least.

http://www.wtop.com/?nid=490&sid=2434873

[Tom Servo]

Originally Posted by cumberlandreds

Riggleman has 662-884 lifetime record. 140-172 with the Nats. I don't think I would be demading anything with a record like that.

That's pretty much what it comes down to in my mind.

[westofyou]

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/ar...rticleid=14351

Riggleman might have considered the way managers and teams interact before presenting Nationals GM, and thereby ownership, with an ultimatum. His career record doesn’t testify to his being a transformational figure, and the recent Nationals turnaround is potentially an ephemeral little soap bubble. Bob Brenly won 92 games and a World Series (two things Riggleman has yet to do), and it didn’t prove he was a good manager. A 15-6 June no more made Riggleman indispensible than the team’s 23-31 record over the previous two months was grounds for immediate dismissal. Note that the Nationals have gone 7-1 in one-run games this month. That’s not progress, that’s a series of lucky breaks disguised as real progress.

[lollipopcurve]

This kind of stuff doesn't happen under an effective front office and ownership.

[Unassisted]

Originally Posted by Roy Tucker

If I'm not mistaken, this is grammatically incorrect. "Disrespect" is either a noun or a transitive verb. Transitive verbs needs a direct object, e.g. "don't disrespect me". No direct object means an intransitive verb.

And I'm 58 and I get disrespected by everyone all the time. Join the club, Jim. Don't get too full of yourself. If you think you have it made, you don't. They can always do without you and always go find someone else. You aren't that special. Don't press your luck.

I think this he meant it in the modern sense of the word. "Disrespected" has come to mean "not being paid as much as I think I'm worth." I despise this usage, because it tries to make salary negotiations, a business transaction, personal. What one is paid isn't about "respect," it's about being paid commensurate to the way one's performance benefits the business. It's a subjective measure, but "respect" is not part of that equation.

[cincrazy]

I don't agree with Riggleman quitting, but I won't drag him over the coals because of it. Clearly the ownership had no committment to him at all. Why stay around if you're only being used? That's probably how he looked at it.

[westofyou]

Originally Posted by cincrazy

I don't agree with Riggleman quitting, but I won't drag him over the coals because of it. Clearly the ownership had no committment to him at all. Why stay around if you're only being used? That's probably how he looked at it.

He was getting paid a salary, he was the leader of the team, he had a role... he was not being used.

[RedsBaron]

Originally Posted by westofyou

He was getting paid a salary, he was the leader of the team, he had a role... he was not being used.

Exactly. Riggleman's decision is so, well, dumb, it is almost inexplicable.
You previously mentioned how Walter Alston got his job managing Brooklyn after Charlie Dressen demanded a two year contract. It was a bad decsion on Dressen's part, but at that point Dressen at least had a managerial resume that he could correctly assume would cause him to get other offers if he parted ways with the Dodgers. In three years in Brooklyn Dressen's Dodgers had gone 97-60 in 1951, losing the NL title in a playoff, 96-57 in 1952, winning the NL pennant and losing the World Series in seven games, and 105-49 in 1953, losing the Series in six games. That is a wee bit better than the record of Riggleman's teams.
Dressen was right, as the Senators, Braves and Tigers all later gave him a job as manager, and the Dodgers even brought him back as a coach under Alston at one time. I doubt that Riggleman will get similar chances.

[westofyou]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/sports...AiH_story.html

Not getting on the bus? Not getting on the plane? Talk turkey or I quit? In three hours? Try that with your boss. Give me $700,000 for next year or I’ll resign in the middle of a long winning streak and say I didn’t get proper respect and fair treatment.




In Rizzo, Riggleman couldn’t have found a worse boss to nag about a new deal or one who would respond worse to his lobbying in the media (me included) for help.

Why? Because Rizzo faced the same obstacles when he became GM. Instead of whining about a longer deal, he did such a strong job that the Nats did what was obvious: They gave him a five-year contract. Rizzo replaced Jim Bowden on an interim basis in 2009. Then, the next year, he was on a short leash like Riggleman this year.

Rizzo said ex-president “Stan Kasten told me, ‘Forget the [expletive] contract. Own the job. Just be the [expletive] GM. Prove you’re the guy.’ ”

And Rizzo, even though he’d spent his whole life working up the baseball chain to be a GM, swallowed and did it. Talk about playing the wrong card with the wrong guy.

[westofyou]

For managers with 1,400 or more games, no one from 1900 on has a lower winning percentage than Jim Riggleman

[Unassisted]

Originally Posted by westofyou

For managers with 1,400 or more games, no one from 1900 on has a lower winning percentage than Jim Riggleman

That would make a great arbitration case for paying Riggleman the average salary of every manager since 1900. And I imagine he'd feel less respected than Rodney Dangerfield if he received that amount. He'd probably be making less than his team's traveling secretary.