There is no doubt that the second biggest question behind ‘Who will be the next GM?’ is ‘Who will be the next Manager?’.
With the Phillies currently standing as the bottom feeders of baseball (but looking at a number one pick), who do you look to as responsible for the Phillies downfall this season?
Sure, it’s easy to say that Ruben Amaro has gotten us to where we are now, but on a daily basis there is no where to look other than the Manager position itself.
Ryne Sandberg is an easy candidate for the failure of the Phillies at the beginning of the year. With his lackluster coaching style and quiet demeanor, the Phillies found themselves in a downward spiral that ended with the abandonment of a young squad in need of leadership.
In steps Pete Mackanin, dog whisperer of the Philadelphia Phillies, careening the young pups into a second half team that showed some promise. And then took a hard fall back to earth.
There are many fingers to point, in every direction on this team, but the one person who’s job it is to keep the team together, will have the biggest finger pointed at them when the dust has settled from the terrible fall that was the 2015 season.
So in the midst of a 100 loss season, the biggest headline of the week for the Phillies is not the fact that they are still the worst team in baseball by 4 games, or that Pete Mackanin mis-managed the final innings of their last game, it’s that Odubel Herrera was found to be ‘pouting’ by Mackanin, and in turn deserving of a benching for the rest of the game. Even ESPN ran the story.
So here we are at a cross-roads. With a new President of Operations at the helm, and a General Manager by the wayside, we have yet to hear anything from upper management about the Manager position that is still up for grabs.
Speculations have been running wild for some time now, especially when things were riding high for the Phillies, but now that the team is sort of back where they started at the beginning of the season, are you having any second thoughts on Pete Mackanin?
Leave your thoughts and speculations in the comments below!
UPDATE AS OF 4:00 P.M. Pete Mackanin has accepted position of Manager for the 2016 season.
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