By: Nick Stasiak
The Atlanta Braves have fired manager Fredi Gonzalez. The Braves are at 9-28 at the time of the firing, so to some this doesn’t come as a surprise. However, this case is different. Fredi Gonzalez did not deserve to be fired.
In the past few years they’ve traded away key players such as Craig Kimbrel, Justin Upton, and Andrelton Simmons. The Braves have made it known that they are rebuilding. When they started the rebuilding plan the goal was to be good by 2017, when they move into a new stadium. Currently, it looks like 2017 wont be the year, but maybe 2018 could be. In the past two years Gonzalez wasn’t give a fair chance to win. They were set up to lose. Now maybe this year they’ve been a little worse then expected, but the difference between 60 and 66 wins really doesn’t mean much.
Fredi Gonzalez was hired as Braves manager in 2011 and his record since being hired was 434-413. 21 games over .500 isn’t terrible considering the teams they’ve had the past two years. And to take it a step further, if you take out the 2015 and 2016 seasons, Gonzalez’s record as Braves manager is 358-290, 68 games over .500. And he made the playoffs in two of his first four seasons.
So while this year wasn’t going good at all, Gonzalez didn’t deserve to be fired. When given a team that could compete, he showed he was more then capable of being a good manager. Gonzalez should have been allowed to manage this team through the rebuild and have a chance to win with them once they got the players to be good again. Instead he was used as the scapegoat.
Featured Image via Wikipedia
