Wow. I saw your earlier post, was about to come back here to castigate you for blaming Macha unfairly...and here you are, beating me to the punch. Way to acknowledge your errors, David.

However, the point I was going to make before you posted this remains unexpressed, I think. It is simply this: Macha was really little more than a cipher, a managerial extension of Beane in one of the more peculiarly-run organizations of the Majors. Just like he doesn't deserve all that much credit for the Athletics' success, he

Understand, this is a manager with so little power over on-field decisions that he wasn't even able to decide his own starting rotation for the playoffs. How many other playoff managers would submit such a crucial decision to a vote, one where Beane and his compadres - like Geren, who was best man at Beane's wedding, is a likely candidate for the new managerial job, and would never vote against his patron - held the cards? The answer is "few if any," and suggests the lack of control Macha really had over decisions like who to start and who to sit.

Word is now coming out that Macha had lost the clubhouse - though we ought to keep in mind that these leaks obviously all come from the FO, and discount bias accordingly - and this may be so, in which case it makes sense to make a change regardless. But given how much this team is a direct extension of Beane's specific will (and micromanagement), he ought to be pointing the finger at the real culprit of the Athletics ALCS failure: himself.

That is, of course, assuming one must point fingers at all. This analysis excludes the possibility that the A's simply ran into a better team that ate them up.

Hmm...re-reading your earlier post, it further occurs to me that perhaps you weren't being as negative towards Macha as I had assumed. (The "please, please, please hire a manager that understands the Moneyball approach" is what set me off - given that Macha was an extension of Beane's will, one might argue that he did understand that approach, or at least managed in such a way as Beane commanded.) Upon review, the mostly negative comments in the google search come from commentors, not from you.

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=2628358

Interesting to read Melhuse's comments, and also what Macha said about Kennedy, Harden, and Ellis. I understand that Macha was probably just trying to express confidence in his team, and wasn't trying to badmouth injured players...but at the same time, I can see why his comments they might be taken the wrong way.

Any A's skipper is necessarily going to have to play ball the way Beane wants his team to play, and is essentially going to be a caretaker manager. All he has to do is keep the players happy and manage the pen during the game...and with the staff Oakland usually has, it shouldn't be too tough a job.

If he failed as a motivator and lost the clubhouse, and given the comments from the ESPN article this probably isn't all just FO spin, then I can see why they decided to fire him.

hey, just wanted to give some insite coming from the bay area. apparently the rap on Macha is that he dosen't communicate well with players, and apparently several players complained to Beane about it. there was a story in a paper about Scott Saurebeck being gilbly informed by Macha that he wasen't on the postseason roster and wouldn't be invited to travel with the team, in front of teammates during a pregame clubhouse poker game in Anaheim. Adam Melhuse said recently that he hasen't spoken to Macha since August or something like that. Kotsay and Payton both griped about a lack of communitcation with Macha during the season. and i'd say there were definatly problems with his use of the bench. guys like Melhuse, Kielty and Perez would go weeks without getting any AB's and apparently without getting any feedback from the manager. so yes although the W-L records were always good it appears there were some communication issues there that weren't getting any better. and i do feel that the roster has enough talent on it that a new manager will be able to get a similar W-L record next year, pending offseason roster changes. who knows a new manager might even be able to get a little more production out of the bench provided he gets these guys involved in the team a little more and maybe a few more mop up spots late in blow out games to keep them fresh, i never understood why Macha would send out an ailing Chavez and a 38 year old Big Hurt when they were up or down by more than 5 late in a game. anyway Detroit sure made us realize that if you keep your bench guys involved you may get to a point where you need something big from an Alexis Gomez. just my 2 cents on the Macha situation.

I don't see what the big deal is. Macha had almost no power. He didn't make any decisions by himself. His only jobs, as far as I can tell, were to make in-game strategic decisions, to baby sit the players and make sure they were happy. From what I've read he wasn't very good at any of those three things, and Beane decided to get rid of him. I'm sure Beane'll bring someone new in, who also will have no power, and hopefully that guy will understand that he's just a glorified baby sitter. Whatever. It's just clear that Macha shouldn't have come back last year.

I wouldn't be so quick to blame Beane for this one, Jeff. There are some pretty damning on-the-record quotes from some pretty significant A's players in this SF Chronicle story

Part of this is that, until you get other GMs playing Moneyball! at least to the extent it's practiced on the bay, the concept is going to be defined by Billy Beane.

In the end, the problem may be that, while he's a pioneer, there are more capable practitioners out there.