Yesterday, the D'backs became the D-bags, firing manager A.J. Hinch and GM Josh Byrnes, not too long after he had signed a lengthy contract extension.
Hinch is no household name, and the team has a record that looks worse than the Red Sox injury report these days. However, one has to wonder how these decisions come to be. Everything I've seen from Josh Byrnes over the past several seasons has been nothing but positive. Yes -- his team has struggled of late since a promising 2007 campaign -- but to let one of the best YOUNG, INTELLIGENT, general managers walk like that? They just did someone else a large favor.
A little background on Josh, he grew up under Theo Epstein's wing, helping construct the 2004 team as assistant general manager. He's very bright and believes fully in developing the farm system. Him and his assistant, Peter Woodfork, deserve a lot of credit for the Kevin Youkilis's and Clay Buchholz's of the world. They know how to construct both big league rosters and create a farm system.
Byrnes found talents like Justin Upton and even made big deals to get ace Dan Haren from Oakland for very little. His age is appealing and so is his mind; he'll make a very good general manager for somebody next year, and the results will be good.
Arizona raved about A.J. Hinch's scouting and baseball mind (former player). He was Byrnes' guy, but didn't have the experience to lead a lousy roster. Don't blame Byrnes on the roster; ownership there has been cheap and caused the GM to dismantle an outstanding D'Backs team that went to the NLCS just a few seasons ago.
Cleaning out Byrnes doesn't help. The guy replacing him, Jerry DiPoto, has gotten similar reviews of being a great scout (another former Sox scout). The same management and scouting is still in place; it's hard to understand what Arizona is trying to accomplish. In this case, if you don't want Byrnes running the team, then clean house -- because his crew is still very much in place.
JMO
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