Kirk Gibson latest to go in Tony La Russa's purge of Diamondbacks
In the end, or three days from it, very little about the Arizona Diamondbacks was worth saving.
Not the general manager, who was fired – reassigned, whatever – three weeks ago.
And, as of Friday, not the field manager or his first assistant, either.
Hours after Dave Stewart was named to replace departed general manager Kevin Towers, the club announced it had fired manager Kirk Gibson and bench coach Alan Trammell. That announcement came 15 minutes before the news conference that would formally introduce Stewart.
So Tony La Russa's top-down cleansing of the baseball department, a project undertaken when he became the club's chief baseball officer in May, is at full gallop. La Russa, Stewart and just-hired baseball operations head De Jon Watson, who represent the Diamondbacks' fresh course, will hire the new manager, who will lead the men – new or otherwise – chosen for that course, and that's a lot of moving parts.
Any chance Gibson had of remaining in Arizona and under La Russa likely was lost in the past two months, when the Diamondbacks regressed from a mere poor team, but one potentially salvageable, to a dreadful one. Since Aug. 1 they are 15-35, and in recent weeks 4-15.
So bad were the Diamondbacks, in fact, Gibson was not allowed – or declined – to manage the final three games of the season, a weekend series against La Russa's former St. Louis Cardinals. Trammell, who, again, also was fired, will manage the Diamondbacks through Sunday.
In a statement, La Russa noted Gibson "…has done an admirable job under difficult circumstances," and yet the circumstances were, in the end, viewed in part as self-inflicted. Otherwise, one does not fire the man.
In a season viewed in spring to have some promise, the Diamondbacks reach the end of September with an offense in the bottom third of the National League and a pitching staff better than only Colorado's. That does not leave many players who would have performed to their capabilities, and cannot be entirely explained by season-ending injuries to No. 1 starter Patrick Corbin (in spring) and team MVP Paul Goldschmidt (in mid-summer).
Of his four-plus seasons in Arizona, Gibson had one winner, in 2011. That team was taken out in the division series by Ryan Braun and the Milwaukee Brewers. The rest were just average or, in the case of this season, the worst in baseball.
Rumors surfaced in the past month that Gibson had "lost" the clubhouse, but those rumors generally ride along with sub-.400 winning percentages. Losing looks bad, and a lot of losing looks lazy, whether it is or isn't. Undeniably, the Diamondbacks spent a good portion of 2014 looking overmatched, which, by the end, cost Towers and then Gibson.
Now Stewart (with, presumably, great input from La Russa) will pick a manager to go along with his first GM gig. Or, perhaps, La Russa will pick a manager with some input from Stewart, and the new guy will have the benefit of a returning Goldschmidt and, at some point, Corbin.
That'll be a start, anyway, on the long way back.
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