For MLB managers on the hot seat, impatience and incompetence make a tough job even harder to survive

The onramp for a major league manager has turned into a train platform. And it seems to only get easier for an impetuous owner or general manager to nudge a manager onto the tracks when things go sour.

“Parting ways” and “new voices” are definitely having a week, what with the Philadelphia Phillies pulling the plug on manager Joe Girardi, and days later staging an unlikely three-game sweep that stretched to 11 the Los Angeles Angels’ losing streak.

Two days later, Joe Maddon joined his fellow World Series-winning skipper on the unemployment line.

It’s not that the dismissals of Girardi and Maddon are stunning. Both signed on for gigs in upper middle class markets where expectations may not match the stomach of owners John Middleton and Arte Moreno to write bottomless checks until the team is perfect.

No, it’s more disconcerting that both were members of the Class of 2020, a group of 10 managers who began new jobs, knowing that most generally receive a three-year leash to prove their worth.

Now, five of those 10 have been fired, some with less than one full season in their tenure.

All had to contend with a 60-game, pandemic-driven schedule in their initial seasons. Some were in no-win situations even before then.

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Ron Roenicke and Luis Rojas were left to pick up the pieces after the Houston Astros’ sign-stealing scandal forced the exits of managers Alex Cora and Carlos Beltran with the Red Sox and Mets, respectively. The worst Red Sox team since 1965 made Roenicke – a valued bench coach under once and future manager Alex Cora – a one-and-done, while Rojas was consumed after just two seasons, lingering dysfunction from the past married with huge expectations from incoming owner Steve Cohen a deadly potion.

It’s the other three since fired that strongly suggest accountability – from owner’s suite to front office down to the dugout – flows in just one direction.

Remember Jayce Tingler? Not many knew of him in the first place, when Padres GM A.J. Preller tabbed the longtime front office guy, then 39, to guide the 2020 Padres, an enviable task. It was all swag and games in “Slam Diego” that year, and the Padres’ 37-23 pandemic mark was only slightly sullied by an NLDS throttling from the Dodgers. But 2021 – 79 wins, 83 losses, huge acquisitions like Yu Darvish and Blake Snell fizzling, superstar spats in full public view – exposed Tingler to be as overmatched as appearances suggested.

So Preller fired Tingler, his third manager in seven seasons. With the situation in Oakland untenable, Preller struck on a home-run hire – potential Hall of Fame manager Bob Melvin – and the Padres are playing as they should, at least for now.

Melvin should feel good regardless – Preller hired him and his credentials are strong. Girardi and Maddon, meanwhile, suffered from the dreaded Not My Guy Syndrome – exacerbated by the instability of the owners above them pushing the buttons.

Phillies owner John Middleton hired Matt Klentak to run the front office, hired Girardi as manager despite Klentak’s concerns, fired Klentak as GM after the major league and player development sides stalled and hired Dave Dombrowski to replace Klentak.

And it’s clear Dombrowski wasn’t overly enamored to inherit Girardi.

He fired the manager just 51 games into the season, relieving Girardi the pressure of several no-win situations, including the play-him-or-not quandary of rookie infielder Bryson Stott and franchise player Bryce Harper’s affinity for the fellow Las Vegas native – along with Middleton’s $742 milion investment in five players the past four years that created a win-now mandate with a depthless roster.

Girardi broke the club’s decade-long string of losing with an 82-80 record last year, but as this year muddled along, it was clear the cork in the bottle was near bursting. His dismissal was probably a relief for all parties.

In Anaheim, that wasn’t necessarily the case.

GM Perry Minasian inherited Maddon from fired GM Billy Eppler, who had Maddon foisted upon him by owner Arte Moreno, who insisted manager Brad Ausmus be fired after one year when Maddon came available.

This is stability?

Perhaps Minasian was chagrined he did not get a blank slate to chase Buck Showalter or someone similar this offseason. His firing of Maddon in the midst of a 12-game losing streak seemed to come at the first chance possible and sends a particularly bad message that can only come back to haunt the first-time GM.

In short: That surprising 24-13 start was all me, while that 12-game streak was all you, Joe.

Minasian hit all the usual if-you-want-accountability-point-at-me high notes in his media session. With Shohei Ohtani a free agent a year from now, Mike Trout nearly a decade removed from postseason play and Moreno unable to either identify a competent GM or give them the leeway to cook, the reality of Minasian’s surroundings may soon become too evident.

Maddon was largely congenial in his rounds with media after his firing, but made it clear with one response that the Angels exemplify the state of the game too well.

“It’s too much controlled by front offices these days,” Maddon told The Athletic. “I actually talked to Perry about this. This isn’t anything new. I said you just try to reduce the information you’re giving, try to be aware of who’s giving the information and really be aware of when it’s time to stay out of the way. In general the industry has gone too far in that direction and that’s part of the reason people aren’t into our game as much as they have been.”

The concept of managerial puppets has been ingrained for more than a decade now, but the “reduce the information you’re giving” piece sounds significant. Very new-age but also very successful teams like the Dodgers, Rays and Giants excel not just in organization but also dissemination – the club’s ability to boil down analytics is almost universally lauded by their players.

Maddon was something of an OG in this space, connecting with players on a human level while instituting widespread defensive shifts more than a decade before they were chic. His firing wasn’t stunning given the Angels’ arc this year, but it was to those who followed his path.

“I just know how great Joe is and I’m always going to support him and he’s going to support me,” says Baltimore Orioles manager Brandon Hyde, Maddon’s bench coach in Chicago. “He’s just a super class act and a great manager.”

For now, he’s an ex-manager, leaving just five skippers – David Ross (Cubs), Gabe Kapler (Giants), Dusty Baker (Astros), Mike Matheny (Royals) and Derek Shelton (Pirates) from the Class of 2020. It helps to win 107 games (Kapler) or an AL pennant (Baker) to keep your gig, or, like Shelton, take over an obvious rebuilding situation.

Beyond that? There’s little security in the dugout, even if – perhaps especially if – many of your problems are created by dysfunction or incompetence at higher levels.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: MLB managers find incompetence, impatience make hot seat even tougher