kutulu

As a DBacks fan, Bob Melvin had it coming for a long time. I hear a lot about how it isn't his fault that his players aren't performing and there is some truth to it but there are a lot of things that contributed to this. AZ had one of the best farm systems around. They were loaded with top prospects. Almost none of them have reached their potentials under Bob Melvin's management. Prospects that they gave up on have done very well under new management:

a. Scott Hairston. His best performance with AZ was a .735 OPS (extreme hitter's park) in 2004 (Brenly/Pedrique). Now in SD, he has had OPSs of .981, .781, and 1.062 with 29 HR in 530 ABs. SD is a terrible place for hitters and he has excelled there.

b. Alberto Callaspo. Melvin didn't play him and got nothing out of him. In Kansas City he has been a .300 hitter.

c. Carlos fucking Quentin. He couldn't play under Melvin's management but has been one of the best LF's in the AL.

Their choice of AJ Hinch as the new manager is VERY interesting and totally unconventional. I've heard a lot of talk about the type of manager to get things going but I think they are looking at it too traditionally. Before this, Hinch was their Director of Player Development since 2006 and their manager of minor league operations. He was the one the implemented the programs that got this group of players to the MLB level. They all excelled in the minors so maybe he can help fix what is wrong with them.

At the same time, there is a large experimental portion of this. Hinch is one of Josh Byrnes's (GM) right hand men. They will be working together to really evaluate who on the roster should be kept and who should be traded. Bynes was already doing a lot of directing to Melvin in terms of bullpen usage and other things. Now Byrnes will have a lot more control over the game management. If they went with some butt kicker like a Bowa-type Byrnes wouldn't be able to have this level of control. I also don't think that they view Hinch as a long term manager. Hinch is a future GM, he's wasting his true skill set as a coach. He's there to help evaluate and develop young players at the MLB level.

Overall, this move has a lot more long term thought to it than 2009. Byrnes is signed as GM through 2015 and this ownership group is way too cheap to fire him. He has the job security to take this type of a risk.

The team also fired the hitting coach and the pitching coach resigned.