To be fair, something did change in those 24 hours, and that change was an absolutely humiliating 21-0 loss on Saturday night just after the GM went to bat for his manager. That loss dropped the Rockies to 6-33 and continued what has been one of the worst starts in the history of Major League Baseball.
That sort of loss, in this kind of season, is going to get some attention and probably result in some kind of a change.
It did.
But the harsh reality for the Rockies is firing Black is not the sort of change that is going to fix anything in a meaningful way. Just as it was with the Pittsburgh Pirates and Derek Shelton earlier this week, firing the manager is nothing more than window dressing for a bumbling, incompetent franchise.
It’s saying to the public, “Well, we had to do something, and this was probably the easiest thing to do.”
Whether or not Black was doing a bad job is a small potatoes question when you look at the bigger picture situation that is the Rockies organization.
That picture is ugly. The roster stinks, the ownership has not shown much of a commitment to winning and the team is already coming off back-to-back 100-loss seasons, which followed a 94-loss season. Unless something dramatically changes in the next few months, this is going to be a third consecutive 100-loss season and perhaps one that shatters the major league record for futility.
No manager is that bad.
No field manager is responsible for that level of losing.
That is a problem that goes far beyond and far above any one person in the dugout. There is no lineup order, no bullpen usage and no situational call that is going to turn that sort of team into something competitive.
The Rockies had to do something. They had to make somebody the fall guy just to keep up appearances that they are trying something. But firing Black is nothing more than that sort of move.
Warren Schaeffer will take over an interim basis, and the results will not dramatically change this season.
They will hire somebody new on a permanent basis this offseason who will come in and talk about changing the culture, playing the right way, establishing an identity and building something.
It will sound good. It will make for great quotes and soundbites. But as long as Dick Monfort keeps running the team the way he has in recent years, and as long as the roster keeps looking like a Triple-A collection of talent, none of it is going to matter.
Black took the fall for this mess. But he is not the one who caused it.
