Fair Or Not, The Dodgers Are Probably Done With Don Mattingly

By Bobby DeMuro
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Updated: October 17, 2015

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The Los Angeles Dodgers are ending another season prematurely — well, prematurely relative to their organizational expectations, despite lasting longer than about 22 other big league clubs. Unfortunately for Los Angeles, finishing in the final eight doesn’t win you anything, and even after 92 victories and a payroll sheet longer than Donald Trump’s enemy list, 2015 is a big blue failure no matter how you slice it.

That failure comes down to a lot of things: unfortunate injuries to guys like Hyun-jin Ryu and even Brandon McCarthy, underwhelming outings from a beleaguered bullpen, underperforming veterans (Jimmy Rollins), younger players (Yasiel Puig) and rookies (Joc Pederson), and the starting pitching depth of a little league team. (That is, besides those first two pitchers in the rotation; those two were pretty good.)

Those things can reflect on a team’s front office, of course; it’s on a general manager and his staff to give a field manager enough depth and options within the organization to withstand the inevitable injuries and ineffectiveness that come every year. But beyond that, fair or not, the manager must take the heat for a season’s worth of failure. And in this case, Don Mattingly is probably that guy.

To be honest, I’m personally pretty ambivalent towards Mattingly’s future in L.A., but — against all odds — a letter to the editor in the Los Angeles Times I happened upon captures what might be a pretty common viewpoint among Dodgers fans:

I fully understand that a manager does not pitch, hit, run, throw or, in the case of the Dodgers, cover third base. But the main reason Don Mattingly has to be let go is his constant lineup changes, lack of team continuity and absolutely mindboggling in-game maneuvers. Mattingly changed his lineup each and every game. If a player doesn’t know if he’s playing, where he’s playing or where he’s batting, there is no way for a team to jell.

Only Mattingly knows why he continued to bat a struggling Seager second, third or fifth. Only Mattingly knows why he continued to play Grandal even though he had one hit in his last 32 at-bats and four in his last 61. Only Mattingly knows why he would pinch-hit Carl Crawford, who at the time was one for 11, or Chase Utley, who couldn’t hit his weight. Only Mattingly knows why he put Pedro Baez in with the bases loaded even though he knew his stats against the first batter he faced. Mattingly proved he could not handle a team filled with overblown egos, demanding veterans and coming-of-age rookies. Dodgers fans deserve better.

Geno Apicella

Placentia

Geno! My man! Obviously, he’s cherry picking specific (but major!) instances of the Dodgers’ skipper going the wrong way, and of course hindsight is always 20/20, but after a difficult NLDS loss (again), I’d guess the majority of Dodgers’ fans are somewhere in the neighborhood of Mr. Apicella’s perspective here.

Could Mattingly stick around next year? Sure. Does Mattingly deserve to go? Maybe not. He did lead a ballclub that finished 22 games over .500 and won their division (again); the postseason isn’t about the best team winning but more so the best-equipped, or the hottest, or the one with the right parts at the right time. (Doesn’t it sound like I’m making excuses for him?)

Here’s the bottom line, since I have yet to take a solid stance on Mattingly staying or going: I believe he’ll be fired this offseason — and maybe within the next week or two. It’s not that he’s deficient or ineffective in some significant way; he’s a decent enough skipper, and if you look hard enough over 162 games with any manager, you’ll find points of hindsight on which to pull out the pitchforks.

But with a team that has seen sky-high expectations every day for the past several years, and no postseason success to show for it, Mattingly’s going to be the fall guy this winter, fair or not. He knows this, and he understands it; he’s seen it during his playing career and he’s a big boy. Mattingly can and will land on his feet, too; there’s already interest in his services across the league, should Los Angeles move on.

Happy trails, Don. Just wait until we all start speculating about his successor!

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