I give him a solid B. He’s made some glaring mistakes (Bowen PH yesterday) along the way, but nothing too horrific. The way I look at it is that a manager will never win a game for his team, but he can definitely lose a game for his team – and he hasn’t lost many for the A’s. For the most part he goes by the book, rarely ever goes with the hot-hand and is loyal to his players (see Embree).

The injury situation has killed him. Luckily the SP has been healthy, but the offense and the bullpen (recently) have not been good to him. He’s done a good job w/ a team the was never expected to contend. 4 1/2 out in the WC at the ASB is impressive.

I remember earlier in the season when Blez posted a story reporting that he was within days/hours of being canned.

BTW…put Texas’ lineup w/ the A’s pitching a you would most definitely have the best team in baseball….we can only dream

Mostly harmless.

He overuses Embree and Foulke? Well, he was down Casilla and Devine. He lets Bowen hit? Well, his alternative was Murphy against a RHP who eats righties for dinner. Etc, etc. With all the injuries, Geren has piloted a team that has stayed in contention (somehow) and stayed upbeat. Well done.

Geren’s inability to make adjustments mid-inning in regards to the relief staff frustrates me to no end. Casilla gets guys on first and second with one out, Ziggler (a double play specialist) is warm in the pen. Casilla strikes out the first, then gives up the big hit and THEN gets replaced by Ziggler who induces a routine (double play) grounder to second for the last out of the inning. This isn’t an isolated situation, Geren has done this repeatedly with Embree, Foulke, Casilla and Brown. Some nights a guy doesn’t have it and Geren leaves him in, costing the A’s precious runs that this team obviously doesn’t have the offense to recover from.

But I’m of the opinion that the manager has much more of a chance of having a negative affect on a team.

Maybe it’s harping, but if the manager makes the right move and the team succeeds, HE DID HIS JOB. If he makes the right move and the team fails, the players didn’t do their job.

If he makes the wrong move (Embree vs 4 straight power hitting righties) and the team fails, it’s on him.

Geren’s job is to put the players in the best position to succeed. I’d say he’s probably doing “the right thing” about 80% of the time.

He’s got the team performing better than I expected them to and he’s doing it with half a AAA roster most of the time thanks to all the injuries. Like any manager, he makes some decisions that are questionable, but the end result is the A’s are playing above expectations and he’s kept them stable.

I can’t see anything less than a B being reasonable with the roster problems he’s had to deal with.

isn’t Oakland like the worst performer based on pythagorean records? I think he’s a bit too conservative and not flexible enough. Just seems to me that he doesn’t do enough when it comes to winning close games, although maybe that’s not fair with the injuries and the fact that yesterday happened well…..just yesterday

Yeah, the record would be better without the injuries. But the record would also be better without a manager who frequently made stupid decisions regarding bullpen usage. It’d be better without a manager who pinch hits cold, mediocre players for equally mediocre players. It’d be better without a manager who wasn’t just as bad as Macha.

AND STOP EFFING JUGGLING THE LINEUP SO MOTHEREFFING MUCH! It’s like he feels “oh my god, I have to do something!” so he flip flops guys in the order so nobody says “Hey, why is this guy even here?”

What I dislike about Geren is he has no “out of the box” thinking. With CarGon on third and only 1 out, why not try a suicide squeeze? Or more hit and runs when the situation calls for it. Sometimes a manager has to help an offense generate runs as well, get them kick-started. I know I’m gonna get some flack for saying this, but I like how Scioscia handles a game. He takes risks. Sometimes risks are necessary in order to win and stay competitive. I say let Geren go, put up De Francesca in the manager spot and jolt some life in this club, especially when we get our guys back from the D.L.

It’s seems that Geren is much like our rookie players, who are just learning how to hit the ball.. Geren seems to be in a learning stage as well. I like the fact that he is willing to play small ball more than Macha and I like the fact that he at least get’s off the bench when he needs to defend his players (Unlike Howe), but I think he’s slow to pull his pitchers sometimes when the game is on the line. That’s fine if you are just a training team looking to the future and maybe that’s what he sees, but if you have any serious thoughts about being a playoff team, I think you pay a little more attention to each game and what it means.