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The Marlins’ recent decision to fire Fredi Gonzalez has not worked out so far. They were just swept by the Padres, and on top of that, Bobby Valentine, their primary managerial target, will probably not join the squad because of philosophical differences.

What does this mean to Marlins fans?

It means the Marlins will probably not land a top-notch manager for the rest of the season. Let’s discuss two in-house candidates, including the current interim manager.

Edwin Rodriguez has been abysmal in his first four games. He has lacked authority while talking to umpires, and making hard decisions. It seems as if he isn’t comfortable when having to fight for his team.

Bo Porter may just land the top job. He used to work with the Marlins as a third base coach, and he is the favorite now, I say this because of his experience with the players and the front office.

Porter and Rodriguez have already interviewed formally for the position, so if Valentine hasn’t been formally contacted or interviewed in the next few days, I’d consider him permanently out of the running.

Right now, the Marlins are staying with Edwin Rodriguez, but if their play continues to be sloppy, I wouldn’t be surprised if they demote him back to Triple-A, and call in Bo Porter.

Bobby Valentine may still end up managing the Marlins because he has a good relationship with owner, Jeffrey Loria.  You never know, they could sign him out of nowhere. 

A similar about-face happened during Josh Johnson’s recent contract negotiations. There was an impasse, until surprisingly, the Marlins resigned him to a lucrative deal.

So keep an eye out! The Marlins front office is rather unpredictable, and we could be surprised yet.

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What an unbelievable day it was in sports yesterday! How about that soccer game!

When Landon Donovan scored that goal, I screamed, “YES!” in my office. I felt bad because one of the girls on my team was giving a demo of our product and I completely threw her off.

I am pretty sure that is not in the being a good manager manual.

We also saw a 10-hour tennis match yesterday. A 10-hour tennis match! I can’t even sleep for 10 hours, let alone play a highly competitive tennis match.

Unfortunately, there was one guy who didn’t think yesterday was a great day in sports. His name is Fredi Gonzalez.

The Florida Marlins fired Gonzalez and two coaches yesterday. The Marlins replaced Gonzalez with minor-league manager Edwin Rodriguez on an interim basis.

Can’t say I’m really shocked by this.

The Marlins wanted to fire Gonzalez at the end of last year, but decided to bring him back for another season. Gonzalez’s fate was sealed, however, due to the Marlins slow start, coupled with his incident with star player Hanley Ramirez earlier this season.

Despite the Marlins being two games under .500 (34-36) entering last night’s action, they have been playing better as of late, so the timing of the move is a bit curious.

I guess Marlins’ owner Jeffrey Loria is hoping for the same results in 2010 as he got in 2003 when he fired Jeff Torborg 38 games into the season.

The Marlins replaced Torborg with Jack McKeon and the team went on to win the World Series. I believe Loria will seek another high-profile manager to replace Gonzalez/Rodriguez.

That manager is Bobby Valentine.

Valentine managed the Texas Rangers when Loria owned the organization’s Triple-A team in Oklahoma from 1989 to 1992. So there is a connection.

Even if they do hire Valentine, I am not sure how much a difference he is going to make. It’s hard to win when your team has a mediocre bullpen and a lousy defense.

Here is how I think the managing carousel will break down:

Florida Marlins: Bobby Valentine

Baltimore Orioles: Buck Showalter

Atlanta Braves: Fredi Gonzalez (when Bobby Cox retires, of course)

You can follow The Ghost of Moonlight Graham on Twitter @ theghostofmlg

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The Florida Marlins have struggled this season, and Fredi Gonzalez could have been one of the many reasons why.

Florida has faced many problems. Some of the biggest involved the bullpen and the lack of offensive production.

Yet, I do not think any of these issues have to do with Gonzalez and his managing.

The rumors of Gonzalez getting canned have floated around since last year, once Bobby Valentine started looking for a job. I took this as a great surprise since Fredi, with almost nothing, nearly took this team to the playoffs.

Gonzalez has been fantastic for the Marlins, taking control and helping this young team through consistent growing pains. Yet, as Marlins fans, we have to ask ourselves the question.  

Is the change necessary?

From my point of view, the change will do some good. If the Marlins land Bobby Valentine, they could possibly change things in a positive way. Taking new approaches to situations could pull this Florida team in another direction. 

A similar situation happened in 2003.

Jeff Torborg led  Florida to a terrible start. Then along came Jack McKeon, who gave the Marlins new life. He also guided them to the playoffs, where Florida eventually beat the Yankees to capture a World Series title.

I don’t want to say firing Gonzalez will be all fine and dandy. We won’t know the outcome for a few weeks. But from my point of view, firing Gonzalez wasn’t necessary.

What was—and still is—necessary is getting the Marlins decent bullpen help. 

The other thing that grinds my gears is that if Jeffrey Loria invested more money into this team, we would not be having any managerial issues. Instead, we would probably be the best team in the league.

But since we are stuck with the worst owner in baseball, they shouldn’t be pinning all the blame on Gonzalez, one of the finest managers in the National League.

To answer the question of this article, the Marlins are not making a mistake. Instead, they are heading in a different direction, and I’m sure Fredi understands this.

Although this action isn’t necessary, it will hopefully give this Marlins team new life, and the opportunity to make wrongs right.

Gonzalez won’t take this so hard.

After all, he has a job in Atlanta waiting on his doorstep.

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In 2006, first-year manager Joe Girardi led the inexperienced Florida Marlins to a 78-84 record. The team, which started six rookies, became the only club to pass the .500 mark after being 20 games below earlier in the season. Four rookie starting pitchers—Josh Johnson (who now has the NL’s third-best ERA), Ricky Nolasco, Scott Olsen, and Anibal Sanchez—each won at least 10 games.

Florida became the first organization to achieve that feat, and the Marlins nearly made the playoffs as the NL Wild Card. For his efforts, Girardi earned National League Manager of the Year.

And a pink slip.

Rumor had it that Girardi didn’t get along with owner Jeffrey Loria and president David Samson. Along came Fredi Gonzalez, a long-time coach in the Marlins’ minor league system and a former third base coach for the Atlanta Braves.

Friendly and welcoming, Gonzalez was the opposite of Girardi’s hard-nosed demeanor.

The following year, Florida finished in last place with a 71-91 record and virtually the same lineup. Gone was Girardi’s discipline and accountability for mental and physical mistakes. Instead, in charge was a manager who wanted to be everyone’s friend and who answered directly to the ownership.

Last year, Girardi led the stacked New York Yankees to a World Series championship in just his second season. Gonzalez, meanwhile, faced trouble in South Florida despite garnering NL Manager of the Year honors.

Superstar Hanley Ramirez, recently taken out of a game for a lack of hustle, doesn’t give it his all through a 162-game season. He would go on to criticize Gonzalez, and make no mistake that Ramirez is more important to the organization than a manager with a 276-279 career record.

Players like Dan Uggla continue to swing at the same bad pitches for six years. Relief pitcher Renyel Pinto took the mound in key situations for several seasons despite a lack of control.

Lineup confusion helped the Tampa Bay Rays defeat the Marlins in a vuvuzela-fueled game Saturday night. Wouldn’t it be ironic if the same air horns that express triumph during the FIFA World Cup indirectly led to Gonzalez’s firing?

With Triple-A New Orleans’ Edwin Rodriguez as the interim manager, it will be interesting to see whether Bobby Valentine is asked to coach the Marlins. Before this season started, Gonzalez was considered on the hot seat and Valentine was seen as a prime target to take over.

Many would call Loria, Samson, and Larry Beinfest, the president of baseball operations, crazy for believing that Florida has been underachieving. What with the fifth-lowest payroll in baseball, just two of the teams below them have better records (the first place Texas Rangers and San Diego Padres).

But through 70 games, the Marlins remain two games below .500, just as they were last year. Though the bullpen can’t be blamed on Gonzalez, it’s about time this season stopped from spiraling out of control.

So long, Fredi.

Have a great time coaching the first-place Braves next season as a replacement to legend and friend Bobby Cox.

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Embarrassing. Unbelievable. Head-scratching.

No, I’m not speaking of the seventeen Florida Marlins relievers to put on a jersey this season.

This morning’s firing of all-time winning manager, Fredi Gonzalez, will more than likely go down as the dumbest thing the Jeffrey Loria/Larry Beinfest regime has been a part of. 

That’s saying quite a bit, considering this is the same power tandem who pulled the trigger on a deal that sent a future Hall of Famer (Miguel Cabrera) to the Detroit Tigers for a left-handed pitcher who can’t get hitters out in Double-A Jacksonville (Andrew Miller), a center fielder who supposedly has five tools, but looks more like Reggie Abercrombie every day (Cameron Maybin), and a veritable “who cares?” of minor league lifers.

Loria’s statement to the media?

“We believe we can do better and be better. We owe it to our fans to put this team in the best possible position to win. Everyone knows how I feel about winning. That’s the reason we’re making this change.”

If I could offer a suggestion: in order to put the team in the best position to win, you have to actually invest in the team. 

Sure, they’ve made long-term deals with primadonna Hanley Ramirez and Cy Young candidate Josh Johnson. Their skills and talent go to waste when you piece together a bullpen whose most productive member is Leo Nunez.

No lead is ever safe!

The bargain bin method used to work (see also: Joe Borowski, Todd Jones, Kiko Calero). However, when teams (and agents) saw this ploy, bigger deals were made with pitchers who would normally take the league minimum salary and cash in the next year. This left the scrap heap even more bare than before.

At the end of the day, this ownership has made it very difficult for Marlins fans (all 10 of us) to continue staying committed to the team. 

Fredi did everything that was asked of him, only to be toyed with in the offseason by an owner who thought “Vuvuzela Night” was a great idea.

This is the same owner who sold tickets to a perfect game thrown by the opposing pitcher , post-game. I’m thinking Rachel Phelps of “Major League” fame would make a better owner at this point.

At least then the team would have a pipeline to the California Penal League.

To be honest, Fredi is better off. Now he can go a fulfill his destiny to be the apparent heir to Bobby Cox with the Atlanta Braves, just like Joe Girardi did with the New York Yankees. He deserves better and come the offseason, he’ll get it.

In the meantime, the Marlins can enjoy the same mediocrity with the same missing pieces, but with an interim manager who’ll get the same axe soon enough.

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The Florida Marlins have fired manager Fredi Gonzalez, naming Edwin Rodriguez his replacement, but only on an interim basis.

Rodriguez has spent the past one-and-a-half seasons as manager of Triple-A New Orleans.

The team also said Wednesday it would be dismissing bench coach Carlos Tosca and hitting coach Jim Presley.

Florida moved to 34-36 following Tuesday night’s win over the Baltimore Orioles. Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria says he’s making the change because he believes the team can “do better and be better.”

Gonzalez was 276-279 in his three-plus years as Marlins manager. Sitting at 34-36, the Marlins began the day fourth in the NL East, 7.5 games behind the first-place Atlanta Braves.

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Mike Stanton is on his way to the Florida Marlins.

No, not that Mike Stanton. 

It’s the 20-year-old Los Angeles native, an outfielder currently in the Florida Marlins farm system. 

Several outlets have recently announced that Florida would call up Stanton sometime next week.  Some say they might be rushing the young outfielder who can’t even legally consume alcohol yet, but who can blame them for rushing?  In 50 games this season at double-A Jacksonville, Stanton is hitting .299 with 20 HR and 51 RBI. 

While Mr. Stanton will be given a starting job in the outfield from day one, that also means that one of the current Marlins outfielders will be losing a very decent amount of playing time. 

Florida isn’t calling this kid up just to give him a taste; they plan on keeping him here. 

Florida’s current three starting outfielders are Chris Coghlan, Cameron Maybin, and Cody Ross, from left-to-right. 

In less than a week, one of those starting outfielders will be a fourth outfielder. 

So who’s the most likely candidate to take a seat while Stanton gets to show off his stuff?

Let’s look at each guy’s credentials.

Chris Coghlan

.254 BA, 3 HR, 15 RBI

He was the NL Rookie of the Year in 2009, leading the entire National League in hitting in the second half of last year. 

He certainly didn’t look like ROY material in the beginning of 2010, batting just .195 with 3 RBI in the first month of the season. 

He’s definitely straightened up since, though. 

In his past 26 games, he’s hitting .310 with 11 RBI, mostly coming out of the one or two-hole in the lineup.  He’s also been reliable in left field, recording five outfield assists and only one error on the season, thus far. 

Cameron Maybin

.227 BA, 5 HR, 19 RBI

Talk about a long way to fall. 

In 2005, Maybin was tabbed the third-best hitting prospect in the MLB draft.  Two years after being selected 10th overall by the Detroit Tigers, he was traded after the 2007 season, as one of the main cogs in a package that netted the Tigers Miguel Cabrera and Dontrelle Willis from the Marlins. 

Maybin has disappointed in his first three years in Florida thus far, hitting only .261 with 9 HR and 33 RBI in 110 games.  He’s still only 23, so his talent is still extremely attractive to keep in the lineup. 

Cody Ross

.299 BA, 5 HR, 30 RBI

The veteran of the three current outfielders, 29-year-old had a career year in 2009, nailing 24 homers with 90 RBI.  Ross has been a starting outfielder for Florida since 2008, which is seniority, which might give him an edge in keeping his job once Stanton finds his way to the bigs. 

The only downside the Marlins could see to keeping Ross in the starting outfield would be they see the potential of Coghlan and Maybin to be more valuable than the assets they already know they would get from Ross. 

Coghlan has proven he can hit big league pitching for an extended period of time, and that swing of Maybin that had scouts calling him one of the best players in the 2005 draft has to still be there somewhere… right?

Not an easy call for Marlins’ manager Fredi Gonzalez to make.  But it’s sure an easy call for me to make, because I don’t have to make the lineup card everyday. 

In my opinion, Maybin has struggled for a little too long to be ignored now.  Very few players come up to the majors, struggle mightily for the first few seasons as Maybin has done, and then have successful big league careers. 

Coghlan is a current .301 career hitter and maybe the best defensive outfielder on the team right now, so you’d be crazy to take him out. 

Ross is currently the right fielder, but can easily move over to center field to accommodate Mike Stanton, who is also a right fielder. 

These next couple of years will be Ross’ prime, and when he gave you decent power and RBI numbers last year, it’s not fair to sit him either. 

Maybin has performed the worst of the three, it’s just a fact.  It’s not in the stats, but as a nightly viewer of MLB highlights, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen Maybin overrun or misjudge a fly ball in the outfield. 

When Stanton gets called up within the next few days, Maybin should be the one to take a seat. 

If he’s not, it’ll be a pretty big injustice, because the choice wouldn’t have been made due to baseball priorities. 

Sorry Cameron, but right now, you are the weakest link.

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[Every day, stories spread throughout the sports world of another athlete or coach or team involving themselves in situations that inevitably need some PR spin.  Regardless of the severity of these issues, our very own Dr. Aaron Perlut will be there to analyze the situation and offer up some free professional advice.  Because if there is anything comparable to Dr. Aaron’s knowledge of mustaches, it’s his knowledge of public relations ]

Did you pay attention to the the flap in the Florida Marlins clubhouse between defending National league batting champion Hanley Ramirez and Manager Fredi Gonzalez? This is the same Fredi who reportedly dots the “i” on the end of his first name with a heart.

In case you’ve been on a Mickey’s Big Mouth bender and missed it: during Monday night’s game against Arizona, while trying to field a bloop hit, Ramirez booted the ball into the left field corner. He then jogged after the ball at a less-than robust pace, allowing two runners to score.

Citing Ramirez’s lack of hustle, Gonzalez benched his all-star shortstop for Tuesday’s game, and the player called out his manager.

“He can do whatever,” Ramirez said. “There’s nothing I can do about it … He doesn’t understand that. He never played in the big leagues.”

And then he was kind enough to bring his teammates into it.

“We got a lot of people dogging it after ground balls,” referring to the Marlins who are vying for first place with in the NL East—“They don’t apologize.”

Nice. Maybe Marlins stud pitcher Josh Johnson offered Ramirez a nice cup of Sanka in the clubhouse after that one.

Here’s the doctor’s PR rub.

Coaches and players get under each others’ skin on a regular basis. It’s part of the yin-and-yang of sports at any level, and most of it, surprisingly, stays behind closed doors.

In this case, Ramirez had fouled a ball off his left shin in the first inning. And according to Softball Guy , this feels something akin to having all of your pubic, nose, and eyebrow hairs simultaneously ripped off while a silver backed gorilla whips your back with a dense rubber hose.  So clearly, Ramirez was hobbling from the shin-shot when he booted the ball and it inhibited his ability to run after it at full-speed.

With that in mind, how should Ramirez have handled it? Do you throw both your manager and teammates under the bus and then move on? Not if you want to stay in the good graces of your organization and the 12.7 Marlins fans who actually attend home games on a regular basis.

As this situation was unfolding, I was thinking about what a professional would say—someone in the mold of a Mike Schmidt, Tony Gwynn, Albert Pujols, Crash Davis, or Mr. T—and it would sound something like this:

“I know I took that hard ball off my shin, but I feel like I let my team down today. I’ll talk to Fredi about it, but I’m more concerned about the two runs that scored and am sorry my injury couldn’t allow me to run full speed after that ball. I just hope I can get back to 100 percent so I can field the ball to the level at which I’ve become accustomed.”

Boom! You demonstrate remorse, suggest the injury played a role in your lackadaisical effort, put the focus back on the team’s ability to win and your role in that effort, and bridge to the future.

The bottom line is that sometimes you have to swallow the bitter pill of pride. It’s part of every day life. From telling your wife Yolanda that she’s right when you really want to lay down a karate chop, to supporting your boss Tim at work, even when he or she may not be right.

It just takes a little maturity, Hanley.

In the end, late yesterday, it was clear that someone (probably his agent) got to Ramirez and talked some sense into him, because the ordeal ended with the player  apologizing as he stood 12-feet-deep in the hole he had dug himself.

“I’m sorry that all this got so ugly. My intent was not to cause a distraction,” Ramirez told ESPNdeportes.com in a phone interview from St. Louis. “I’m sorry that things got this heated. The team, the fans don’t deserve it. We are all professionals here and we’re pulling for the same side. I’ll try to close this chapter and focus on playing baseball,” Ramirez added.

It was about time.

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By now, most baseball fans have seen the highlights of Hanley Ramirez lollygagging after a ball he literally booted down the left field line in Monday night’s game between the Florida Marlins and the Arizona Diamondbacks.

After Ramirez’s snail-like retrieval of the baseball, during which he probably could have enjoyed a three-course meal, he was promptly benched by his manager, Fredi Gonzalez.

While last night’s spectacle was as egregious as they come, it was only one glaring footnote in a growing trend around Major League Baseball.

Although the 2010 season is only a month and a half old, there have been a number of plays that should have resulted in benchings.

Lastings Milledge was thrown out jogging around second base earlier this month after he thought he had a hit a home run. He claimed that he was fooled into thinking the ball was gone because celebratory fireworks went off at PNC Park.

The Pirates blew out the Cubs that day, and Milledge had a great game. Bucs manager John Russell didn’t bother to penalize Milledge in any way.

The Braves were somehow uneducated about the “infield fly rule” in a game against the Mets in April, and it cost them a run. It is hard to believe a team managed by the great Bobby Cox could have problems comprehending the rule, but it happened.

No one was reprimanded.

A book could be written detailing all of Manny Ramirez’s baseball transgressions, but look no further than Monday night’s game for the most recent example. Manny “attempted” to score from first on a two-out double, and although the throw to the plate beat him fairly easily, he slowly jogged toward home and made no effort to plow into the catcher.

As usual, it was “Manny being Manny,” and everybody just laughed it off.

These are just three examples, and there are others that could be referenced. The major difference between those instances and what happened with Hanley Ramirez down in Miami on Monday is that Hanley was benched.

Kudos to Fredi Gonzalez on his decision.

How many managers would have done what Gonzalez did? It’s hard to say, but odds are that a large number of them would not have the guts to put their star player on the pine.

Baseball, at its highest level, requires a lot of skill—just like football, basketball, and hockey.

One thing baseball doesn’t require that the other three do is a large amount of cardiovascular activity. That cannot be debated.

Typically, a player might have to run the bases four times per game. Perhaps he’ll have to chase after a few balls in the field. That’s it.

So if a player fails to give maximum effort when running to first on what looks like a routine pop-up, or when he poses at the plate on what he thinks is a home run, or if he does what Ramirez did on Monday night, he should be punished.

Did Gonzalez set a precedent? Hopefully other managers have taken notice and will not simply shrug it off the next time one of their players does not give it his all.

Perhaps more importantly, maybe players all around baseball took a moment to pause and think about their own playing styles.

Fortunately, a population of Major Leaguers who play all out, all the time, still exists. But the number is shrinking.

Guys like Manny Ramirez are beyond help at this point. However, young players—even Hanley Ramirez himself—still have time to improve their images in regards to their heart and hustle.

Fredi Gonzalez’s brand of discipline might be just the thing baseball needs to make sure effort is an obligation—not a choice.

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