Ken Macha Fired: Was It Fair?

Following the Oakland Athletics loss to the Detroit Tigers, general manager Billy Beane fired the team's manager, Ken Macha. Macha had been criticized openly by more than one starter in the past few weeks and was fired despite bringing the A's to the ALCS. Macha had two years and just over 2 million dollars left on his contract.

The complaints against Macha were major. Some players even went as far as to tell Beane that they did not want to return to the team if Macha remained as manager. Because of the complaints and the fact that Macha was unable to take the A's beyond the ALCS, in what was probably the team's greatest opportunity to go far since Mark Mulder and Tim Hudson were traded, and good be the last season that any of the "Big Three" pitches for Oakland, as Barry Zito will probably leave after this season.

Macha has been regarded by many as a poor ingame manager, as well as being cold to his players. Macha has made some decisions over the years that are questionable, especially u pinch hitting Adam Melhuse for Jermaine Dye against the Red Sox in 2003, when the Sox beat the A's in Game 5 of the ALDS, later claiming he pinch hit for Dye because he figured Dye would be walked. Also during the ALCS Macha burned out Kiko Calero and misused Huston Street, pitching him for three innings, bringing him in during the seventh, which may have made sense, but then leaving him in to face Magglio Ordonez, who hit a home run off of him, even though he appeared to be tired. Grady Little was fired because one publicly poor decision revealed a lot of bad decisions throughout the season, Macha was fired for the same thing.