FIRE KOTSAY?: Athletics Must DECIDE Mark Kotsay's Fate as Manager Under Taylor Smith

First and foremost, though, we did a show yesterday about Taylor Smith, the new general manager or new president of baseball operations for the athletics.

Now, this show, we're going to answer a very important question, a question that I think all of us are going to be asking until we get a firm answer on it from the man himself, Taylor Smith, or from the organization.

And that is, should the A's keep Mark Kotze as their manager? Obviously, when you get a new president of baseball operations, a new head of the baseball operations department, You would think that this person would probably want to bring in a lot of their own people.

And so at this moment, Mark Kotze, he has not been fired.

He wasn't fired at all.

Even after David Force was fired, Kotze was allowed to manage the rest of the season.

Some of us suspected that possibly he could be fired after the season was over.

They decided not to fire him.

He has remained in his role.

But, you know, the staff around him is kind of in shambles.

I mean, assistant hitting coaches have been fired.

His pitching coach was fired during the season.

So there's a lot of things that if Mark Kotze stays, he's going to have to rebuild around him if Mark Kotze stays.

Because when a new president of baseball operations takes over, when a new general manager takes over, the tendency is usually that they want to bring in their own people.

They want to bring in people... that match their thinking, match their philosophies, match what they believe is best for the organization.

This is true not just in baseball.

This is true in any business.

Anytime that you bring in a new boss, whether it's a new CEO, whether it's in government, a new governor or president, whether it's a new manager at a McDonald's, it could be anything.

Whenever you bring in someone who is the new head of a department, they want to bring in some of their own people or they want to bring in new people that match their identity and match their philosophy.

Usually, and this is not the case all the time, but usually when a new person steps into leadership, it's because the old person who was in leadership there was something about their leadership or something about the results that came from their leadership that did not meet par um this isn't always the case obviously you do get some times where people in leadership positions will get promoted and then someone has to take their place after that but that's not the case of the a's with the a's this is what i would consider to be the norm you have someone who is in a leadership position David Forrest, the results did not meet the expectations or the results just were not up to any sort of standard.

And so he ends up getting canned.

He ends up moving on.

And now Mark Kotze is in charge.

And so there really you have to ask the question, why would someone who is taking over an organization that failed to meet expectations under the old guy who is in with the pressure of building his own staff, of meeting expectations in his own right? Keep someone from the old regime that did not meet expectations and keep people from the old regime that did not meet expectations.

Also, if you're a new president of baseball operations or a new leader anywhere, you want to bring in people who you think are going to enact your agenda, people who you trust, people who you know have your back or at least you suspect will have your back or at least you suspect have likewise thinking to you so that they're more likely to have your back.