It's Time for Bobby Cox to Ride Off into the Sunset

If you have watched these Braves all season long and can't come up with a scapegoat for their struggles and terribly inconsistent play allow me to help.

Bobby Cox has seen better days. This year he has nearly single handedly cost the Braves in multiple situations. Just as we Tennessee Vols fans experienced last season with head coach Phil Fulmer, the game has completely passed Bobby Cox by.

He does not have the mental capacity to manage a game or his players any longer.

I know he's a Hall of Fame manager. I know he's one of the most respected manager's in game. I know I'm committing borderline sacrilege even writing such an article.

But the truth is the truth.

I have compiled this list of five reasons Bobby Cox should step down at seasons end. Feel free to rip me, but I believe these reasons are pretty much argument proof.

1. Greg Norton: The thing that makes Bobby Cox so doggone popular with players is his undying devotion to his players. But when those players go 10-for-68 as the top pinch hitting threat something is wrong.

Norton has whiffed and made outs in so many important situations this season. He has trouble catching up to an 85mph "heater." He is completely clueless at the plate.

In perhaps the single-most maddening decision of the year, Bobby Cox decided to stick with the aging veteran over the hot-hitting, young Brooks Conrad.

Conrad was hitting nearly .400 when he was sent back down to triple-A to make a spot for Norton who was hitting below .130.

Bobby recently told Carroll Rogers of the Atlanta Journal Constitution that Norton has been "hitting some balls really good" in reference to his three hits in his last 16 at-bats.

2. Using key relievers over and over and over again: Especially when said relievers are coming off Tommy John surgery.

Peter Moylan was used so many times in the first half that he became virtually ineffective for much of the first half. Moylan missed less than a year after the surgery and has been used a major league leading 75 times this season.

He has been great in the second half, but much of the Braves' inconsistency had plenty to do with Moylan's five blown saves and his 4.62 ERA before the break.

Mike Gonzalez has to be talked about in the same breath as Moylan. He blew four saves in the first half while appearing in 45 games as the primary setup man for Rafael Soriano. Gonzo is a year removed from Tommy John surgery himself.

Once rookie Kris Medlen became the "go-to" guy recently, Cox once again went to the well too often. Medlen was the determining factor in two straight losses after Bobby went to the career starter three straight nights. And once he started getting pounded Bobby left him out there. Way to get a kid's confidence up there, Bobby.

3. Enhancing his reputation for being difficult to deal with: Bobby has been completely justified in a lot of his ranting and raving this season. But some of it is just stupid and it's really getting old.

Not every single pitch that is thrown is a strike for the Braves. Watching him in the dugout this season, one would think he has some sort of laser system that he uses to argue with every single umpire about balls and strikes.

I agree with Bobby about 70 percent of the time when he becomes crotchety in the dugout, but I have to think that his constant bickering and complaining somehow hurts the Braves rather than helps them.

Who's to say that some umpires do not conspire against him and the Braves for retaliation? I know that's a stretch, but I think that is part of Bill Hahn's vendetta against the Braves.

The record number of ejections was funny in the past, now it's just annoying.

4. Not firing Terry Pendleton when he should have: This one flows with the loyalty point. TP should have been unemployed long ago. Maybe even before Greg Norton should have been let go.

Pendleton screwed up Andruw Jones and Jeff Francoeur. He's trying his best to do the same with Brian McCann.

Pendleton is not a very good hitting instructor. If you want numbers to prove it, here they are.

Since 2006, Atlanta's overall run totals have dropped from 849 in '06, to 810 in '07, to 753 in '08. Braves home run totals have dropped from 222 in '06, to 176 in '07, to 130 in '08.

Overall Batting Average numbers have not reached over .275 since 2003, when the Braves hit .284.

The Braves turned their offense around this season, but the overall picture is very bleak and the time has come for a change.

5. Overall stupid moves: The manager's job is to put the team in the best position to win ballgames. This is accomplished by making moves in-game to enhance the chances of winning. Bobby has not done that very well this season.

In an incredibly important series with the Phillies in Atlanta, the Braves were surging and on the verge of tightening the NL East lead to less than four games. After Mike Gonzalez struck out the side in the top of the eighth, Cox opted to bring in Rafael Soriano to face lefties Ryan Howard and Raul Ibanez rather than sticking with Gonzo to face them.

Howard deposited the second pitch he saw into the right-center field stands.

A few games later Cox left Derek Lowe in the game to get pounded with hit after hit in an eight-run fifth inning against the hapless Mets.

Bobby thoroughly confused many of us by sending up the aforementioned Greg Norton in pressure situations only to see him strikeout and cost the Braves a third straight win over the Florida Marlins.

He then cost them the final game of the series by leaving Kris Medlen out there to get slammed by those same Marlins in Thursday night's game.

Bobby's old-school management style might have worked in the past, but those days are over. Some would say even in those glory days Cox underperformed by the fact that Atlanta has one World Series title to show for 14 straight division titles.

It is time for new blood NOW! It is time for someone fresh, new, and relevant to take over the helm of this franchise's sinking ship.

It needs to happen before the infusion of the exciting young talent hits the majors. Waiting to greet Jason Heyward, Freddie Freeman, and the other young phenoms should be a young, exuberant manager who can relate to them. Not a crotchety, old man who manages today just as he did in the '90s.