Braves Finally Move Forward: Bobby Cox Should Have Been Fired Years Ago

Bobby Cox, manager of the Atlanta Braves, recently announced that 2010 would finally be his last season.  After he steps down, he will be paid to consult for another 5 years.  What a nice retirement package for someone who underachieved and mismanaged lineups for decades.

Some speculate the decision was a nice way of Bruce Wren, Braves General Manager, of showing the door to Cox in a respectful manner.  Some reports have said that Cox and Wren have had disagreements over the way the organization handled the departures of Tom Glavine and John Smoltz.  Did Cox think that they deserved a retirement package like he got?  Cox should have been shown the door a long time ago.

Bobby Cox has been with the Braves twice since 1978 (1978-81, 1990-2009) and was once a fiery young manager who led the team with passion and has now evolved into a stubborn, miserable leader at times.

Dating back to the early 1990s, the Braves had one of the best baseball rotations of all time – the trifecta – Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine, and John Smoltz, which produced the 1995 World Series and three hall of fame careers.  All three pitchers stayed healthy and performed at the highest level during the 1990’s decade as the Braves dominated the NL East division.

During Cox’s era, the Braves won the NL East 14 straight times in a weak division with the best pitching rotation in the MLB.  However, Cox’s playoff decisions were nothing less than horrible.  When the Braves won their first World Series in 1995 by defeating the Cleveland Indians, the talk of the baseball world was not if they could repeat, but how many more World Series would this “future dynasty” win.  The Atlanta Braves would make it back to the World Series twice (1996 & 1999), but would never again raise a World Series banner.  Instead of the Braves becoming the marquee franchise of the league, they became the Buffalo Bills of baseball.

Year in and year out, posting great regular season records, but failing to perform in the playoffs defined the Bobby Cox era.  Cox was the main reason for the depressing underachieving playoff breakdowns.  Instead of using his starters effectively in the playoffs, he would always bring average middle relievers in to blow games.  Take 1997 for example, Atlanta star pitcher Denny Neagle went 20-5 in the regular season.  When the playoffs came around, Bobby Cox only started him one time.  The team ended up losing to Florida in the NLCS who went on to win the 1997 World Series.

Cox would often assume his bench players were just as good as his starters, and at times would stack the lineup with right-handed bats if there was a left-handed pitcher.  Many times, he would sit players who had higher averages and performed well all season and use bench players who had averages in the low .200’s.

Cox failed to manufacture runs when he needed to.  The Braves were notorious year in and year out for having outstanding pitchers but not scoring any runs, especially when the game was on the line.  Bobby didn’t help one bit with his bland coaching style and his lack of creativity.  His players would rarely ever steal bases unless it was panic time in an elimination game in the playoffs.  He had base stealers Kenny Lofton and Marquis Grissom in their primes who all saw their attempts decline and steals decline under Cox’s mismanagement.  Grissom stole over 70 bases in a single season twice before he arrived in Atlanta, and at age 28 and age 29 he stole less than 30 bases each season.  Kenny Lofton, who spent one season under Cox, had stole over 50 bases the previous 5 seasons before being traded to the Braves, including two seasons of stealing over 70 bases.  Under Cox’s distasteful mismanagement, Lofton only stole 27 bases all season long.  The next year he would leave the Braves and steal 54 bases.

Cox would have been fired three times over again had he been in charge of the New York Yankees and the Steinbrenner family surely would not have given him a retirement package that he is getting with the Braves.

The best modern team that Cox has coached in terms of talent was the 2007 Braves, in which he had an All-Star roster of heavy bats including Mark Teixeira, Edgar Renteria, Jeff Francoeur, Chipper Jones and Tim Hudson leading the pitching staff.  The team finished 3^rd in the NL East missing the playoffs going 84-78 under Cox.

The modern Bobby Cox era has saw him become a huge fan of the pitch count.  While Leo Mazzone, Cox’s longtime pitching coach for 15 years who managed the success of Maddux, Glavine, and Smoltz, expressed his displeasure in pulling pitchers around the 100 mark said, “That’s another joke…I think pitch counts talk pitchers into being tired” and also said, “I don’t want to see them.”

Since Mazzone left the Braves, Bobby Cox has become a huge pitch counter and many times uses it as his primary means to make his pitching decisions, regardless of the score, situation of the game, and the quality of his bullpen.  Mazzone left in 2005, ironically, that was the last season the Braves made the playoffs, losing in the first round to the Houston Astros.

He costed his starting pitchers several wins by pulling them out prematurely and handing the ball to a mediocore bullpen to blow the games.  If anything, he owes his starters an apology.  Just take a look at the game September 8, 2009, when Tommy Hanson was throwing a gem, dealing 8 innings and striking out 7 as the Braves clung on to a 1-0 lead over Houston.  Bobby Cox decided to pull Hanson at 98 pitches rather than letting him try to complete the game and get the Braves the win.  Rafael Soriano comes into the games and gives up two runs and ruins Tommy Hansen’s gem.  Another Hanson start earlier in the year against San Francisco, in which the Braves won 11-3, he allowed Hanson to throw 112 pitches in an 11-3 win.

This was typical as to how Cox coached over the years – he was bitter, set in his ways, and he placed his own personal philosophy over the situation of the game and his team.  He never cared if his relievers were inconsistent, he was going to bring them in regardless of the situation.

The playoff breakdowns, the mishandling of starting pitchers, the extreme lineup changes in the playoffs, and the lack of creativity to produce runs all define Cox’s career as a manager with the Braves. 

Bobby Cox will not be remembered as a legend, but rather a guy who should have been shown the door sooner and hung around far too long.