Atlanta Braves Morning Chop: Winds of Change Blowing East

Los Angeles Dodgers manager

(8) reacts following the 3-2 loss against New York Mets in game five of NLDS at Dodger Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Jayne-Kamin Oncea-USA TODAY Sports

Dramatic Changes in Baseball’s Eastern Divisions

COMPILED FROM INDUSTRY SOURCES AS NOTED

It has already been a crazy-busy off-season… and the off-season hasn’t actually officially begun.  Most of the changes have been associated with front office moves, and quite a number of these directly impact the East.  This morning brings three pieces of news, not counting previous announcements:

• MIAMI MARLINS

It is also being reported that Don Mattingly will now be the 8th man to hold this position since 2010.  The 1st manager in that list?  Fredi Gonzalez, who still has the distinction of being the longest-serving manager in the history of the Marlins franchise (a scant 12 games longer than ‘Trader’ Jack McKeon).

Mattingly and the new Dodgers’ front office apparently weren’t on the same page together, and thus they agreed to part ways… likely knowing that there was a ready-made gig for the former Yankee in South Florida.

• WASHINGTON NATIONALS

Matt Williams and most of his staff was terminated at season’s end, so Black will have some hiring to do.  Nonetheless, this is the hire that I would be most concerned with:  it will be very interesting to see what he can do with a roster full of actual talent.  While you could argue that new Padres GM Preller had assembled ‘talent’ for this season, too many things just didn’t pull together for him.

• PHILADELPHIA PHILLIES

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The Phils have finally cleaned their house.  Andy MacPhail (perfectly named for this club) assumed the role of team President at the end of June.  He has now been joined by 35-year-old Matt Klentak to be the Vice President and General Manager.  Scott Proefrock is their AGM, representing the only continuity link in baseball operations, having been in that role since late 2008.

The Phils had already done an on-field change as Ryne Sandberg resigned, and the club ultimately hired interim manager Pete Mackanin.  Outgoing GM Ruben Amaro (now 1st base coach for the Red Sox!) dumped Cole Hamels, Jonathan Papelbon, and Chase Utley, so Klentak already has a head start on their rebuild – though he might have liked to have done his own deals.

It is still possible that Proefrock could depart – he interviewed for the Orioles’ GM position in 2011, and Klentak is still moving his things into the office that Proefrock likely wanted.  So do keep an eye out for possible continued changes in Philadelphia.

Meanwhile, in the American League…

• TORONTO BLUE JAYS

This is a surprise, and could signal additional changes in Toronto as well.  We don’t have any indicators of friction or philosophical differences here… but that’s probably what happened.

AA pretty much went “All In” over the last year to get to the World Series, and obviously fell just short.  He acquired Josh Donaldson in a trade with Oakland that was widely praised… except in Oakland.  He acquired David Price from Detroit and Troy Tulowitski from Colorado at the deadline.

Word just prior to this morning’s news about AA’s departure was that R.A. Dickey‘s team option of $12 milion would be picked up.  This was something of a surprise, though CBS’s Jon Heyman was reporting that Jose Bautista and Edwin Encarnacion would have their options picked up as well ($14m and $10m).  Now you’d have to expect that all of these decisions (easy as they might seem to make) could be delayed while the team figures out who is going to run their baseball operations.

• BOSTON RED SOX

Another team undergoing wholesale changes after a year in which major off-season moves bombed on them.  Dave Dombrowski is their new President of Baseball Operations, old friend Frank Wren is now Senior VP of Baseball Operations (though curiously does not yet appear in the directory a month after the fact), and Mike Hazen is their new General Manager, having been the Red Sox AGM previously.

Oh, and John Coppolella was formally named as General Manager of the Braves back on October 1st, but you already knew that.

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