The Cleveland Indians fired manager Manny Acta on Thursday and elevated Sandy Alomar to serve as the interim manager for the remainder of the season, and those moves didn't come as a surprise to fans of the team. Acta left the Indians battling with the Minnesota Twins to avoid a last-place finish in the American League, so something clearly went wrong.
The organization's top brass recently endorsed general manager Chris Antonetti as the right man to stay with the team, so everyone was left to think about Acta's departure. Over at SB Nation's Indians blog, the discussion turned to questions about whether Acta had lost the clubhouse:
"It's hard to know how well a manager does in getting the most out of his players until you've gathered a lot of anecdotal evidence; for example, if a player who's bounced around quite a bit suddenly blossoms after playing for a particular manager, you could assign the cause of that to the manager just being there at the right time, but when there's a history of many players performing at their best under a manager, then you start to take those anecdotes seriously."
There are no accusations that arise in the piece, but the question about Acta's ability to motivate and reach players on his roster is presented to help frame the decision in the most sensible light. Bad things happened during 2012 for the Indians, so someone had to go.