Monday was the first day with no baseball in a few months. As we finished the 2016 season on Sunday and the playoffs begin tomorrow, there were a few coaches who found out their future with their teams this.
In one of the more surprising moves, the Miami Marlins have announced on Monday that they will not retain hitting coach and home run leader Barry Bonds. He had the job for one season. This comes as a surprise because, from the hitting aspect, the Marlins were improving significantly this season. Some of Miami’s offense numbers rose during the injury plagued season. They would end the season having the 4th best batting average in baseball, but had the fourth-worst OPS in baseball. It should be noted, Barry Bonds was not let go due to the team’s on-field performance, but he was let go for things that went on behind the scenes.
There was some rumblings that were going around the Miami area that Barry Bonds’ problem was more with the interpersonal nature. According to Craig Mish of Sirius XM, there was one incident when Barry Bonds was called out by manager Don Mattingly on a road trip over the summer. He was called out for his commitment to the team. The other occurred when Stanton ended up “tuning out” Bonds who was very critical of the outfielder.
It also should be noted that this was Bonds’ first job in the Majors since his playing days that ended in 2007. It will be interested to see where Barry Bonds goes from here and where do the Marlins go from here. I suspect Barry Bonds to get a job with another team rather soon, but while I find it kind of surprising, I also don’t find it surprising as the Marlins have been known to get rid of players and coaches really quickly.