In The Lab: Early Season Firings

Sometimes, it pays to put the numbers down and take a deep historical look at things. Teams fire managers in the season nearly every year, but it is fairly rare to see teams fire their manager before the halfway point in the season. In fact, coming into the season it had only happened six times since 2000.

However, the Philadelphia Phillies were the second team this season to fire their manager on Tuesday morning. The Boston Red Sox also fired Alex Cora last week. This is obviously pertinent since many in Astros nation are calling for the head of Joe Espada.

Thoughts usually go back to 2004 when the Astros fired Jimy Williams after the midpoint of the season and Phil Garner led them to the NLCS. However, that one doesn’t count because Williams had made it through the halfway point. We can break these six situations down to see if success should be predicted with a change here in Houston.

Obviously, every situation is different, so past results are not a guarantee of future results, but it pays to look at the history of these things. The Marlins Can Everyone The Marlins make the list three times since 2000. What we want to do with all of these is look at the record before and after the change to see if there was general improvement.