Inside Baseball: Managerial heat in NL East, especially in Washington – CBSSports.com

There may be more than a division title at stake as Terry Collins of the Mets and Matt Williams of the Nationals battle it out in the NL East with a month to go. Two managerial jobs could possibly hang in the balance in a potential playoffs-or-bust game for both men. And, considering the current standings and trends, it’s pretty clear whose job appears more tenuous.

To say Williams is embattled is an abject understatement at this point. At three games over .500, if the Nats aren’t the most disappointing team in baseball, they are in that sorry conversation. At this point, based on whispers around the league, it is difficult to imagine Williams surviving an idle October for the Nats despite winning Manager of the Year honors in his only previous season.

While the only attributed comments coming out from Nats people regarding Williams thus far are GM Mike Rizzo’s words of consistent support and praise, sources say Nationals ownership has been generally quite unhappy with what’s going on with the team. Though Nats higher-ups may not be quick to admit this, sources suggest that behind closed doors club owners at some point within the past few weeks have spoken about the possibility of dismissing Williams, though it isn’t known how seriously they actually considered it. (While Rizzo has been vocal in local stories regarding Williams, he declined comment on this story.)

At the moment things are much better up I-95 at Citi Field where Collins’ bosses cite a “good vibe” around the team. That’s surely attributable in part to the team’s fantastic deadline trade work and timely returns from an assortment of injuries. It’s also a plus, though, that Collins seems to have a very good rapport with most of the players.

Of course, that isn’t the whole story, and there definitely has been some questioning of in-game decisions behind the scenes. One person familiar with the thinking of club higher-ups cited Collins’ ill-fated decision to call upon struggling Bobby Parnell into a game the Mets rallied back from down 6-0 to trail only 6-4 recently, saying that move was like “the kiss of death” in the eventual 14-8 defeat to the rival Phillies. Collins admitted he erred on that one, though with a six-game lead he can afford a few faux pas.

Anyway, while Collins, who entered the season as a lame duck on less-than-firm ground, surely knows he isn’t likely to survive a collapse, which wouldn’t be viewed kindly by a team that still recalls 2007. Conversely, a playoff spot would all but assure a new contract for Collins, people familiar with the situation suggest. Anyway, Mets higer-ups appropriately have said they are tabling the issue until season’s end.

Of course, at this point, with a big lead, and 20 of 29 games remaining against the likes of the Phillies, Marlins, Braves and Reds, it’s hard to imagine even the historically snake-bit Mets blowing this one. That leaves Williams as the one with the much bigger bull’s eye on his back.

While Rizzo apparently has remained a staunch booster of his hand-picked choice of manager out of almost nowhere from their Diamondbacks days, it is a chorus of one at this point. Of course teams don’t to let the inmates run the asylum, but it may be telling that even after national notes have appeared suggesting that Nationals players are less than enamored with either Williams’ stern demeanor or unusual bullpen tactics, not one player has been quoted to this point in strong defense of their skipper.

Williams’ strange strategies and ultra-serious persona are coming under fire from all sorts of other precincts, with rival executives questioning his stratagems that often involve saving star closer Jonathan Papelbon for a rainy day (and by the way, they are in the middle of a torrential downpour at this point). Williams recently defended the non-usage of Papelbon in a 5-all game late in a loss to the Cardinals again, declaring, “He’s my closer,” in a comment that seems years behind the times. There also never was a great explanation for last year’s playoffs when Willliams removed Jordan Zimmerman from a gem an inning too soon, then helped clinch their ouster at the Giants’ hands by continually employing in relief Aaron Barrett and Matt Thornton rather than Tyler Clippard, Drew Storen and Stephen Strasburg.

Another rival GM said, flat out of Williams, “He looks too uptight.” Behind the scenes, players have similar complaints, as was mentioned in this space a few weeks ago.

The team’s play generally isn’t getting very good reviews, either.

“They look like an undisciplined team going through the motions,” one scout from an AL team said.

Meanwhile, Rizzo’s comments seem to have become even more laudatory as the team continues to slide and the slings at Williams worsen, to the point of calling “masterful” Williams’ handling of the bullpen in the series at St. Louis. Ten runs were allowed in the seventh, eighth and ninth innings of the first two defeats as Papelbon inexplicably remained idle. (Well, you can’t blame Rizzo for trying.)

Ownership, which made the big deal of the winter to add ace Max Scherzer for $210 million, is understandably less than pleased at what’s going on, according to sources, and their recent dalliance with Dave Dombrowski before Dombrowski went to the Red Sox, may reflect that unhappiness. It’s hard to see Rizzo being blamed since the roster isn’t generally viewed as the issue, beyond an inconsistent middle-relief corps; quite the contrary, the Nats were everyone’s divisional favorite for a reason.

Injuries to a spate of position players, including stars Anthony Rendon, Jayson Werth, Denard Span and Ryan Zimmerman, certainly haven’t helped. But neither has obvious underperformance in a division with three teams that are rebuilding or just plan awful, which some will naturally wonder whether it’s attributable to Zimmermann’s less-then-loose persona.

Rizzo about a week ago started in earnest his local campaign in what seems like an obvious attempt to save his hand-picked man. But if the team picked by almost every single person to win the division doesn’t make it to October, it’s hard to imagine Rizzo convincing anyone to keep Williams, most notably the very concerned owners.

More from around the Majors

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	Baltimore Orioles News
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	Boston Red Sox News
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	San Francisco Giants News
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	Toronto Blue Jays News
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