Top Candidate Withdraws – The Post
Former Marlins manager Joe Girardi has removed himself from consideration for leading the Nationals. He does not want to move again after relocating to South Florida 10 months ago. He is leaving the door open for other jobs though.
The door is still open for Atlanta hitting coach Terry Pendleton, Mets third base coach Manny Acta, Yankees first base coach Tony Peña, Houston bench coach Cecil Cooper, White Sox third base coach Joey Cora and possibly others.
Frank Robinson has not yet been offered a job by the Nationals. That could turn into a PR problem if the braintrust does not come out and say something like “we are 100% focused on finding a new manager and will talk to Frank after that has happened.”
Speaking of Robinson, he had a few things to say about the Kenny Rogers scandal:
“It’s not difficult going out there,” Robinson said Monday by phone. “It’s just a matter of you doing what you have to do for your team, to protect your team. If someone is breaking a rule, I’m not going to sit there in the dugout and watch him do it. If I feel like a rule is being broken, then it’s my duty as a manager to correct it…”
…”What is starting to happen in baseball, there are starting to be unwritten codes, kind of a buddy-buddy, friendly-type of code,” Robinson said. “Lots of guys have played with each other or coached with each other, and they don’t want to upset anybody. It doesn’t belong in baseball. It doesn’t belong in sports, period.”
I’ll leave the Gary Bennett angle of the story to MissChatter.
Phil Wood: New Nats manager needs to know flow – The Wash. Examiner
Early deadline Phil?
I’m going to go out on a limb and predict Joe Girardi will not — repeat, not — be the next manager of the Washington Nationals.
Wood goes on to say he think Acta will get the job.