Is it time to move on from Don Mattingly?

Is it time for Donnie Baseball to go? Don Mattingly may need to be replaced by the Miami Marlins with a different manager. I wrote about this before, and so did our other writers. I also wrote about how he cost The Fish games, and am now even more convinced thst this is the right step. It’s important to add that no one lost more playoff series for the Los Angeles Dodgers (his former team) than Don Mattingly. It’s time to move on.

Don Mattingly isn’t working out as the Miami Marlins manager.

Pythsgorean W-L records are a good way to measure a manager’s success rate in my opinion, and it doesn’t look particularly great there for Don Mattingly. Some other key statistics show that back in LA, he had a .551 winning percentage during the season, but only a .421 winning percentage in the playoffs. That’s pretty bizarre, when with the Miami Marlins he has a .435 regular season winning percentage and a .400 one in the postseason.

Don Mattingly left the Los Angeles Dodgers because they weren’t happy with his playoff performance. It was never outright said but always assumed. The 94-68 2014 Los Angeles Dodgers couldn’t beat the 90-72 St. Louis Cardinals (83-79 Pythagorean record).

The 92-70 2015 Los Angeles Dodgers fell to the 90-72 New York Mets. The latter team was just as good, but LA had experience, home field advantage and the series went 5 games. These losses kept piling up and management was tired of it.

Don Mattingly took the Miami Marlins to the playoffs in the shortened 2020 campaign, and we even got past the Chicago Cubs pretty easily despite them seemingly being better, but then got swept by the Atlanta Braves. That seemed as if it should give him a longer leash, but in 2021 we had a 72-90 Pythagorean W-L record and a 67-95 real record. This season our Pythagorean record was significantly better all season until recently.

I just don’t see Don Mattingly as a winning manager. Why not give the recently fired Joe Maddon a chance? It’s not his fault that managemevt assembled bad Los Angeles Angels teams. He took the Tampa Bay Rays to the 2008 AL Pennant and won a World Series with the 2016 Chicago Cubs. Bring Joe Maddon in, it’s “Mad” not to.