The Arizona Diamondbacks have parted ways with general manager Dave Stewart and manager Chip Hale. The decision was made earlier today after the end of the season and the quick hooks on both Hale and Stewart will leave the Diamondbacks now starting from the ground up again.
Stewart was the second general manager the club has brought in one a full-time basis after the firing of Kevin Towers in 2014. Jerry Dipoto was in an interim position just prior to that after the club parted ways with Josh Byrnes who held the job between 2005 and 2010. Going back to 2010, the club will now be looking for the fourth GM counting Dipoto in the same amount of years.
With the departure of Chip Hale, the franchise now looks yet another replacement at the manager position. After the mid-season removal of Bob Melvin in 2009, A.J. Hinch and Kirk Gibson both had their runs as managers for the D-Backs. Hinch didn’t finish his first year as full-time manager as he was replaced the next season in 2010 by Gibson. Gibson would hold onto the job for three full seasons before being removed in the fourth year where Alan Trammell took his place to finish the 2014 campaign. Hale was the only manager in the last eight years that was given the opportunity to finish out the year before the change was made.
Stewart only had two seasons to really do anything in regards to baseball moves, with his biggest coming in the last offseason by bringing in what was supposed to be the biggest free agent pull of the year. Signing Zack Greinke to a mammoth $206.5 million deal was the move that was going to put the D-Backs rotation in prime position to win the NL West. Stewart would later deal the promising Dansby Swanson and others for Shelby Miller from the Braves.
The two pitchers failed to deal in the way the franchise was hoping, and Swanson ended up becoming a big part in the Braves rotation this season as well. Chip Hale was unable to put together a winning lineup with the players available to him including NL MVP candidate Paul Goldschmidt and other promising talents such as Jean Segura. The loss however of A.J. Pollock put Hale into a understandably tough position as Pollock was slated to be a huge part of the offense going into this season.
The two leaving makes the option for owner Ken Kendrick to remove Tony La Russa from his position as Chief Baseball Officer a possibility as well. La Russa has been known to be a heavily involved member of the front office and at times would have disagreements with Stewart and Hale about certain moves the franchise was making. With the wide reaches the ownership has already gone to clean house, it would not be a surprise to see La Russa be removed as well to build the front office and coaching staff from the ground up with a totally wiped slate.
As of now La Russa still maintains his position, but his removal could potentially still be in the workings after further talk among the ownership. It will be interesting to see what news comes out within the next week or so from the Diamondbacks as the sun sets on another baseball season in the Valley.