Brewers ax skipper Roenicke; to hire Counsell

Ron Roenicke has been fired. (USATSI)

We have our first manager firing of the 2015 season, and it’s the Brewers who have given Ron Roenicke the ax. Given the circumstances, it’s not surprising at all and few could have survived the situation.

Remember, Roenicke’s Brewers were in first place for most of the 2014 season. They only won 11 of their final 36 games, though, an epic collapse that cost them a playoff berth. And then, to start the 2015 season, the Brewers did nothing to erase that terrible taste left in the mouths of their fans. They won just four of their first 21 games.

Combining the end of last season to the brutal start of this season, through Tuesday the Brewers were 15-42 in their last 57 games. That’s a 162-game pace of 43 wins.

Now, had Roenicke been a big-time manager with tons of accolades to his name, he may have survived. He did win 96 games and the NL Central in 2011, his first year on the job. He took his club to the NLCS, too.

Since then, though, the Brewers went 83-79, 74-88 and 82-80. Considering the collapse and the brutal start and he simply hadn’t built up enough credit to cancel out the recent negatives.

The merits of keeping Roenicke around and blaming the players — not to mention injury issues — could be argued, but in this business, the manager takes the fall for situations like these. That’s the nature of the beast. The timing of the move might seem odd, given that the Brewers have now won three of their last four, but this only means it’s likely the decision had already been made and the front office was just finding a suitable replacement.

Interestingly enough, new manager Craig Counsell (as our own Jon Heyman reports) has a chance to come off looking pretty good. Carlos Gomez just came off the DL, Ryan Braun has started to look like the old Ryan Braun and Aramis Ramirez returned to the lineup Sunday. Jonathan Lucroy will come back at some point and the rotation won’t continue to be as bad as it was through the 4-17 start.

We can’t know what Counsell brings to the table just yet because he’s never managed before. Still, he’s pretty well set up to look good and has a great track record of winning as a player — winning World Series rings with both the Marlins and Diamondbacks.

The biggest takeaway here, though, is that there was too much talent to justify the ’14 collapse and ’15 start. Something had to be done and in these cases the manager is sometimes the fall guy. Roenicke happens to be that guy, so this move is no surprise.

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