Brenly did not have a “bad interview”. You can take that to the bank.

…was Brenly knew he would only leave the Cubs gig if the Brewers job would allow him certain freedoms to run things the way he wanted, or he would take a pass.

When you interview for these gigs, they typically spend a lot of time getting the prospective managers opinion on the current talent level of the club, and how they would use it to maximize wins. Also, they discuss where they think the club is short and where they need to shore up to compete against the rest of the division.

It very will could be, that Brenly was brutally honest with his thoughts and it may have gone against the GM’s opinion. In these cases, it come sometimes hurt if the GM is hearing his team may not be as good as he thinks, from a guy he may be hiring.

No question what you say is true.

Having said that, some managers do have a knack of getting good performances out of players who have never performed to that level before or since. When that happens repeatedly with certain managers (Tony LaRussa?) at some point you have to remove luck or good fortune from the equation.

When it comes to one manager “out-managing” another in an individual game or series, yes, I think that can be over stated. What happens most times is that one manager’s moves happen to work that day, and the other’s didn’t. But, when it happens over the course of a season, or over an entire post season, there is usually a reason.

I often think back to when Joe Torre was managing the Braves. I used to watch their games a lot, because it was the early heyday of Superstation TBS. I thought he was the best manager I had ever seen. His career didn’t exactly take off, but I wasn’t the least surprised when he had that great run with the Yankees. Now people will say, aw, anybody could’ve won with that talent. Well, that is hard to prove, but the fact s Torre DID win, and despite what anybody says, he is a terrific manager.

I think the As are just as committed to winning in 2009 as the Cubs were to winning in 2007.

Not to belabor, but one could easily conclude that the mess the Cubs had in 2006 was worse than the one the Mariners have now. In 2006, the Cubs had just had their 2nd straight losing season and had been in a steady decline since 2003. The Mariners, OTOH, had an 88 win season just last year with most of the same players.

When a bullpen performs well, the manager is doing brilliant job managing them. When they aren’t the manager is an idiot.

Look at the D’Backs bullpen in 2001. Closer is Kim…a powder keg looking for a match. He is out of baseball now, I believe, even though he is still young. Mike Morgan was 72 years old and would retire after 2001. Matt Mantei was hurt all year. The rest of the bullpen was a collection of has beens and never weres who are all out of baseball…with the exception of Russ Springer who had an ERA north of 7 in 2001.

This just underlines how ludicrous the comment is that it was a fait accompli that the D’Backs would win in 2001. Yes, they had Johnson and Schilling, but the rest of the staff was held together with duct tape and bailing wire and the offense was, well, spotty.

Since Brenly is neither lacking competence nor good judgement, we can eliminate that.

You are correct about Brenly having strong ideas about running a baseball team and it is entirely possible that they were not what the Brewers are looking for. For instance, Brenly believes in not having a lot of rules, except show up on time, be professional, and respect the game. He has relied a lot on team leaders in the past for policing.

Perhaps, with Fielder and some of the other "characters’ the Brewers have, they are looking for more discipline. I don’t know, but it is possible.

But, the overall point is, this does not add up to being a “bad interview”. Sometimes a person is just not a good fit, no matter how well they interview. What would you have Brenly do, be deceptive about his managing philosophy just to come off better in an interview? That wouldn’t be good for anybody.

Of course, this is all speculation. It could be, and I think likely, Macha was the man all along. And I’m pretty sure Brenly is okay with that and is not losing any sleep over it.