This is sad. I mean, listen. I thought it was time for him to go also. The whole team was under-performing and playing in a haze since last September. I don’t know if he was the problem, but he couldn’t get them to snap out of it. Among few other things, that is the job of the manager. To have the team, fair or unfair, playing up to expectations.
That said, he did what he thought was best for the team every day. Even if it didn’t work out, you can’t accuse him of not trying or doing something explicitly wrong. It just wasn’t working anymore. He didn’t deserve to get treated like this. Furthermore, the way this was handled overshadowed the actual act, thereby negating any on-field effect the shakeup could have. This team seems further away from the playoffs than it did yesterday with Willie in charge. It exposed that there are some serious, deep-rooted problems in the organization that will not be fixed anytime soon.