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<\/a><\/p>\nBut the winner, with 29.9% of the vote, is the team manager Torey Lovullo. And that sound you hear, is the heads of certain Twitter\/X accounts exploding at the very concept of praise being given to the man. [And nothing of value was lost\u2026] It feels like there has hardly been a month – and certainly not a season – without there being loud demands for Lovullo to be fired from his position. Even during the year he took the Diamondbacks to the World Series, just a couple of months earlier, an online poll<\/a> – yeah, I know – had over eighty percent of fans not wanting Torey to manage a single more game for the team.<\/p>\n It is, inevitably, the nature of sports management. It\u2019s especially true in a game like baseball, where luck plays a bigger element than in any other major sport. The difference between a grand-slam and a lazy pop-up to the outfield is a fraction of an inch on the spot where ball meets bat. All any manager can do, is make an educated guess as to what (very limited) inputs he has into the contest, are likely to have the best outcome. Sometimes it\u2019ll work. Sometimes it won\u2019t. Fans have an understandable but nasty tendency to forget the former conveniently, and remember only the failures. But managers need to be like closers, and have a short memory. Because the best choice last night in defeat, may well be the best choice today too.<\/p>\n But the team has stuck with Lovullo to the point that, providing he is still there at the end of this year, he\u2019ll have managed more than twice as many games for the Diamondbacks as anybody else [He currently sits on 1,356 games, with the next most being Kirk Gibson, back on 728] That says a lot, I suspect. Not least because the vast majority of a manager\u2019s activities and responsibilities are simply not visible to us. The in-game decisions mostly make themselves. But it\u2019s the stuff in the clubhouse, where you seek to forge 26 different (and often disparate) personalities into a winning team, that a manager will really prove his worth. How can we, as outsiders, judge that objectively? The reality, of course, is simple. We can\u2019t.<\/p>\n The problem is that fans want to fire managers, for things that are not under their control. Witness this July essay from PHNX Sports<\/a>: The Diamondbacks Need To Move On From Lovullo After 2025 Season. This states, \u201cIt\u2019s time for a new voice in the dugout. Diamondbacks fans have suffered through two painfully mediocre seasons in which having one of the top offenses in the league has been overshadowed by fielding one of the worst pitching staffs in all of baseball.\u201d Because, of course, it\u2019s Torey Lovullo\u2019s fault that Corbin Burnes – starter of fourth-most major-league games over the previous three seasons – blew his elbow out, joining our two best relievers in the operating room.<\/p>\n Quite how firing Lovullo would fix the pitching staff, making Jake Woodford capable of working high-leverage situations effectively, is never quite explained. Indeed, the author even admits, Torey \u201chas fantastic baseball sense, and is revered in the clubhouse.\u201d Seems like a guy you\u2019d want to keep, right? Apparently not: \u201cThe team\u2019s progression has not met expectations, though, and in the end, someone needs to answer for that.\u201d So, let me get this straight: your expectations are sufficient justification to fire Lovullo – somebody who possesses a very particular set of skills, skills he has acquired over a very long career?<\/p>\n Last season, the most high-profile demand came from Dan Bickley – just after the trade deadline where the team dealt away its best starting pitcher, two everyday players and its closer. \u201cWelcome to Torey Lovullo\u2019s last stand with the Diamondbacks,\u201d he wrote<\/a>. \u201cImagine the plot twist if these young guys start running and never stop, where Jordan Lawlar ignites and Zac Gallen leads the way, catching fire after no one wanted him at the trade deadline. Dreams are all we have left in Arizona.\u201d They did, going 26-16 to make an unlikely push. But note: it was the players Bickley referenced as powering the turnaround, not the manager – a telling indictment of kneejerk reaction.<\/p>\n