Any hope for an inept sports franchise?

a) Leyland stomped off of his own volition, as is his custom.

b) Leyland has a lifetime W-L percentage well below .500. Losing Jim Leyland as manager is not the reason teams suck.

 

Don't forget John Smiley, who the Pirates traded in a salary dump after he won 20 games in 1991. Which is really funny because they traded him to the Twins.

To be fair, Bell was still a Pirate through 1996 and was only traded after a couple of down years.

Edit: I have to agree with Starman about Leyland. He was never a particularly good in-game manager anyway. I still think his mistakes were a big reason that the Pirates lost NLCS Game 7 in both the 1991 and 1992.

 

The sad truth is that until franchises that are failing have a change at the top, or the man at the top changes the way he does things, they are going to fail.

The obvious answer to this is the Tampa Bay Rays, who would not be in the position they are if not for Stuart Sternberg taking over for Vince Naimoli.

There are other examples out there, Mark Cuban and the Mavericks being another that springs to mind.

Franchises that are bad are usually bad for one reason. They rot from the head down.