Indians Fire Manny Acta; Sandy Alomar Jr. Named Interim Manager

The Cleveland Indians have fired manager Manny Acta, the team announced Thursday afternoon. Bench coach Sandy Alomar Jr. will serve as interim manager for the last six games of the 2012 season.

Rick Osentoski-US PRESSWIRE

Acta, 43, led Cleveland to a 216-266 record in just under three seasons as manager of the Indians, highlighted by the Tribe’s 80-82 finish in 2011. He had a generally good reputation for most of his tenure, but the team’s post-All-Star Break collapse this year erased most of the good will he had built up.

Alomar, 46, spent 11 seasons with the Indians from 1990-2000. He won the Rookie of the Year Award in 1990, earned MVP votes in 1997, and was named to six All-Star teams in that span. A fan favorite in Cleveland from his days as a player, he rejoined the team as a coach before the 2010 season.

It’s hard to celebrate the idea of someone losing his job, but it was clear that the Indians needed to make a change. By most accounts Acta seemed to have set the tone of apathy that took hold of the clubhouse over the last couple months, and the number of baffling decisions he made in setting his lineups and implementing in-game strategies seemed to betray a flawed fundamental understanding of how the game works.

We’ve written a lot about Acta’s job security here at Wahoo’s on First this month. Two weeks ago I made the case for firing Acta, and on Wednesday Steve Kinsella argued that the Indians should replace him with Alomar. In our Weekly Wroundtable last Friday, all five of our site’s contributing writers agreed that Acta should be dismissed.

Best of luck to Manny Acta in his future endeavors.