Eddie Murray out. Bill Mueller in (for now).

I thought Honeycutt would go first but I also wondered if Murry was actually helping our hitting to improve or help stay more consistent.
Anything to get these guys to execute a little bit better.

Good thing I'm not the manager and props to Little for not giving up on Betemit. I know he's not out of the woods yet, but he is starting to look like the player with the promise we traded for last year.
Us fans (me) have a tendency to react without much patience. I would expect Little to be more calm about this than me anyway, LOL.

As we all know confidence is sports is everything and the Dodgers have gotten a good dose of it against the Mets (even if they are struggling)
Hopefully this will carry on for awhile. Winning cures all ills, especially if you are Dodgers/Lakers co-dependant.

This is the best move the Dodgers could have ever made. I am an avid Bill Mueller Fan and was devistated to see him leave the Red Sox. During his career her with the Sox he went out and gave 110% every game. I vastly considered him the most under rated player the team had and yet one of the biggest keys to our success. Bill will do an excellent job as Batting Coach for the Dodgers.

This is the ABSOLUTE WORST Garbage I have ever heard!! If anyone should be fired it's Colletti and Little. You send down guys like Loney and Bigbie who were the main bats in the Spring. Bats other players likely counted on to be there in the season. Then Little sits the HOT Hitting guys when there hitting saying they needed REST. You want base hitters to hit HR's and pressure them into producing more power, screwing w/ their heads and swing, and then you fire the one guy who increased Russell Martin hitting, got Ethier back to swinging good, and helped newcomer Luis Gonzalez into hitting again and you do it when the Dodgers FINALLY seem to be clicking and playing good baseball. Last year was good timing, this year I just don't understand the timing at all. The Dodgers are winning inspite of all this Garbage and us fans therefore say great BUT we should be dominating the West and not just hanging around. AGAIN, THIS IS GARBAGE! IT MUST BE NICE TO FIND A SCAPEGOAT FOR YOUR MISTAKES NED and GRADY!

The hitting woes of the Dodgers absolutely was not the fault of Eddie Murray!! Playing Betemit all the time when he couldn't hit anything and still playing him when he is just over 200 and most of it came pinch hitting. He only seems to pinch hit well and one multihit game does not make a Hall of Famer!! Also, I am convinced that Pierre should be way down the line-up if at all. Hitting Furcal and then Pierre has not proved to be a good idea. Little makes these kinds of decisions, NOT MURRAY.

Rob
I think all your comments are right on target!!

Mak
I don't think you can blame Nomar and Kent when no one except Martin has been hitting well and Nomar has done all right with RISP. His HR totals are down significantly but this could change. Resting players all the time when they ARE hitting is ridiculous. This is Little's managerial style. good or bad. But there is no question that Murray was a SCAPEGOAT!!!

Package,

In reality, everyone in that lineup is to blame, including Martin, who has been in somewhat of a slump recently. Nomar's RISP numbers are also pretty misleading. His weak singles sometimes don't score runners from second, and his RBI numbers could be much greater if he hit the ball hard once in a while.

Eddie Murray is the scapegoat, but his firing may not have been totally unwarranted. Word has it that Murray has a pretty prickly and unapproachable personality. Not so big of a problem for the veterans, but the younger guys may have been a little apprehensive about asking for his advice. Until last week, Ethier and Martin, and Betemit were the only young guys in the lineup, and only Betemit was struggling. Now that Kemp, Abreu, Loney, are a part of the club, the firing may have been more of a preemptive move than anything.

I just wonder how much respect Mueller commands when he tries giving guys like Kent and Gonzo pointers on their swings.

Mike,
We're "assuming" Betemit was listening to Murray? Was he listening to him last year? Come on, lets not fire a guy because ONE guy SUPPOSEDLY listened to the coach and sucked it up badly! So Murray should be fired b/c Betemit has his head up his butt checks? Wilson in my opinion will be a decent hitter, his problem is he likely listened to EVERYONE on how to hit. He is a head case. Once, he figures out that he has talent and can hit, just go out and do it. In any case, Grady should of sat his sorry behind on the pine instead of insistently starting him and then placing the blame on Murray. Wilson was up there in a lot of KEY moments that could of changed the complexion of the game and I strongly feel we would be at least 5 games better at this point had Grady pulled the trigger.

Mak,
Maybe Murray's firing is warranted given your explaintion BUT why NOW??!! Timing SUCKS! Pull the trigger when the offense was struggliing. Now that they seem to be fighting out of their funk, they fire Murray. Just another low class move. Like the treatment of Loney.

Package,
Agree. Murray is a GREAT HITTER, Hall of Famer. And I would be inclined to listen to him. Again though if what Mak says is true and Murray (known as a difficult person) didn't/couldn't communicate, then his firing might be warranted. You can't teach if you don't communicate. BUT THEN AGAIN, why NOW??!!

I think Tim Brown (former LAT writter) explanation of what might have been the reason Murray was axed is the best so I'll put it up and then you guys could tell me what you think.

Five and Fly: Murray less than a hit
By Tim Brown

Thursday, Jun 14, 2007 2:35 pm EDT
A few weeks ago, asked about Eddie Murray's touch with Los Angeles Dodgers hitters who ranged from the greenest of rookies to the grayest of veterans, one of those veterans sighed and shook his head.

He liked Murray. He valued Murray's Hall-of-Fame credentials. He assumed Murray could probably teach hitting to someone.

The problem, he said, was Murray could be difficult to approach, particularly for a young player. And Murray, he said, didn't do enough of approaching of his own.

"He's trying, I think," the veteran said. "He's better this year than he was last year."

On Thursday morning, after a series in which the Dodgers outscored the New York Mets, 18-5, Murray was fired as hitting coach from his second organization in two years. Then, the Cleveland Indians were said to be unhappy with Murray's ability – or willingness – to communicate. It appears the Dodgers arrived at the same conclusion in less than a season and a half, eight months after they finished fourth in the National League in runs despite hitting the second-fewest home runs.

They were, as of Murray's final game this season, seventh in the league in runs, again not hitting home runs, and too often taking poor at-bats at critical times. From last season, they'd slipped in many key categories (some, granted, due to J.D. Drew's departure and Juan Pierre's slow start), including on-base percentage.

So, at a point where they are feathering in at-bats for the likes of Matt Kemp and James Loney while trying to fan productive seasons out of Jeff Kent and Nomar Garciaparra, the Dodgers hired the anti-Murray in the easy-going Bill Mueller, who had been a special assistant to general manager Ned Colletti and now will be interim hitting coach.

Mueller hit .291 and won a batting title in 11 seasons. He's pleasant, accessible and attentive to detail, and maybe that will work.

BK,
In regards to timing, I agree there is NO GOOD TIME to do it. And it is like a band aid. But there is a time frame that it would be better to do it in. Firing a coach is NEVER GOOD but I say do it when it needs to be done. If the reason is they are not hitting, then I say, they were starting to hit now that Loney and Kemp are up and the chemistry is good again. If the reason is, "Murray cannot communicate" and there is no good time, then why not before the season started? Why not when they were struggling? The fact that Ned acted AFTER the Dodgers seem to have found themselves again to make a move that supposedly needs to be made, I think shows that they are slow to react and the move seems reactive as opposed to proactive (something Ned was said to be) It's poor judgment and not something you need to throw into a dying fire. And gives off the impression that the front office is not on top of things. Should of been before or wait a bit and if the current chemistry is a fluke, you can always fire him then. Again poor timing in my opinion. Something Grady and Ned seem to do a lot lately.

Eddie is a hall of famer and obviously was one of the best hitters in baseball history. I never did see him as a coach, though, with that grumpy personality...at least his public face. When Cleveland fired him for communication problems I remembered thinking. "Well, DUH, he was never confused Mickey Hatcher." If grizzled veterans like Kent and Nomar weren't open to change and if Eddie didn't approach the young guys, who exactly did he coach? Who was it who coached our young guys, say like in Jacksonville a few years ago?

Rob-

I see your point, and agree that if they thought this was a problem before the season, it would have been best to take care of it earlier. But if they felt the move needed to be made, whether it was because of consistency of performance or percieved chemistry and communication issues, then they just had to do it. You can't time it. It's like trying to time the stock market. Not a good idea. Make the moves (or purchases) you feel are correct, and move on. To try and wait until they went into a slump again seems counterproductive to me, and makes the front office seem more concerned about themselves and trying to pick the perfect time to blame Eddie Murray. Like I said, if they anticipated the problem and didn't fix it earlier, it's their bad. But once they felt a change needed to be made, (and like I wrote earlier, I write this without passing judgement on Murray as a coach, because honestly I'm not familiar enough with how the hitters saw him) it had to get done.

BK