Before the start of the season, the Padres got rid of their third base coach and their first base coach. And for good reason. The baserunning was atrocious last year. Guys were getting picked off of second base regularly. Second base. Regularly.
What was the other thing that was atrocious? The hitting. Sandy Alderson, in his meeting with the Alliance for Strategic Planning mentioned the fact that Padres baseball puts a lot of emphasis on "positives" and not enough emphasis on "results".
Let me explain paraphrasing Alderson's example...
A batter gets a base hit. The batter steals second. The batter gets sac bunted over to third. The next two batters strike out.
Three positive outcomes. Three things that the fans would've clapped and cheered for. Zero results.
The Padres need results and Magadan wasn't providing them.
Claiming that the Padres hitting should be blamed solely on the players is crazy to me. To me, that's akin to telling a kid that he doesn't need to go to school to learn anything. That teachers can't do anything to help bring out natural talents. That everyone's skills are decided at birth and no amount of nuturing will ever help them.
Does that really make sense to anyone?
Without proper coaching, how are these players supposed to realize when they're making mistakes? By looking at tape? Who's going to tell them to look at the tape? The other players? The one's who are also batting .215 with 3 homeruns halfway through the season?
It was time for a change. The money being invested is in the players and not giving them every tool possible to succeed (good coaching) was akin to throwing an investment down the drain.
Update [2006-6-16 10:44:42 by Dex]: Also, when the Onion is calling you out, that's when you kinda know something has become public knowledge.