{"id":890,"date":"2016-10-03T21:59:20","date_gmt":"2016-10-04T01:59:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonbaseball.com\/?p=890"},"modified":"2016-10-03T21:59:20","modified_gmt":"2016-10-04T01:59:20","slug":"miami-marlins-fire-barry-bonds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2016\/10\/03\/miami-marlins-fire-barry-bonds\/","title":{"rendered":"Miami Marlins Fire Barry Bonds"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>2016 was a season the Miami Marlins would rather forget \u2013 a season that began like a roller coaster climbing toward the apex of the hill, but ended up speeding down the other side. The fish went into the All-Star break six games over .500 and had a legitimate shot at the playoffs. But playing nine games under .500 in the second half and enduring something no team should ever have to go through will be the story of the 2016 Marlins.<\/p>\n<h2>Miami Marlins Fire Barry Bonds<\/h2>\n<p>After just one season with the team, <strong>Barry Bonds<\/strong> is out as the hitting coach of the Marlins; first reported by Jon Heyman of Today\u2019s Knuckleball.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-lang=\"en\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">sources: barry bonds is being let go by marlins<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Jon Heyman (@JonHeyman) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/JonHeyman\/status\/783056215135907840\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">October 3, 2016<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>The home run king was hired to <strong>Don Mattingly<\/strong>\u2019s staff in December to work alongside co-hitting coach <strong>Frank Menechino<\/strong>. Bonds\u2019 personality toward the media during his playing days certainly led to questions of whether he was fit for the 162-game grind of being a coach. According to SiriusXM&#8217;s Craig Mish, Bonds and Mattingly had a falling out of sorts during the season.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-lang=\"en\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Bonds was called out this summer by Mattingly on a road trip. Commitment level dwindled.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Craig Mish (@CraigMish) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/CraigMish\/status\/783058549068881920\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">October 3, 2016<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>The Marlins hit .263 as a team under Bonds, which was good for fourth in Major League Baseball. They were, however, 13<sup>th<\/sup> in OBP (.322), 27<sup>th<\/sup> in slugging (.394) and 25<sup>th<\/sup> in OPS (.716). Certainly some of those numbers could be put into context with <strong>Giancarlo Stanton<\/strong> missing 56 games and <strong>Dee Gordon<\/strong>\u2019s PED suspension.<\/p>\n<p>It would be a stretch to call it a coincidence that outfielders <strong>Christian Yelich<\/strong> and <strong>Marcell Ozuna<\/strong> posted career seasons under Bonds. Yelich (.298\/.376\/.483) hit 21 homers and drove in 98 runs while Ozuna (.266\/.321\/.452) hit 23 homers and was named an <strong>NL All-Star<\/strong> in 2016.<\/p>\n<p>One thing that was certain, though, is Bonds didn\u2019t lack the ability to connect with the players in the clubhouse. He was always the first person on the top step of the dugout to high-five someone after hitting a homer. Stanton and Ozuna were often seen using the Sam Bat model 2K1, Bonds\u2019 game model from his playing days (pictured below). <a href=\"http:\/\/m.mlb.com\/cutfour\/2016\/09\/20\/202441828\/marlins-jose-fernandezs-pitching-performance-gets-kisses-from-barry-bonds\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">His relationship with <strong>Jose Fernandez<\/strong><\/a> during the 2016 season was well documented following the young star\u2019s tragic death.<\/p>\n<div class=\"getty embed image\" style=\"background-color: #fff; display: inline-block; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; color: #a7a7a7; font-size: 11px; width: 100%; max-width: 594px;\">\n<div style=\"padding: 0; margin: 0; text-align: left;\"><a style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/608134128\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><\/div>\n<div style=\"overflow: hidden; position: relative; height: 0; padding: 68.686869% 0 0 0; width: 100%;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"display: inline-block; position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; margin: 0;\" src=\"\/\/embed.gettyimages.com\/embed\/608134128?et=qvCEqX9yTWBA-fyjFVHguA&amp;viewMoreLink=on&amp;sig=-Q7qpvIp63-j57E1ltjpyjSvjLzPicGe8MRU8ozpQug=&amp;caption=true\" width=\"594\" height=\"408\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p style=\"margin: 0;\">\n<\/div>\n<p>Third base coach Lenny Harris (MLB\u2019s all-time pinch hit leader) was also fired by the team, while Menechino was retained.<\/p>\n<div style=\"margin: 10px 0; max-width: 550px;\"><a id=\"ld-3504-7889\" href=\"http:\/\/lockerdome.com\/6169841350483521\/9112744049813528\" data-width=\"100%\" data-height=\"auto\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Should the one game play-in Wild Card be expanded to a three game series?<\/a><span id=\"ld-3504-7889-equiv\"> in <a href=\"http:\/\/lockerdome.com\/6169841350483521\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">LastWordOnSports&#8217;s Hangs<\/a> on <a href=\"http:\/\/lockerdome.com\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">LockerDome<\/a><\/span><script>(function(d,s,id,elid) {window.ldInit = window.ldInit || []; ldInit.push(elid);if (d.getElementById(id)) return;var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];js=d.createElement(s); js.id=id;js.async=true;js.src=\"\/\/cdn2.lockerdome.com\/_js\/embed.js\";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}(document, \"script\", \"lockerdome-wjs\", \"ld-3504-7889\"));<\/script><\/div>\n<p>Main Photo<\/p>\n<div class=\"getty embed image\" style=\"background-color: #fff; display: inline-block; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; color: #a7a7a7; font-size: 11px; width: 100%; max-width: 594px;\">\n<div style=\"padding: 0; margin: 0; text-align: left;\"><a style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/609382598\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><\/div>\n<div style=\"overflow: hidden; position: relative; height: 0; padding: 55.892256% 0 0 0; width: 100%;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"display: inline-block; position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; margin: 0;\" src=\"\/\/embed.gettyimages.com\/embed\/609382598?et=5fkK7XAjSh517MjbZ9DwlQ&amp;viewMoreLink=on&amp;sig=feBXY79p5zGnqUJye1lHMCrJpMKXH3MD6M0f2q-H9S4=&amp;caption=true\" width=\"594\" height=\"332\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p style=\"margin: 0;\">\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>2016 was a season the Miami Marlins would rather forget \u2013 a season that began like a roller coaster climbing toward the apex of the hill, but ended up speeding down the other side. The fish went into the All-Star break six games over .500 and had a legitimate shot at the playoffs. But playing [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1586,"featured_media":891,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[35,20],"tags":[70,68,404,290,220,221,71,69],"class_list":["post-890","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-marlins","tag-barry-bonds","tag-baseball","tag-christian-yelich","tag-dee-gordon","tag-giancarlo-stanton","tag-marcell-ozuna","tag-miami-marlins","tag-mlb"],"modified_by":"Will Cheney, Managing Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/890","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1586"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=890"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/890\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/891"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=890"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=890"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=890"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}