Normally, when a manager is under contract for the next season, teams don't see the need to announce he will be returning.
The Milwaukee Brewers almost have to say something at some point with Ron Roenicke, however.
Roenicke's status was thrown into question Saturday when Brewers principal owner Mark Attanasio and general manager Doug Melvin held a joint media session on the field at Miller Park to answer questions about the team's epic late-season collapse and future plans.
Attanasio confirmed that Melvin would be back in 2015 but Melvin said no decision on Roenicke had been made.
"There's nothing I can answer in regard to the manager and coaches at this time," said Melvin.
For those expecting the decision to come any moment, you should stand down. The plan is for Melvin to travel to Colorado Springs this week to meet with officials from the Brewers' new Class AAA affiliate and then on to Phoenix to monitor the team's instructional camp.
Melvin will go to Los Angeles next week to meet with Atttanasio to discuss plans for the future, including the status of Roenicke and his coaches. Roenicke, who lives not far from L.A., has been told to keep time open next week to meet with Melvin and Attanasio. When that meeting takes place, he presumably will be told whether the team will honor his contract for next season.
"We don't want to make any rash decisions on anything," Melvin said Monday. "We want to think through things. You want to get emotions out of it so it's better to take some time. It's like after losing a tough game, the emotions are still there. That's why I never go to the clubhouse after a game because your emotions are too raw.
"It's the same thing after a season. You have to step back and look at things. We had 82 wins and I'm not satisfied with any of that stuff. Like I said, it would be easier to fix if we had 65 wins. Then, you can change everything."
Melvin sees no need to completely blow things up after an otherwise promising season was ruined by a late-season meltdown. Primarily because the offense disappeared in astonishing fashion, the Brewers went 9-22 after Aug. 25, falling from first place in the NL Central and completely out of the playoff picture.
Pittsburgh and San Francisco claimed the wild-card berths with 88 victories each.
Melvin did not indicate whether the team would make an official announcement on Roenicke's status if it is decided he will return. Some coaching changes are expected but the current staff is signed through the end of October so there is no pressing need for a public announcement soon on that front, either.
"A lot of teams with much worse records than we had announced their managers or general managers were getting extensions," said Melvin. "It's just the natural process at the end of the year, how teams do things.
"Nothing is going to happen this week. The best thing is to let the emotions settle down and sit down and evaluate it. I heard someone give the analogy that the season has died and now we have to have an autopsy. Some people may say the team died, too.
"If we could have won a couple of series from the Cubs in September and not got swept in San Francisco (in late August), we'd be right there. We weren't that far away. That's what makes it frustrating. There are a lot of things to look at and evaluate."
In the end, the Brewers were done in by an offense that couldn't score enough runs to take the heat off the pitching staff. While going 9-17 in September, they scored 71 runs for a paltry average of 2.73 per game. The Brewers scored 0, 1 or 2 runs 17 times during the final 31-game slide.
"How the hitting disappeared was just unbelievable," said Melvin. "We did make mistakes. I'm disappointed in the mistakes we made. But if you look at the errors in the major leagues, Pittsburgh and Oakland are in the bottom three, and they made the playoffs.
"There's so much statistical stuff to analyze and some of it is crazy. You can spend a lot of your time analyzing all of the statistical stuff but there's really not a model for (making the playoffs). You've got to play to your personnel. You can overcome mistakes by scoring runs.
"I talked to Ron about it. I told him if we think we don't have the players to play an aggressive style then we need to pull back a notch. He admitted that. He pulled back a little.
"When you look at it, all of the things people are crying for now are what (previous manager) Ken Macha did. He didn't bunt; he didn't run. But he was a career winning manager. You have to decide what you want."
Roenicke spent many sleepless nights trying to figure out what he could do different to pull the Brewers out of their slide. But he had only so many options in changing a lineup in which many key contributors from the past simply didn't get the job done.
The leading home runs hitters over the final month with three apiece were Rickie Weeks and Matt Clark, a bench player and September call-up. Jonathan Lucroy was the leading RBI man with nine. Ryan Braun (.210 average) and Aramis Ramirez (.217), normally counted on to anchor the offense, each had one homer and five RBI in September.
"When we were thinking about and trying to figure out what happened in the season in the end, we talked about everything," Roenicke said when he met with reporters Sunday before the season finale. "I can't give an answer on what happened.
"You can point to what happened but the 'why' is what we really need to figure out."
Whether Roenicke returns or not, some coaching changes are inevitable. Hitting coach Johnny Narron likely won't survive, mainly because a change usually is made at his position when an offense struggles, if only to provide another voice for hitters.
Once Melvin and Attanasio make their call on Roenicke and his staff, there are personnel decisions looming, too. The team has five free agents – relievers Francisco Rodriguez, Zach Duke and Tom Gorzelanny, infielder Mark Reynolds and first baseman Lyle Overbay. The Brewers probably will try to keep Duke (2.45 ERA in 74 appearances) but Rodriguez (44 saves) might be allowed to leave after the acquisition of Jonathan Broxton.
Three players have 2015 options – Ramirez ($14 million mutual option), right-hander Yovani Gallardo ($13 million club option) and Weeks ($11.5 million club option). The Brewers are expected to exercise the options on Ramirez and Gallardo but not Weeks.
The Brewers also have four players eligible for salary arbitration – relievers Marco Estrada and Brandon Kintzler, outfielder Gerardo Parra and catcher Martin Maldonado.
www.jsonline.com/sports/brewers/no-decision-coming-this-week-on-brewers-manager-b99361252z1-277470021.html
