Former Rangers Manager Bobby Valentine will not coach the Marlins, at least not until next season.

It has been crazy week for the Florida Marlins organization, it started with manager Fredi Gonzalez being dismissed a few days after a sweep by the Rangers.  The Marlins immediately promoted Edwin Rodriguez from their Triple-A club where he served as the manager to the manager of the big league club.  Upon Rogriquez’s promotion, I found this somewhat interesting that he is the first Puerto Rican manager in the big leagues.

The Marlins then said that Rodriquez’s position as the manager was interim.  The Marlins then began to look outside of their organization for a possible replacement.  Two names originally mentioned were former Ranger’s managers Buck Showalter and Bobby Valentine with Valentine seemingly having the edge.

The Marlins are owned by Jeffrey Loria who used to own the Rangers Triple-A team when Valentine was at the helm of the Rangers, so they seem to have a pretty good relationship.  It was announced that the Valentine-Marlins marriage was almost a done deal and it was looking bleak for Rodriguez to manage the Marlins for very long, especially since the Marlins were about to head to Puerto Rico to play a three game series against the Mets.  That is somewhat ironic that the first Puerto Rican manager  would end up managing one of his first series’s in his native land.  MLB games are played in Puerto Rico about every four years it seems like.

Before tonight’s game against the Met’s, Marlin’s owner Jeffrey Loria informed Rodriguez that he would manage the Marlins for the rest of the season and then his position would be evaluated once the season is complete.  I agree with this process because I think that if you dismiss your manager, hire an interim manager and then replace the interim with a permanent manager all in the middle of the season it is too much stress on a team and can be counter-productive.

In this case the Marlin’s can take their time deciding who will be the next permanent manager and Rodriguez will have time to prove his worth to the Marlins.  In some ways I feel the Marlins kind of let Fredi Gonzalez down, but like any job, no matter the talent you are provided, if they don’t perform and you are managing them, the people above you come down on you, not the team.

This could actually be a great move for Gonzalez though, he was with the Braves organization before coming over to manage the Marlins after Joe Giradi was dismissed.  Alanta Brave’s manager Bobby Cox is ending his Hall of Fame Career after this season and Gonzalez looks like he has a pretty good chance to replace him.  So although Cox will be leaving on different terms than Joe Torre did when he left the Yankees in 2008 both Gonzalez and Girardi could end up using their short tenures in Florida as a stepping stone to greater things.