The Milwaukee Brewers named Craig Counsell as their new manager Monday after firing Ron Roenicke less than 24 hours earlier.
Counsell, who becomes the 19th manager in franchise history, signed a three-year contract through the 2017 season. The 44-year-old Counsell moves from the front office to the dugout after Roenicke’s dismissal Sunday night.
“I don’t believe in a style of managing,” Counsell said at Monday’s news conference at Miller Park. “I believe that we take rosters and we try to get the best out of our players. You try to get your players to perform to the best of their abilities, based on what their skills are.
“I’m going to try to get these guys playing to the best of their capabilities. If we can do that, we’ll be good. That’s my No. 1 goal. I will have expectations of them. They’ll know them. They’ll be important to me.”
Counsell joined the front office on Jan. 17, 2012 as special assistant to general manager Doug Melvin. The former infielder had a 16-year major league playing career.
“He’s got a real edge for preparation,” Melvin said of Counsell. “A lot of times, it’s not the manager’s decision. I think there’s way too much made of the pitcher and bringing in a pinch hitter. It’s all about preparation and getting the players prepared and if they’re prepared properly, they will play the game at a high level. I think he’s ready for that because he was the type of player who prepared himself.”
The National League West-leading Dodgers visit Miller Park beginning Monday night for a four-game series, with Clayton Kershaw and Zack Greinke set to pitch the first two games for Los Angeles.
Counsell played in 1,624 games with Colorado (1995, 1997), Florida (1997-99), Los Angeles (1999), Arizona (2000-03, 2005-06) and Milwaukee (2004, 2007-11). He was a member of World Series championship teams with Florida (1997) and Arizona (2001), and was named Most Valuable Player of the 2001 National League Championship Series.
“There are a lot of players that had extensive successful big league careers and didn’t manage in the minor leagues,” Melvin said. “But he’s not far from being in that clubhouse with the players wearing that uniform. I think he knows today’s players better than somebody from the outside who doesn’t know our organization.”
Counsell is a Milwaukee-area native who spent six seasons playing for the Brewers.
“I am grateful and honored to have the opportunity to manage the team that I rooted for, played for and worked for in the front office,” Counsell said earlier in a statement released by the team. “In the 10 years that I have been a member of the organization, I have grown to feel a great responsibility to baseball in the city of Milwaukee. This has been a difficult time for the Brewers, and we all share the responsibility. I understand the work ahead to be the team our fans deserve. We have challenges ahead of us and I look forward to working tirelessly to achieve our goals.”
Melvin announced Roenicke’s firing hours after the 5-3 victory over the Chicago Cubs on Sunday to give the Brewers their first consecutive victories of the year and first series win. The team started the season with a league-worst 7-18 record.
“This came together fairly quick,” Melvin told reporters Sunday night. “You can look at the two or three games and say we played better but we looked at it how we performed over the entire month (of April) and how we performed over the course of the last 100 games.
“The last three games the players have performed better and you say, ‘Why couldn’t that have happened earlier?’ It’s (a lack of) consistency. We just did not play good baseball until the last few games. We couldn’t wait to see if we’d lose three more or seven of the next 10 or whatever. Ron and I were both very frustrated at how the team was playing. We talked a lot about how you get the guys going and performing on a consistent basis.”
Roenicke was surprised by the timing of the move.
“I told (Melvin) I wish he would have fired me a week ago instead of right when the team started playing well,” Roenicke told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on Sunday night. “That bothered me. When he asked me to come up to his office, I figured it couldn’t be good.”
The Brewers won a franchise-record 96 games and the NL Central crown in Roenicke’s first season in 2011. They overcame a slew of injuries and a midseason trade of right-hander Zack Greinke to challenge for a wild-card spot in 2012 but fell apart completely in 2013 when Ryan Braun was suspended for the final 65 games over his role in the Biogenesis scandal.
Roenicke’s stint with Milwaukee — his first as a big-league manager — comes to an end with a 342-331 (.508) record.