Firing the manager is easy. Easier, at least, than firing yourself, which of course is what a few general managers should have done in April.

It's rare for a team with a lot of good players to fire its manager, because a team with a lot of good players will usually win enough games to preserve the manager's job whether the manager knows what he's doing or not. And without a lot of good players, it's tough for a manager to win enough to keep his job, even if he does know what he's doing. Joseph Heller would be proud.

But let's say that you're a general manager and, like most general managers, you'd rather fire your manager than yourself. What can you hope to accomplish with a new skipper?

There are managers who have been able, by virtue of their strength of personality and intellect, to turn around a team immediately, or very close to immediately. Billy Martin, of course, was one of those managers. Davey Johnson, pre-Dodgers. Lou Piniella's done well in his first season with three different clubs, but he's been managing the Mariners for so long that we can't really assume he still has that particular skill (assuming, of course, that he ever had it).

If you hire one of those guys, you're lucky (at least for a couple of years). With most managers, though, you should merely hope for the same thing that you ask first of any doctor or parent: "Do no harm."

Based on that alone, I believe that all of the firings this season were merited. I'm not going to delve into the performances of the four ex-managers today, because I've written about them before, and any further analysis will benefit from the perspective that time gives us. What I've not written about is the future of the teams that played poorly enough to get their unfortunate managers excused from their duties.

So in alphabetical order ...

Speaking of things I've written about before, I do not believe the Colorado Rockies are mortally wounded by their ballpark. However, I do believe Coors Field makes it difficult to evaluate personnel and thus build a winning franchise. I do believe Dan O'Dowd is a sharp guy with an open mind. However, I also believe O'Dowd has somehow missed a key fact about the Rockies, which is that when they've won, they've scored a ton of runs. One can make a very good case that the Rockies' weakness has not been that their pitching and defense wasn't good enough, but rather that their hitting wasn't good enough.

Since joining the National League in 1993, the Rockies have finished better than .500 at the conclusion of four seasons; in each of those seasons, the Rockies led the National League in runs scored. In only one season have the Rockies led the league in runs but not finished above .500; that was last season and it was a fluke, as the Rocks outscored their opponents by 17 runs but somehow managed to finish 16 games below .500 (ah, that Buddy Bell magic ... oops, I said I wasn't going to write about the managers).

In the end, maybe the Rockies aren't so inscrutable after all. Maybe they just need to come up with better hitters. And stop overspending for pitchers.

The Detroit Tigers do not have to worry about their ballpark inflating run production. Quite the opposite. That's good for developing pitchers, but by the same token the Tigers have to avoid the common pitfall of overrating their pitchers and underrating their hitters. Fortunately, for some reason that seems to be less common than teams in hitter's parks overrating their hitters and underrating their pitchers. On another happy note, Dave Dombrowki has built competitive franchises in both Montreal and Florida (granted, he had a lot of financial help in Florida). On a sad note, the long and ugly reign of Randy Smith has left the organization with very few hitting prospects. On another happy note, Smith did draft some good pitchers, chief among them Jeff Weaver and Nate Cornejo.

Really, it comes down to this: if Tigers owner Mike Ilitch gives Dombrowski an extra $20 million to play with, the Tigers could be quite competitive in 2003 or 2004. If Ilitch leaves the payroll where it is (relative to the other clubs), it's going to take a little longer. But the Tigers will be competitive.

The Kansas City Royals are so dysfunctional ...

How dysfunctional are they?

They're so dysfunctional that after firing the worst manager in the major leagues, they responded with six straight losses to lousy teams.

They're so dysfunctional that they've been outscored 55-16 by the Baltimore Orioles this season.

They're so dysfunctional that they've been out-homered by Lance Berkman, so dysfunctional that they've already been shut out as many times (six) this season as last season.

They're so dysfunctional that their general manager's two big offseason acquisitions, Chuck Knoblauch and Michael Tucker, are currently batting .190 and .205, respectively.

They're so dysfunctional that they're 8-21 after playing a 29-game schedule that included 13 games against the Orioles and Tigers (and their next 14 games come against the Twins and Indians).

They're so dysfunctional that they apparently have little interest in even interviewing Buck Showalter, the only available quality manager who's expressed any interest in the job.

They're so dysfunctional that their owner lives a few hundred miles away. Not to worry, though; he's installed one of his sons as president of the club.

They're so dysfunctional that ... sorry, I'll stop now. Sometime within the next three years, the Kansas City Royals will cease to exist as the Kansas City Royals, so it's silly to waste much more time worrying about them.

Instead, let's worry about the Milwaukee Brewers, because at least we know they'll be around for quite some time ... but gosh, where do we start? They've got a bargain-basement ballpark that's nowhere near as much fun as most of the other new parks. They've got a Selig running the show. They've got a co-owner who also happens to be Commissioner of Major League Baseball, and his politics force the Brewers to select from a limited pool of applicants when there's an opening for on-the-field management. And they're playing in one of the worst markets in the major leagues, bounded on the south by Cubs country, the east by a Great Lake, and the north and west by cows. Lots of cows.

Also, nobody in the organization seems to know a hitter from a beer vat. As I'm sure you know, last year the Milwaukee hitters racked up 1,399 strikeouts, thus shattering with ease the major-league record. Heading into this season, then, one of general manager Dean Taylor's big goals was to cut down on those pesky strikeouts. He succeeded admirably. Through 30 games, the Brewers have struck out only 213 times, eighth-most in the league.

Unfortunately, the Brewers have cut down on their run production, too. A year ago, the Brewers finished 11th in the league in runs. And this year? They're 15th in runs per game, ahead of the Pirates and behind every other National League club. Things may improve, of course, but I suspect that by the end of the season, Dean Taylor will realize that getting rid of strikeouts isn't a panacea. And then it's back to the ol' drawing board, and with virtually no exciting hitting prospects in the farm system.

Summing up ... the Tigers are on the right track, at least if you place much stock in Dombrowski's track record, but they're at least two seasons away from competing for a division title. The Rockies have a shot, but their ballpark is always going to get in the way. Given that the Brewers are going to be around for a long time, we should assume that they'll be competitive at some point. Exactly when, though, is an open question. And the Kansas City Royals? They're a basket-case franchise, tied with the Devil Rays for title of Worst Organization in Baseball.