Something needs to be said about Bobby Cox’s capacity as a major league manager. He’s just awful. Atlanta fans have all those years of post season appearances and one World Series championship to show for it.

The Braves TV and radio announcers (don’t get me wrong…I love those guys) go on and on about how great of a manager Bobby Cox is and how he’s definitely going to end up in the Hall of Fame one of these days. The truth is that his job is to win championships. He’s done that once in 17 years as manager. He was a great general manager, but he’s got no place managing on the big league level. And he certainly doesn’t belong in the Hall of Fame.

Saturday night my Dad and I took the kids to see the Braves, and we had the opportunity to see Cox demonstrate his incompetence in the bottom of the 6th inning.

There were 2 outs in the inning, the bases were loaded, the score was tied 2-2, and the pitcher’s spot was coming to the plate. The Braves already had 6 quality innings from the starter Reyes, but somehow, somewhere deep in the abyss that is the “how to manage a baseball team” part of Bobby Cox’s brain, it made sense to let Reyes bat for himself in the 6th.

Reyes, of course, grounded out, ending the 6th inning rally. I was confused. Dad was confused. 40,000 fans at the park were confused. I mean, if it’s the 4th - or even 5th - inning, and you’ve got a tie game with the bases loaded, you can let your pitcher bat. But after he’s thrown 6 quality innings, you’re not going to have him in there much longer anyway. At that point, you’ve got to pinch hit and hope you can get a couple of runs.

I heard the beloved Braves announcers justifying the decision; they said that Reyes’ pitch count was low, that he was so effective, that Cox really just had to send him back out there. I know they’re just standing up for the guy, but really, when your team’s manager does something that stupid, let him stand up for himself.

The bottom line here is that Bobby Cox just can’t manage. Somehow he’s got people believing that he’s wonderful. After all, he did manage those 1990’s teams to all those division titles, right? Those 1990’s Braves teams were incredible. They had 3 future Hall of Famers in the starting rotation. Anybody could have managed those Braves teams and made it to the playoffs. Bobby Cox just happened to be in the right place at the right time.

Cox is long overdue for retirement. He doesn’t seem to have any intentions of retiring, and the organization presents him like he’s a saint, so they can’t fire him. Seriously, you just can’t fire a saint.

I’d like to see another championship in Atlanta, but it won’t come until Cox is watching from his living room where he won’t have the ability to make insane managerial decisions (but he’ll still be an idiot).