The Atlanta Braves made a long rumored move on Tuesday when they fired their six year manager Fredi Gonzalez.

To be fair Gonzalez has a winning 710-682 record in 10 managerial seasons including 434-413 with the Braves. He managed the Florida Marlins for four years.

Going into Friday night’s game with the Pirates in Pittsburgh the Braves have a major league worst 9-28 record but to be fair I don’t think their problems this season can all be the fault of Gonzalez.

Prior to this season the Braves unloaded a lot of big money contracts in trades for highly rated minor league prospects to build up their farm system, which has been somewhat depleted.

The Braves say that by unloading all those big money contracts they are freeing up some money to sign some top free agents before they go into their new Sun Trust Field next season.

While I am not a big fan of Gonzalez I don’t believe he has been left with a strong enough roster to contend for anything this season.

The Braves were 296-214, or 82 games over .500 his first three plus seasons as manager. They were 62-86 the rest of that season and after a surprising 42-42 start in 2015 they struggled during an injury and trade plagued second half to go 67-95.

That record was the worst since 1990, the year before the Braves had their worst to first turnaround season.

Gonzalez was third base coach under Braves Hall of Fame manager Bobby Cox for four seasons through 2006 then he got his first managerial opportunity with the Marlins.

In fairness I don’t think any manager could have done much with the Braves talent this season and I hope he gets another managerial job somewhere in baseball.