I am such a middleman, because I see your point of view but I also see 700hitter's.
Ben has done some very good things and I'm sorry he lost his job. But I can't dismiss the fact that this is the first time in 50 years we have had 3 seasons out of 4 that were this bad, and with one of the highest payrolls. The fact that we won a championship in the midst of those years is great, and also kind of bizarre.
What ultimately did him in, maybe, was the duality of the team's approach - rebuilding and dishing out huge contracts at the same time.