Don Mattingly Tells Bryce Harper to 'Take Care of Your Own Dugout'

By Djack

Nothing like Bryce Harper sticking his nose where it doesn't belong. Don Mattingly made these comments in response to Harper making comments about how the Marlins traded away all their best players this offseason. To be frank, I think Mattingly overreacted a little, although I kinda liked it. The I don't care what you're saying about my team good or bad, just keep our names off your lips attitude, is one of a strong leader. Worry about your own dugout was such a perfect response from Donny baseball. Still, I don't think it was necessary. Harper was just saying how he thought the Marlins were a few pitchers away from contention before they blew it up and he was surprised they did. Nothing outrageous whatsoever, I don't know the context of the interview that the quote came from, but I assume someone probably asked him his thoughts on the Marlins. Now, if he just went out of his way to talk about the Marlins then I side with Donny baseball. If he was asked then Bryce Harper isn't in the wrong whatsoever.

Were the Marlins actually just a few pieces away, or were they an entire pitching staff away. The starting rotation didn't have an ace after the passing of Jose Fernandez. They had no go to starter that'd be able to get them wins consistently every 5th day. As if the starting pitching wasn't bad enough the bullpen was probably even worse. As a collective the Marlins pitching staff posted a 4.82 ERA, which was good for 26th in the MLB. The Marlins pitching staff needed an entire rebuild that would've taken ample cap space or ample amount of time to develop young starters in their system. Something that the star studded lineup wasn't going to be able to wait around for. The situation was just never going to work. Once Jose Fernandez passed away the Marlins were put back at square one. It's detrimental to a team when you lose a star player and get 0  compensation for them. It was a freak accident that derailed their plans, nothing could've been done by the front office to really prepare for such a tragedy. Then, the Marlins switched owners, and agendas changed. This new group wants to make the team profitable first, then they want to make them competitive, so it's going to be about 5 years before we see real change within the Marlins organization. 

Bryce Harper was looking at from his perspective, made same pretty plain observations, and Mattingly ripped him for it. Love the alpha dog move by Mattingly, however Harper didn't step far enough out of line to take one on the chin so hard. Whatever, Harper certainly doesn't give a shit he's about to sleep walk his way to another NL East division crown, and then sign a $400 million contract in the offseason. Bryce will bounce back from this L without even knowing he took a L.