Is Bob Geren on the hot seat?

BEN MARGOT

The Chronicle’s Ray Ratto breaks down the numbers that are up against the A’s fourth year manager:

There have been 663 managers in major-league history, 176 of whom have held the job since 1980. Of those 176, 46 have held the same job for more than four years, which is where Geren would be at season’s end. Of those 46, 10 have held the job for at least four years without taking that team to the postseason. Of those 10, only four have not taken any team to the postseason. And only one has a lower winning percentage than Geren’s.

Ratto notes, however, that Geren and Billy Beane are really, really close and that the A’s, in general, are notoriously dismissive of a manager’s impact on wins and losses. Geren is cheap, both this season and in terms of his 2011 team option, and there isn’t any strong reason to believe that he’s either the cause of the A’s recent woes or an impediment to future success.

I think more telling than anything the team does with Geren this year is whether the fans and newspapers in the Bay Area will be calling for his head if the A’s get off to a bad start. I bet it will be rather quiet. Why? Because my fear -- and what should be the fear of the A’s front office -- is that people in Oakland are far less angry at the course the team is taking than they are utterly indifferent.