There was no way Stearns could have predicted or even hinted at SHaw falling off a cliff the way he did. COuld have expected some regression from Aguilar, but not to hit to a .620 OPS so far into the season. We can argue that it was folly to go into the season with 3 young starters, but absolutly nobody could have or should have predicted Burnes to be literally the worst pitcher in baseball, and give up a homer every 3 innings. The bullpen..... we came into ST with Hader, Knebel, and Jeffress. It's arguable that Jeffress was already burnt in the NLCS, and Stearns should have seen the falloff coming. Knebel was unexpected. The rest of the bullpen being a hot mess.... what can you say? The bullpen compared to the league is about average. Every bullpen in the NL (and MLB) is pretty much gross because of the juiced ball. Chacin is terrible, and every other starter has missed chunks of the season except Davies. How could Stearns have POSSIBLY prepared for everything to go wrong, and nothing to go "right" in the opposite direction? The only really "good" regression is Woodruff, and yet here we are in mid August 4 games back. That's not great but somehow, it's still a fighting chance. Fire Stearns? That's just asinine. Dude put together a fantastic team last year. Give him a chance to correct this mess. You don't make reactionary moves like this over one lost season because a ton of guys underperformed or got hurt. That's not even being an apologist. This season sucked. It sucks. Watching a 16-8 game where every reliever comes in and gets shelled SUCKS. But this is baseball. You pick up the chips you have left and move on and figure out what you have to do to fix it. It's gotta be hard to watch for the fans that think they know more than the GM and analytics guys and stuff. Baseball reference and fangraphs are awesome sites, but they have given rise to fans that think a few in depth stats are all they need to know more than the guys at the top of the game who are doing this all day every day.