First of all I wasn't advocating bringing him back, merely pointing out that getting rid of him was not quite the panacea so many wanted to believe it was. As to your leading question I'll start the answer session with Tom Kelly 1997-2000. The team improved in 2001 as I believe this team was bound to do in 2015 regardless of whether Gardy or Molitor was calling the shots. We'll never know that. And, yes, I realize TK had the cache that comes from winning 2 World Series rings to get another year beyond 4 straight 90 loss campaigns. But take away those 2 seasons, which a strong argument could be made for both being the result of brilliant moves by Andy McPhail (Gladden, Reardon, Morris, Chili Davis) in the off-seasons preceding them, and quite a bit of the bloom comes off TK's rose.