You had to know it would happen.

Within minutes of the news breaking on Twitter that oft-questioned (and seemingly oft-confused) Dodgers third base coach Lorenzo Bundy had been fired (in a Ned Colletti-sort of way) and had been replaced by former World Series champion third base coach (2002 Angels) and former NLCS manager (2011 Brewers) Ron Roenicke, rumors and speculation filled the twittersphere that a major house-cleaning was about to occur with the Dodgers coaching staff – up to and including firing oft-criticized 7Dodgers manager Don Mattingly. And while no one can argue that Roenicke isn’t a significant upgrade from Bundy – who is still one of the most successful minor league managers in Dodgers history and was the 2012 Pacific Coast League’s Manager of the Year – any suggestion that the Dodgers front office is cleaning house, especially with Mattingly, is utter nonsense. You simply do not fire a manager who has his team in first place and has since the end of May.

…not yet, at least.

Perhaps the biggest blunder in Lorenzo Bundy’s near two-year career as the Dodgers third base coach was when he was nowhere near Andre Ethier when Ethier got picked off of third base by Cardinals catcher Yadier Molina in Game-4 of the 2014 NLDS. Bundy should have been next to (or at least near) Ethier screaming at him to dive back to the bag instead of letting him try to go back standing up. (Video capture courtesy of Fox Sports 1)

Any longtime follower of the game knows that no managerial job is safe these days, especially when they take a team with… say… the highest payroll in all of baseball into the postseason for… say… like… two years in a row and can’t get them past the League Championship Series when the team’s ownership has made it excruciatingly clear that they want to win it all and they want to do it right now.

Although the Colletti-like “reassigning” of Bundy may have some Dodger fans high-fiving each other with the misconception that Mattingly and the rest of his staff are soon to follow, the Roenicke hiring does bring an interesting, perhaps even subliminal message with it.

There have been occasional rumors that extremely cerebral Dodgers right-hander Zack Greinke, who is the clear front runner to win the 2015 NL Cy Young award and who has an opt-out clause from his six-year/$147 million contract at the end of this season, has at times been critical of the way that Mattingly manages the Dodgers, especial in “high leverage” (as Mattingly himself calls them) situations. And just like every player on every team throughout the entire 146-year history of major league baseball, Greinke wants to win a World Series ring and he wasn’t particularly happy when his own manager got outmanaged out of not one, but two of them. And if Greinke isn’t 100 percent sure that his manager is capable of winning the big one, he will move on to a team with a manager he believes can.

Enter Ron Roenicke.

Could there be more to the Dodgers hiring former Brewers manager Ron Roenicke as their new third base coach than meets the eye? (Photo credit – Christian Petersen)

Although there isn’t even the slightest hint that Dodgers President of Baseball Operations Andrew Friedman or general manager Farhan Zaidi brought Roenicke on board as their new third base coach as a precursor to making him their manager in 2016 should Mattingly fail to win a World Series title in his third attempt merely to appease their potential fleeing multi-million dollar star right-hander, it certainly isn’t beyond the realm of possibility. Keep in mind that Greinke thoroughly enjoyed playing for then Milwaukee Brewers manager Ron Roenicke in 2011 and 2012 until Zack was traded to the Angels at the July 31, 2012 trade deadline; this after Roenicke (and Greinke) led the Brewers into the 2011 National League Championship Series only to fall to the (who else) St. Louis Cardinals.