Simple math: The 3 decisions that fired Josh Byrnes

As impossible as it may be to quantify the impact that Eric Byrnes and Brandon Webb have had on the Arizona Diamondbacks' season, it's equally impossible to qualify the negative impact that said player's salaries have had on the payroll.

It could, and probably should be said that the man formerly in charge of the purse strings has made many good decisions during his tenure as Diamondbacks General Manager.

Many have skipped over Josh Byrnes' latest, underrated off-season return of two quality starting pitchers, whose acquisitions, in some part, have allowed the D-backs an in-season return of 31 wins. But Edwin Jackson and Ian Kennedy were never meant to save the Diamondbacks from irrelevancy, and that they were expected or left to (pick your scenario) is as damning an indictment against the Byrnes regime as any other could be.

Then again, could Byrnes' decision to allocate $8.5 million to a hurt pitcher (Webb) be any worse than paying $11 million to an unemployed softball player (Eric Byrnes), or handing the reigns of an already undisciplined and underachieving roster to a soft manager like AJ Hinch? Like many, I cannot skip past this notion of Byrnes' indifference (or perhaps preference) to weak managers and bullpens - the most salient and stereotypical marks against the sabermetric community, by the way.

Still, by some standards in baseball, missing on a manager and two contracts is not irredeemable if not simply collateral damage. This is not New York, however, which is why Brandon Webb simply cannot be our Carl Pavano and is precisely why Josh Byrnes is not our Brian Cashman.