The price of winning in baseball has gone up meteorically, in case you hadn’t noticed. This month two managers, Dusty Baker of Washington and John Farrell of Boston, have been fired despite directing their teams to a second successive division championship.

Baker and Farrell weren’t fired for lack of winning but for not winning enough. That is, their teams lost in the division series – the first round – of the playoffs and didn’t win – or at least advance to – the World Series.

In dismissing Baker after two years as the Nationals manager, Mike Rizzo, the president of baseball operations, stated it simply.

“Our expectations,” Rizzo said on a conference call with reporters last Friday, “have grown to the fact that winning regular-season games and winning divisions are not enough. Our goal is to win a world championship.’’

There was a suspicion that Rizzo might not have been speaking for himself but for the team owners, the Lerner family, but that doesn’t really matter. The Lerners wouldn’t be the first owners to fire a manager for not winning the World Series. Fellow named Steinbrenner used to do it all the time.

Baker’s fans, including baseball writers who like Dusty, and he’s easy to like, were outraged at his dismissal. But decades of covering and writing about baseball have taught me that managerial firings are routine. They come with the territory. No manager is immune from dismissal unless his name is Connie Mack and he owns the team.

Baker certainly knows that fact of managerial life and this is not the first time he has been fired. If he was surprised at the Nationals’ act, he hadn’t been paying close enough attention. Owners have become more impatient, and their general managers quickly get their feelings.

The Red Sox dismissal of Farrell should have served as the first warning sign. The only difference in the status of the two managers was Rizzo had hired Baker while Farrell preceded Dave Dombrowski, the Red Sox president of baseball operations.

It comes as no surprise that Dombrowski wanted to name his own manager, and he is expected to do that as soon as the Astros are finished playing in the World Series, and their bench coach, Alex Cora, is available.

It was not immediately known who might be at the top of Rizzo’s list of candidates to succeed Baker.

As good a manager as Baker has been, it’s very possible that he will not get another managing job. At the age of 68, he does not fit the description of managers current general managers seek. Everything is getting younger in baseball, starting with general managers, who hire the managers.

In getting the Tigers’ job, Ron Gardenhire, 60 years old, very likely just got under what the new age limit has become.

Besides the Nationals’ vacancy, the Phillies continue to seek a new manager to replace Pete Mackanin, who proved to be no miracle worker in turning around the disaster the Phillies have become.

For years, the large-market Phillies acted like the Podunk Phillies, and now they’re paying for the shameful way they have abused their fans.

But we’re talking about the apparently new standard for managers so let’s talk about the Yankees’ manager. Is Joe Girardi’s job safe and should it be?

I’ve said it before about General Manager Brian Cashman and I’ll say it again about Cashman and Girardi, whose contracts are both expiring now that the Yankees’ season is over. If George Steinbrenner were still around, both Cashman and Girardi would be gone, would have been long gone.

Steinbrenner didn’t tolerate losers, and in his eyes, Cashman and Girardi would be losers. Under Steinbrenner, if you didn’t win, that automatically made you a loser.

George, however, has left us, leaving his youngest child, Hal, to run the team. In the Yankees’ first post-George season, oldest son Hank was in charge, but he was quickly deemed unfit for the role and was replaced by brother Hal.

Since the advent of George as principal owner, the team’s general managers and managers have operated on a playing field that has not been level with that of other teams. In the system of new-fangled metrics, there are formulae that attempt to bring equality into the baseball picture. Not with payrolls, though.

The Yankees long had the highest payroll and spent whatever they had to replace injured players and fill in gaps. That’s why I always found it a joke when officials of other teams would praise Cashman for the job he was doing.

It so happens that I think this year, when the Yankees were trying to reduce their payroll for strategic economic reasons, that Cashman probably did the best job of his 20 years as general manager. His player acquisitions were good, and his fill-ins couldn’t have been better. They weren’t expensive either.

But still no World Series. No division crown either. That was snatched by the Red Sox, who fired their manager for not advancing beyond the division series. Where does that leave Girardi?

It’s not very likely that the Yankees will fire their manager of 10 years. Hal Steinbrenner just doesn’t believe in firing people. He spent his formative years watching his father fire one person after another, often brutally, and decided this was not a lifestyle for him.

That’s his prerogative, and he can stick to it as long as the family doesn’t object and call for change. I doubt that any member of the Steinbrenner family liked what the family czar did. It was crude and unseemly, and it’s easy to see family members of a younger generation balking at following it.

As someone who has covered and written about the Yankees from the day in 1973 that Steinbrenner and his partners purchased the team, it seems strange to see how the ownership has developed. It is quiet and remains quiet in the face of defeat, which comes more often than not these days.

MIXED MESSAGES IN S.F.

What’s a guy supposed to think? Early this year, one of his bosses thanks me for calling to ask about Hensley Meulens, the Giants’ hitting coach, and now another of his bosses is suggesting he could be losing his job. In the meantime, Meulens had his first interview, albeit on the telephone, for a managerial job.

Unfortunately, between those two incidents, the Giants lost 98 games, and there’s nothing like 98 losses to make forgettable three World Series championships in a five-year span.

The Giants were obviously unhappy with their 2017 season, and General Manager Bobby Evans let the world know it Saturday, sounding very different from Brian Sabean, the executive vice president for baseball operations, when I spoke with him before the 98-loss season.

I had called Sabean to ask about Meulens because he had received high grades for his managing the Netherlands team twice in the World Baseball Classic. Sabean actually thanked me for asking, saying Bruce Bochy’s coaches didn’t get enough credit or attention for the Giants’ three World Series championships.

Evans, who was named in 2015 to succeed Sabean as general manager, wasn’t part of that conversation. Last Saturday, though, Evans held a conference call on which he disclosed changes to Bochy’s staff.

Dave Righetti, the Giants’ pitching coach for 18 years; bullpen coach Mark Gardner and assistant hitting coach Steve Decker were re-assigned within the organization. Evans didn’t say anything specific about Meulens but said he had interviewed candidates for Meulens’ job.

Evans mentioned that new voices were needed, and that reason is often used in explaining coaching changes. In this instance, it would seem that Bochy could be in trouble if the Giants start next season poorly. Bochy has managed the Giants for 11 years.