Well, New Manager, Same Old Stuff.
I don’t have the right words to describe my disgust seeing Loretta back at short. I guess things really aren’t going to change. In the pre-game show, Coop talked all about “playing the game the right way” – meaning not leaving men on base, and not playing pretty much the worst defense in the NL, I guess. Not sure how he plans to change that, he didn’t say. He is going to resume the platooning of Scott and Burke in right (I guess this must come direct from the Puppet Master) and he has stated that Biggio’s decision to play in at least 2 of 3 of the remaining away games is going to be honored. It’s straight out of that play Damm Astros – whatever Biggio wants, Biggio gets.
What’s the point of replacing Phil if you just insert his clone?
I have noticed that some fans believe that Phil got the shaft, that he couldn’t win with this team, that the fact that he was manager when the team went to the WS means that he should continue managing and be handed another great team. Well, the trick to being a good manager is to do well when you don’t have 3 aces starting and an almost guaranteed 7th, 8th and 9th inning outs – see Tony LaRussa and Bobby Cox. The players didn’t hate him as they did guys like Terry Collins, Larry Bowa and Buck Showalter – in fact most players liked him and liked playing for him. Problem was simply that Phil was just not a good strategist.
Tonight, Woody pitched poorly after 5 straight good starts. His stuff just wasn’t very good and the Cards fouled off pitch after pitch after pitch. The first inning started off badly. After The Pest struck out, Ankiel hit a grounder to second, which Biggio couldn’t come up with. No surprise there. Uncle flew out, Edmonds singled, Duncan fouled off some pitches, then hit a changeup 400 something feet into the upper deck. (I won tonight, but you know, it’s a hollow victory. As Husband says – yeah Baby, you beat me but they STILL suck.)
Woody had a very hard time with the home plate ump, who refused to call the same borderline pitches for Woody that he did for Looper (and not just by my eyeballs – I checked on Gameday too.) Looper, by the way, only struck out 4, but he sure got guys swinging at pitches out of the zone. If guys don’t hit, you won’t win.
McLemore came in to relieve Woody with bases loaded, one out – should have been 2 on, 2 out, but the HP ump called strike 3 ball 4 on Edmonds. McLemore looked a little shaky, gave up 2 run scoring singles, Francoing poor Woody, then got 2 swinging Ks. Interesting that JD noted that his stuff seems to be more suited to starting, which is what I’ve been thinking. I wonder if he’ll even get a chance.
Driskill pitched 3 decent innings in relief, giving up only 1 run. His “fast”ball is about 85, 86 MPH – see, you CAN get guys out even if you don’t throw 95.
Springer pitched a scoreless inning for the Cards. Getting rid of him was one of Purpura’s BIG mistakes, one that gets lost in the deluge of Willy Worship. Troy Percival mopped up the 9th. The Cards picked him up with a minor league contract a few months into the season – he said he wanted to try a comeback and the Cards were one of the few teams who gave him a call. Best I know, Timmy didn’t. This was something Gerry would have jumped all over and right there, to me, is one of the biggest differences between Tim and Gerry.
And speaking of GMs, I read that both Richard Justice of the Chronicle and Tim Brown of yahoo.com are advocating Dan Evans for our new GM – they must have been reading my stuff (hehhehheh). The good thing about Dan Evans, besides his decent track record, is that he is on good terms with a lot of other GMs, something Tim was not, and he knows a LOT of good scouts, scouting people and development people AND he is one of the original stat geeks who worked for STATS Inc inputting data back when he was in college (I’ve forgotten exactly where I read this and I can’t find it). We’d better hope and pray Drayton doesn’t just hire himself another yesman.
Oh, and by the way, in case all yall have forgotten, the Astros most DEFINITELY did not play better as soon as Phil took over back in July 04 and in fact, they did not begin to play better until August 27 – the infamous Roy vs Michael Barrett game that kickstarted the Astros first out of nowhere run – they had played .500 ball that entire 6 weeks from the time Phil had taken over. Click here to read my entry from the end of August 04. On Aug 26, the team was 63-63. When Phil took over on July 15, we were 31-30. Which means that Phil did exactly zero with the team. ROY OSWALT, not Phil, galvanized the team, and from Aug 27 to Oct 3, the Astros went 26-7 to grab the WC on the very last day of the season, beating Colorado (that was just incredible – you had to be there…)
Anyway, enough of saying that it was Phil who changed things when he came on board. He didn’t.
I am not expecting miracles from Cooper. I am, however, hoping he won’t repeat Garner’s mistakes. After today’s press conference, I’m not exactly holding my breath…
i don’t know who jerry jones is – if he is in some other sport i don’t know anything about him
tim is only the 3rd GM – and gerry hunsicker lasted, what, 9 years – pretty good.
and i think we ALL know EXACTLY why tim got the job. of course we won’t never know how he would have done if he got his first job somewheres else, but he now has a rep as a guy who is a VERY difficult person for other GMs to talk to – as well as agents.
why WOULD he get credit for signing a guy who WANTED to come here – he gave the guy FOUR years of no trade and outbid the other team by over 20 mill
you get credit for persuading guys to come here who are undecided and you get credit for good contracts.
most managers in baseball don’t last more than 3-4 years – that seems to be about everyone’s shelf limit. of course, there ARE a few exceptions and they are the historically great ones.
most guys have their strong points and their weak points and after a while, the opposite kind of guy needs to be brought in. happens all the time
Yeah, it seems they did get Garner’s clone in Cooper. Same old crap. Pulling Woody in a straight change to bring in McLemore with the pitcher’s spot coming up the next inning. So, a long reliever gets only two outs, and is pulled in the fifth inning of a 6-0 ballgame so that Palmeiro could pinch-hit with two outs. What kind of garbage is that? Let McLemore pitch! I’m tired of this stuff with wasting relievers.
But, I have heard a rumor that this nonsense might have something to do with the pitching coach, who is an inside favorite to get the manager’s job. Word is, he’s calling a lot more shots than Hickey did, and he doesn’t know diddly crap about pitching.
Lisa – Dont know if you read the Chron where in Astros Notes it says they plan to bring Lane back up on Sept 1st and platoon Burke and Scott in RF – Same ol stuff. I had really hoped with the Stashe and Poopoora gone Lane would be history but no – same ol same ol – yawn…..
austin,
that is REALLY bad news about colborn. with like 2 exceptions i can think of, pitchers really don’t make good managers.
glennbo
i read it all right.
second verse, same as the first
meet the new boss, same as the old boss
the more things change the more they stay the same
i swear if mclane puts in some yesman to replace timmy and puts in an old white pitching coach who is no more a manager than i am, then i am going to go get the kind of counseling they give battered women who can’t bring themselves to leave their abusive man…
I think tat Drayton is more than likely a “Jerry Jones” but behind the scenes and he get people like Tim do take the fall. I mean look at Tim prior expirence, I mean it’s the perfect guy to take that kind of advantage of. Also why doesn’t anyone give Tim any credit for Carlos Lee??? I think Drayton is the problem. We have gone through way too many managers since he got here and he is not patient.
Just my thoughts but who cares anymore.
I’ve always thought McLemore should be a starter, too. I just don’t think they will consider it with all the guys coming back after September 1st. They want to see Patton for sure, Backe will get his chance, Albers probably too – so that leaves Woody, Wandy and Roy. There just isn’t going to be room.
well, they better be *($^%@! careful with patton – the guy is 22 freaking years old and there is like NO reason to over stress his arm.
it will be intersting to see if wallace has phil’s dislike of sampson next year – i know they are going to put him in the pen – when it would be smarter to just shut him down for the rest of the year
Lisa, who is Colborn? I was talking about Dave Wallace.
And I totally agree with this statement:
“why WOULD he get credit for signing a guy who WANTED to come here – he gave the guy FOUR years of no trade and outbid the other team by over 20 mill”
We definitely needed a bat, but am I honestly supposed to give Purpura credit for recognizing that Lee drives in a lot of runs? He gets no credit for recognizing what every single person in baseball and their deceased great-grandmothers knew, and he doesn’t get credit for signing a horrific defender to a contract that was way too long and way too expensive. It wasn’t a particularly good deal.
Like you said, a good deal is when they convince someone to come here, or when they work out a good deal. I’d also like to add a good deal is when they manage to pull someone off the scrap heap and get a lot of value for very little money (like Dan Wheeler, Vinny Castilla or even mediocre pitchers like Russ Springer or Dave Mlicki). The Lee acquisition meets none of those criteria, so Purpura gets little or no credit.
Sampson came out of the pen last night and pitched a couple of solid innings to get the win. He looked really good, but it was kind of a painful reminder to see what he could do with a decent middle infield with Ransom and Conrad.
austin
keep telling yourself
defense is unimportant. only offense matters
if a pitcher was any good he wouldn’t need fielders to catch balls
sign loretta and lamb to 6 year contracts. get rid of everett and burke. play wiggy at third, loretta at short, jeff kent at second and lamb at first, berkman in right and lee in left.
now i ask you, what could be better???
and i meant wallace. i don’t know why i was thinking about colborn (the pirates pitching coach)