Managerial record, particularly for one stop isn't a great indicator of future success. Torre & Cox both had losing records in their first stints as managers. At the end of the day, you need the players to perform. What do you expect Jeff Luhnow to say? He expects to compete for WS titles within the next couple of years.
I bet he would hustle to the mound when taking the pitcher out of the game. I also think he would wear a dirtied up helmet instead of a hat.
That's part of the great experiment. Can the Astros do a better job of player-development, team building and winning with a data-driven manager instead of an old school guy like Joe Torre? Luhnow is betting his job on that hypothesis. It's difficult to get excited about most managerial hirings. You either get a guy who hasn't managed in the bigs at all previously, one who got a small taste as a mid-season fill-in (and did a mediocre job) or a total retread. The Astros just can't sign Joe Maddon or John Farrell away from a good team. Lawless did a respectable job for a fill-in. But if Luhnow doesn't think that Lawless can take the team to the WS, then he's not the guy for the permanent job.
I think a decent GM gets two or three manager hires before they get fired for not winning on the field. There don't be many good excuses for not hitting on this one. Luhnow is going to have the Morey label before long. A wizard GM that can't win anything.
Could you imagine Morey if he got to do what Luhnow is doing? I guess we kind of see it with Hinkie in Philly.
Yankees coach Hillman may bolt for Houston BALTIMORE — Trey Hillman, a possible candidate to join Joe Girardi’s coaching staff, has talked to the Astros about being new manager A.J. Hinch’s bench coach. Hillman, a special assistant in the Yankees’ minor and major league operations who scouted extensively this past season in and outside the organization, managed the Royals, was Don Mattingly’s bench coach in L.A. and is a former manager in the Yankees’ minor league system. With first-base/infield coach Mick Kelleher fired Friday, the Yankees have a need for both and Hillman has experience working with infielders. Hillman, 51, isn’t a candidate to replace fired hitting coach Kevin Long. The Yankees could shuffle their staff and shift Tony Pena from the bench coaching job to first base and insert Hillman next to Girardi or use Hillman as the first-base coach.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Source: Trey Hillman to be named Astros bench coach <a href="http://t.co/7BjpsvXRti">http://t.co/7BjpsvXRti</a></p>— Evan Drellich (@EvanDrellich) <a href="https://twitter.com/EvanDrellich/status/522123343039057920">October 14, 2014</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Astros 1B coach Tarrik Brock has been told he's not returning next year.</p>— Brian McTaggart (@brianmctaggart) <a href="https://twitter.com/brianmctaggart/status/522572239557120000">October 16, 2014</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>No surprise Rangers hired Jeff Banister. Astros did detailed search and came down to Hinch, banister, Lovullo</p>— Peter Gammons (@pgammo) <a href="https://twitter.com/pgammo/status/522789369263165440">October 16, 2014</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Sources: <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Rangers?src=hash">#Rangers</a> third base coach Gary Pettis will join Houston <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Astros?src=hash">#Astros</a> staff. <a href="http://t.co/ru2ZqxyiQZ">http://t.co/ru2ZqxyiQZ</a></p>— Evan Grant (@Evan_P_Grant) <a href="https://twitter.com/Evan_P_Grant/status/522830215249403904">October 16, 2014</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Pettis is an outfield coach, which makes sense. Tarrik Brock was told yesterday he wasn't coming back.</p>— Brian McTaggart (@brianmctaggart) <a href="https://twitter.com/brianmctaggart/status/522831688976441344">October 16, 2014</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Astros 3B Pat Listach tells <a href="http://t.co/mDPUQE6013">http://t.co/mDPUQE6013</a> he was informed Friday he's not returning to staff. "I'm very disappointed," he said.</p>— Brian McTaggart (@brianmctaggart) <a href="https://twitter.com/brianmctaggart/status/523222219452080130">October 17, 2014</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Sources: Astros to hire Rich Dauer as 1B coach <a href="http://t.co/6yZ1l3EHsV">http://t.co/6yZ1l3EHsV</a></p>— Evan Drellich (@EvanDrellich) <a href="https://twitter.com/EvanDrellich/status/523230290903584768">October 17, 2014</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>The Astros have announced additions to their 2015 Major League coaching staff. Trey Hillman will serve as bench coach...</p>— Houston Astros (@astros) <a href="https://twitter.com/astros/status/523236755214839808">October 17, 2014</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>...Dave Hudgens will serve as hitting coach. Gary Pettis has been named third base coach and outfield/baserunning instructor...</p>— Houston Astros (@astros) <a href="https://twitter.com/astros/status/523236986169991168">October 17, 2014</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>...Rich Dauer will be first base coach and infield instructor. Brent Strom will return as pitching coach...</p>— Houston Astros (@astros) <a href="https://twitter.com/astros/status/523237200582832128">October 17, 2014</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>...while Craig Bjornson will return as bullpen coach.</p>— Houston Astros (@astros) <a href="https://twitter.com/astros/status/523237246351077376">October 17, 2014</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>The Astros have announced additions to their 2015 Major League coaching staff. Trey Hillman will serve as bench coach...</p>— Houston Astros (@astros) <a href="https://twitter.com/astros/status/523236755214839808">October 17, 2014</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>...Dave Hudgens will serve as hitting coach. Gary Pettis has been named third base coach and outfield/baserunning instructor...</p>— Houston Astros (@astros) <a href="https://twitter.com/astros/status/523236986169991168">October 17, 2014</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>...Rich Dauer will be first base coach and infield instructor. Brent Strom will return as pitching coach...</p>— Houston Astros (@astros) <a href="https://twitter.com/astros/status/523237200582832128">October 17, 2014</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Hinch it appears was given much more leeway than Bo Porter was in picking staff — an important vouch of confidence for the new manager</p>— Evan Drellich (@EvanDrellich) <a href="https://twitter.com/EvanDrellich/status/523258036450635778">October 17, 2014</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>The decision to let Pat Listach go was not an easy one for the Astros. Listach did a really good job. They toiled on it.</p>— Evan Drellich (@EvanDrellich) <a href="https://twitter.com/EvanDrellich/status/523256082987110400">October 17, 2014</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Ralph Dickenson remains under consideration for the assistant hitting coach job.</p>— Evan Drellich (@EvanDrellich) <a href="https://twitter.com/EvanDrellich/status/523256200897363968">October 17, 2014</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
http://www.nj.com/mets/index.ssf/2012/03/mets_hitting_coach_dave_hudgen_1.html Which is where men like Dave Hudgens arrive. An outfielder from northern California, Hudgens appeared in six games for Oakland in 1983. After spending the following season in the minors, a job offer came from farm director Karl Kuehl to manage in Class-A. He ran affiliates in Oregon and Idaho for a few seasons, spent a year selling real estate, then latched on as an instructor with the Houston Astros. When he rejoined Oakland in 1996, on-base percentage had become sacrosanct. This was a principal tenet of Alderson’s management style. A unified strategy must connect the entire organization. He appreciates getting on base and slugging percentage. In his domain, the two pursuits intertwine. In order to get on base, you must be selective. If you are selective, you can hit with power. It fell to his coaches to translate the theories into the reality. With minor-league hitters, this involves practical and philosophical advice. The kids must be taught the technique. And they must buy into the practice of tightening their strike zone. The man tasked with managing this process for the Mets is former minor-league field coordinator Dick Scott. He managed in Oakland’s farm system, then spent nearly a decade as J.P. Ricciardi’s director of player development in Toronto. Scott defines the approach as “focused aggression,” with an emphasis on targeting fastballs. They discourage players from swinging at breaking balls before two strikes. Instructors run drills to enhance pitch recognition. During instructional league action last year, hitters were forced to take a strike before they swung. With all minor-league hitters set to report this weekend, Scott and his staff assembled a PowerPoint presentation. One slide displayed how on-base percentage and walks per plate appearance correlates with playoff berths. Another series of slides shows heat maps for what pitches sluggers like Jose Bautista, Prince Fielder and Matt Kemp attack when they’re ahead in the count. Each map flared red-orange over the middle of the plate. “It’s an exclusive area,” Scott said. “It’s amazing how they get it down.” The goal is when hitters reach the majors, they are versed in the discipline. They trust the process. They think the way men like Hudgens think. “You don’t need to be a Harvard graduate,” Hudgens said, “to know getting on base is the only way to score runs.” THEORY INTO PRACTICE Ted Williams, one of the finest, most selective hunters in the game’s history, called the endeavor “the hardest thing to do in sports.” So a man training hunters must rise early. The Mets' Ike Davis is known for practicing patience at the plate. Hudgens arrives at the team’s complex most mornings around 5 a.m. He spends about an hour inside the gym — the veins in his forearms bulge, and he clenched a jar of Muscle Milk powder as he jaunted through the clubhouse last week — before prepping for work. He relies on a variety of data to supplement his advice. Just before 7 a.m. one day last week, Hudgens led a reporter down a carpeted hallway inside the big-league clubhouse at Digital Domain Park. He walked into a conference room with a roundtable in the center and players’ names stuck to a whiteboard along one wall. Hudgens nestled into a desk in the back right corner and propped open a black Lenovo ThinkPad. He cued up video of infielder Ronny Cedeno from an intrasquad game. Cedeno had worked a 10-pitch walk the night before and pleased his bosses. He is one of this spring’s projects, a veteran with a solid swing and .286 career OBP. “I like to swing at the first pitch,” Cedeno said. “But now I’ve got to be more patient.” Hudgens charts each at-bat during each game. He lifted up a copy from Monday night’s Grapefruit League opener. The paper was covered with ink: black for right-handed pitchers, red for lefties. He tracks whether how many pitches his players see, what type of pitches, whether they swing at balls, whether they make hard contact and how the at-bat finished. He pays special attention to whether hitters go ahead or behind early in the count, whether they go 1-2 or 2-1. He uses his charts for reference when diagnosing slumps. “And most of the time,” Hudgens said, “the problem is going out of the zone.” He snatched a piece of paper and drew a plate. The surface is 17 inches wide. He shaved off the outer two inches on each side. He tells his players, in general, they hit .200 on those outer edges. “We want to hit these 13 inches in the middle,” he said. On Monday night, Daniel Murphy offered at a 1-1 changeup on the outside. The pitch was probably a strike. No matter. When Murphy came back to the dugout, Hudgens pulled him aside for a refresher course in “the one area he needs to make progress on.” “He will get some hits on that (pitch) — because he’s a good hitter,” Hudgens said. “But he’s not going to do any damage on it. And early in the count, 1-1 is early, you want damage.” Some hitters, like Ike Davis and Lucas Duda, practice patience at the plate with ease. Others hack with abandon. The goal is not to remodel every player. Hudgens’ job is to nudge everyone in the same direction: Isolate a hitter’s strength — a location he likes, a pitch he prefers — and persuade that hitter to focus there. The hope is that the influence cascades through the roster. Jason Bay saw it as a member of the Red Sox. A similar, subconscious movement occurred last season. “The more you’re around guys that are working counts and things like that,” Bay said, “the more you don’t want to be the guy that pops up on the first pitch.” In 2011, for example, Hudgens gave succinct instructions to free-swinging shortstop Jose Reyes: Don’t chase high fastballs or breaking balls in the dirt. Blessed by mostly good health, good luck and his own freakish athleticism, Reyes recorded the highest OBP of his career, getting on base at a .384 clip. He did not do so by taking walks. He attacked fastballs. Now, of course, Reyes is gone. As is outfielder Carlos Beltran and his .391 OBP for the Mets last season. The team’s lineup is young and willing to be molded, but also sometimes lacking in big-league experience. Hudgens’ task has not become easier for 2012. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/28/sports/baseball/too-boo-or-not-to-boo-mets-hitters.html?_r=0 It was against this daunting backdrop that Dave Hudgens, the just-dismissed hitting coach of the Mets, took the team’s fans to task Monday, contending that there was too much frustration being voiced in the Citi Field stands, too many jeers being directed at the numerous Mets hitters who cannot get it going at the plate. “I think the fans are really tough on our guys at home,” Hudgens told MLB.com. “How can you boo Curtis Granderson? They have no idea how hard this guy works and how he goes about doing his business, doing his job. He gets off to a slow start, and they’re booing him? Come on, it’s tougher at home to play than it is on the road, there’s no doubt about it.” Actually, that has been true of the Mets since 2011, when they were 34-47 at home while playing above .500 (43-38) on the road. In 2012, the gap was not that profound, but in 2013, the Mets were 41-40 away from Citi Field and just 33-48 at home. This season? A decent 11-11 on the road and an awful 12-17 in Queens through Tuesday. So is Hudgens on to something? Are Mets fans — at least those who still to go to games in the midst of a five-year attendance slide — too impolite for their own good? Would it help if they would put aside their resentment over the team’s continually undernourished payroll and show more support for Granderson (a .208 batting average), Chris Young (.200) and Lucas Duda (.232 and an unending stream of runners left on base)? Would those players, as Hudgens suggested, relax a little more and not try too hard at Citi Field if they were not hearing it from their own fans? Would the team’s woeful batting average at home — .222 entering Tuesday — move closer to their .255 mark on the road? On Tuesday, Hudgens did several radio interviews in which he expanded on his Monday comments. He said that the Mets have great fans who pay good money to come to games and have every right to boo, but that “it just doesn’t help” when they do so. Mets management weighed in on the booing issue, too, with General Manager Sandy Alderson saying, “We have to get above all that,” and that major league athletes know how to “blot out negativity.” Interestingly, Manager Terry Collins did not exactly agree. “These guys are not robots,” he said. To him, the “negative atmosphere when we’re not playing good” did make some of his players try too hard. It is also possible that the problem with the Mets’ offense at Citi Field may have less to do with whatever fans are doing and more to do with lingering discomfort with the park’s dimensions. When it opened, it was quickly apparent that Citi Field’s outfield was way too big and that David Wright was going to lose his mind trying to hit for power if something was not done, which it was, in 2012, when Alderson had the fences moved in. That helped, but maybe not enough. Maybe too many of the team’s ostensible power hitters are muscling up at home and messing up their swings. If that is the case, it should be noted that the fans were not responsible for the design of Citi Field — the team’s owners were. The fans just continue to fill some of the seats, watching a team that has played a lot of irrelevant baseball in recent years. And some of them will probably keep booing until things finally change, whenever that may be.
Right, because every manager loves to bring in guys that disagree with them on major points, and create havoc in the workplace! I don't even understand how someone can say, "Sounds like he got a "Yes" man." Ridiculous.
