I see it differently. Salazar is trying to diffuse the situation for a team that needs Framber to get back on track. Salazar killed the story and made it possible for the team to move on. It is up to Espada to have a closed door meeting with Framber to call him on his BS privately. I’m not sure Espada has the skills to do that, but that’s how it should go. Maybe Salazar could have said what happened is between me and Framber and it’s been handled. That would have avoided a lie, but kept the story alive.
Are you saying all of those instances of athletes lying were good ideas? And there were consequences to most (I’d argue all) of those instances. Maybe not consequences you think were enough, maybe not consequences that are publicly known, but there were consequences. Honestly, you kinda sound like somebody who lies a lot and thinks it’s ok.
Lying didn’t kill the story. We’ll see if it ends up keeping the story alive, but it definitely wasn’t the best way to move past it. If he wanted to minimize it, he could have brushed it off with a much more vague description of “it was just a mix up, we discussed it internally and it’s all good.”
Exactly. Dusty was handed a turn key championship team and still tried to make lt about him and the old a-hole sabotaged the 2023 season. He acted like he was the only reason we won in 2022 and his head got huge. He forgot he was given that whole situation. It was put right in his lap. He was a joke.
Well duh he’s still going to get a bag - I’m just saying it’s not going to be a Max Fried type contract. I bet he ends up on a Bregman type deal. Short term with opt outs. A team would have to be full of morons to offer this clown 6+ years.
Probably but more because he’ll be 32 in November. If he was 28, he would be getting 300 mil. someone would think they can fix his shitty attitude
He wanted to be allowed to manage his team - that's his job - and he was vindicated in his decisions. Ultimately, the owner sided with him over the GM when it came to a head and those decisions directly led to a World Series. If the Astros wanted a guy who's not going to have any opinions or make any decisions, probably not the right move to hire a HoF manager that's been in the game for like 50 years. That's not on Baker - he was what he always was and that would be on the Astros for hiring him knowing that. Espada is the guy you get if you want a guy who just follows the GM. Did he insist on it, or did he simply know that was the way to get the best out of his players? He knew Maldy could manager Framber in a way that others couldn't and as a result, he got the best out of Framber. The manager's job is to maximize the players he has. It went the other way too - Cole, Verlander, and others also wanted Maldy to catch them. Maldy also was strongly pushed by AJ Hinch and signed - twice - by Lunhow before Dusty was ever in the picture. This whole "Maldy was Dusty's pet" thing ignores the actual facts of the matter. People routinely like to ascribe motivations to Dusty's decisions that don't match with facts on the ground. It's followed him his entire career despite the data and analytics repeatedly proving Dusty correct.
Lmao you act like Dusty was making some genius decisions in 2022 to lead us to a World Series I don’t hate Baker like most do on here and overall I’d say I’m pretty neutral on him - I realize there was some good with the bad. Don’t act like this wasn’t a guy that got ran off by multiple teams and had never won anything prior to coming to a stacked team here though.
Johnny Bench would have beaten Framber's ass..... This is ridiculous...Salazar told him to step off the mound, Framber knows best gives up a grand slam, and gets mad at Salazar. Framber knows best......you threw the ****ing ball......not him. He is not worth a big contract. DD
All I'm saying is if Framber kept pitching to the 2.62 ERA he had at the end of July and didn't have these meltdowns and outbursts...I think he gets a Fried type contract. We'll never know but I find it hard to believe he hasn't cost himself a single dollar ballooning his ERA by nearly a full run while acting like a child in the process. If he had a 2.62 ERA still and intentionally hit Salazar, then yeah I agree it wouldn't have cost him a dime lol
Framber needs to skip a start or two... what he did yesterday is not okay and allowing him to do it without any repercussions is even worst. Forcing your rookie catcher to take blame for your "ace" pitcher going mental is bullsht. Let him unwind a bit...clearly the thoughts of his future contract must be putting a lot of pressure on him.
You cannot have what Framber did last night on this team with championship pedigree, at this critical point in the season, against a possible playoff opponent. I know we are short handed as hell pitching-wise, but you have to suspend this idiot for at least one start, and if he doesn't return with a better attitude, cut his ass. He disrespected his teammate then intentionally hurt him in front of the whole world. GTFO, I am DONE with Framber as an Astro, season be damned. I don't know who is left on the 40 man to take his spot in the rotation, but anybody but him at this point. I think he feels like "they can't do anything without me" because of the injuries and that is why his attitude has gotten much worse lately. If he never pitches for the Astros again after last night, I wouldn't be mad at it.
Oh he absolutely was run off by a lot of teams. Every one of those teams (except the Astros who were already as good as it gets) got better immediately after adding him and got worse the year he left (Astros included). He rubs leadership the wrong way - he also wins and players love him. A lot. There's a manager's WAR type stat and his is well above-average (taking into account the statistical expectations of his teams). And his ability to reshape and maximize bullpens is beyond statistical doubt - and that was a huge part of the success of his teams. But as with every other place he's been, it's always credited to someone else and assumed he just got lucky. 30 years of luck, apparently. Here's a good read if you're interested - entirely analytics driven: Deadspin | UNSUNG GENIUS: Dissecting Dusty Baker's bullpen brilliance for his sabermetric critics Dusty Baker “ought to be part of the conversation around MLB’s best-ever managers,” concluded Neil Paine from FiveThirtyEight after studying the most overachieving managers, and “shouldn’t need a ring to validate his career.” Agreed. Let’s go further. Baker is also MLB’s best-ever bullpen manager — a case this article will make with decades of receipts. ... Dusty has been often derided in certain Sabermetrics circles lending false objectivity to writers, fans, and bigots who mock him. Many of Dusty’s critics operate in good faith, but use flawed formulas; others in bad faith use anecdotal analytics. And others simply can’t accept that a Black man is smarter than them. Let’s pause. Researching this article was infuriating. For 30 years, behind every individual bullpen success was some new tweak, pitch, delivery, pitching coach, assistant coach, organization, analytics department — any reason to lean on except the same Black man in each dugout. Each time, white scribes would credit other white men. When a bullpen decision went wrong, well, then that was “on Dusty” with meticulous nitpicking documentation. ... With that said, let’s address Baker’s many good-faith Saber-critics, who almost all share the same flaw: they value PROCESS over performance where HOW you win is more important than winning itself. Imagine a study concluding that most boxers who hold their hands low get knocked out more (which is likely true) — but then conclude that Muhammad Ali must be a bad boxer. That’s what this process-based wing of Saber-critics does to Dusty. A prime example is a widely-cited FiveThirtyEight 2016 study: “ Baseball’s Savviest (and Crappiest) Bullpen Managers,” which ranks Dusty as the fourth “crappiest” bullpen manager. The “Savviest” guys at the top of the list are Joe Torre (fine) AND Joe Girardi, both tasked with “managing” Mariano Rivera and then some. This study predated 2020 when then-new Phillies manager, Girardi and his new 2020 pitching coach, Bryan Price (yes, that Bryan Price), led a historic bullpen collapse with a 7.06 ERA — the worst since 1930. Over Girardi’s tenure, his bullpen bombed (No. 29 ERA), and he was fired in June. How could Girardi’s 2020 bullpen strategy possibly become less savvy than any other manager in 90 years? The problem is the study itself, rooted in “Leverage Index,” which basically values bullpen MANAGEMENT over bullpen PERFORMANCE. But what if Baker has a better strategy with better outcomes? Doesn’t matter. “Do it our way.” This is actually ANTI-Sabermetrics. Before Sabermetrics went mainstream, it wasn’t always that way. When measuring performance, like Paine’s cited study this year on win totals vs. roster talent, Baker as one of the “best-ever managers” was the norm. Another rigorous outcome study by David Gassko in Hardball Times Baseball Annual 2008, reviewed managers’ impact on player performance, and ranked Baker as the seventh best manager ever, and “greatest manager of all time with hitters.” Yes, all time. The GOAT. Can we get an update? That followed another glowing study in Baseball Prospectus 2003 that examined every player’s career on Baker’s 2002 Giants, and found that “all immediately began exceeding all reasonable expectations at the plate,” and concluded that “Players seem to play better under Baker than under your other managers. Much better.” Baker’s 2002 Giants were actually one of the best-managed overachieving teams ever, just to make the playoffs, beat the 101-win Braves once there, and make it to the World Series. And yes, Baker was correct to pull Russ Ortiz in Game 6. ... These “before and after” studies don’t measure Dusty’s decisions, they measure their results. Same for this study. Most managers don’t make players better, but Dusty does. So you better damn measure it. And this describes perfectly fans here: “In Cincinnati, they were all over me, all the time, no matter what. If we won, it wasn’t winning the right way,” reflected Baker. “They were like, ‘I don’t understand this mode of thinking.’ Well, I don’t want you to understand my mode of thinking. That’s how I can beat you.” But at the end of the day, the results speak for themselves. And every data point repeatedly points to the fact that his teams magically get better with him and magically get worse without him. But since fans can't understand it, they credit someone or something else, or often just luck.
I agree that Espada has no control, but this is a weird thing to get worked up about. Downplaying something like this to the media, especially when the other party involved is a veteran with many more skins under his belt, is what every single rookie in every single sport would be expected to do.
There’s a difference between downplaying it and straight up lying about what happened. The risk is that the lie becomes a story all its own. Maybe (probably) Houston will get lucky and no reporters will bring it back up and force the issue. But it could have caused the story to get even more inflamed.
