As far as I can tell Espada doesn't have a lot of turmoil in the locker room and he isn't going to embarrass the organization as a person. The issue I have with him is the actual strategic part of the game and the situational/fundamentals - which are honest as bad as I have seen in a long time. The positioning has been below average, the base stealing and fundamentals are all not up to par.
So, as a bench coach during the years with Hinch and Baker, did he not provide strategic advice or is this just the case of being a better bench coach than an actual manager?
That's all true. It's also all been true for the past decade and worked pretty well - the Astros have been near the bottom of the league since 2017 in pitches seen per at bat. No one seems to have a problem with it when the Astros are winning. Then, its just aggressive baseball. The Astros have lost a ton of talent and their retained elite talent is getting older, so it's not going to work as well. But you're not going to suddenly change them into patient hitters - this is who they've been their entire careers, and frankly, it's how the Astros developed them for the ones that have been here a while.
There fact that we are even in the playoff picture with our injuries and the people we lost is crazy. We literally lost a playoff team full of pitchers and position players. The only thing I'm mad about is overusing Hader over 2 games which lead to his strain.
Which is why I asked OP in his quote about his inside info. How do we know Joe didn’t give a sign and Dubon missed it? Again, he’s not good but at this point people are just guessing what he is and isn’t doing on some things.
People also blame him for anything they don't like. For example, several mocked him for not pitching Hunter Brown a day earlier but I seriously doubt Espada is deciding on when starting pitchers go. The whole reason the Astros (and every other team) fired Dusty is that he didn't win the right way - ie, he didn't do what the front office liked. The reason they hired Espada is to have more control over everything - big picture of when to play SPs strikes me as a front office decision more than a manager's one. But since Espada sucks, everything just becomes his fault.
I have no inside information What I have is eyes and consistently watch players swing at terrible pitches in situations where it is obvious that IF a manager gave specific direction it never would have been swung at. I also have heard Chandler Rome make similar comments multiple times on his podcast. Comments about how Joe and the Astros just let the hitters hit and do not give a lot of "take" signs or give orders regarding PAs.
Perfect example. 7th inning tonight. Sanchez in an 0 for 25 skid. Hitting 9th with Pena on deck. 3-0 count and he swings on a borderline pitch at the bottom of the zone. I'm making him take a pitch or at least only swing at center cut fastball.
Does this ignore the fact that he doubled and ended his 0-for-25 skid by swinging at that pitch and it led to scoring two runs? This is where I have an issue with people complaining about managers on every lineup, pitching, and hitting decision. It generally comes down to "he didn't do what I wanted him to do so he sucks." The actual results don't seem to matter. In this case, you wanted him to do something. He didn't - but what he did led to excellent results. But you still have a problem with it because it simply wasn't your way. It seems a lot like people would rather a manager lose doing it their way than win doing it any other way. That was the key element of Dusty's entire managerial career and why he routinely clashed with management - no one could explain WHY he did so well and they always wanted him to do things differently. He was snarky and generally antagonistic about it, and he repeatedly got fired. It didn't matter that every single team did better with him than without and they all went downhill after he left - it just wasn't *how* management wanted to do it. The same things are happening with Espada, and really, did with Hinch in real time too, though everyone forgets all the complaining about him. It's a universal "any decision you make that I wouldn't have made is a dumb one". Someone earlier posted similarly that even if the Astros win the World Series - the singular goal of all of this - they'd want Espada fired. Simply because he didn't win the way they wanted him to win.
Espada’s done some objectively poor tactical things like repeatedly losing the DH and in my opinion the biggest issue has been overworking bullpen arms. The team has also executed poorly on fundamentals. I’m more concerned with those trends than lineups or individual in game decisions. I don’t want to get into further Dusty / Espada comparisons, since it doesn’t matter. Nothing to do with Dusty, I don’t think Espada has been particularly good this year and it’s seemed like he’s in over his head with all the injuries and expectations for the team at this stage of his career.
No doubt about that - and assuming nothing crazy, I would likely want to fire him too simply because I don't see what he really brings to the table. But some of the specifics - like overworking bullpen arms - is not really on him. He has no starting pitchers and innings have to come from somewhere. Unless the front office keeps sending him fresh, good arms, then he has to play who he has and people are going to get overworked. They play a lot of close games due to the awful offense, and I'm pretty sure fans would complain a whole lot if he kept blowing games because he didn't run the good arms out there. For all the complaining about Hader's overuse, he pitched in almost exclusively save situations or tie games, outside of a few early season games where he needed regular work (off for 3 or 4 days). As we all can see now, Abreu and others are not good substitutes in those situations. But beyond that, yes, he makes bad tactical decisions. But you also don't luck into a World Series - if he wins it despite all the injuries, it also means he did a lot of things right that maybe you or I can't see. So would he deserve to be fired for getting the job done, just not in the way you'd want?
The Astros have had plenty of pitching injuries in other years and spotty bullpen performance during both Hinch and Dusty’s tenures and neither worked leverage relievers like Espada. Hader had the most appearance of his career last year and the most innings since 2019. He was on pace for similar this year. This was on a team that had arguably three guys who could close for large stretches of both those years. From what we heard, he didn’t handle the Hader / Pressly situation great (not that it was all on Espada). That to me is someone in over their head and not thinking about usage over the entire season.
