Just a reminder that baseball season, while realistically over for the Astros, isn't technically over. A good chance to play spoiler here. We already knocked them back out of first last night with an extra innings win. Here's to a sweep of the Cubs and making them live up to their full name... Completely Useless By September
33,000+ tickets sold last night....on a Tuesday night after school started. friends, this is a very different baseball city than it was when i grew up here. watching the game last night, the crowd was loud and it looked like this wasn't merely a "tickets sold" game. seats were filled.
I think it would be in the team's best interest to at least talk to him. I believe Coop is going to get the job, but he has to know that he's still got to fight for it. Like most of you, I've stopped paying much attention lately, especially since football has started. I like the Pence leading off idea. It seems to be working...he's getting on base more and striking out slightly less. I don't think anything that happens over this last month should be held against Coop. It's Biggio's farewell tour and nothing else. I'd love to see them knock the Cubs and/or the Cards out of the race. but Coop should not be held responsible if the team has started their offseason vacation a little early.
And you wouldn't be able to see that in any baseball manager today. If the team plays well, the players showed up... if they didn't, it must be the manager's fault. Its a stupid perception that really only exists in baseball... as compared to the other sports.
Having Drayton's best buddy, who happens to be the Commissioner of Baseball, give public interviews campaigning for you sure doesn't hurt.
I don't know... "Coaching" is by far the most important in the NFL... where teams rely more on schemes/chemistry to succeed far more than individual players. It works in the NBA as well too... only difference being that individual players CAN make a large difference (the largest of any sport). Most people aknowledge that baseball managers are just that... managers, not coaches. Thus, certain "ideologies" can only translate so far... and it largely depends both on the players you are dealt, and how they all fit on a team.
By the way, Luke Scott now has a higher OPS than Carlos Lee. No, I'm not saying he's a better player. But if he's not the starting RF again next season, there's a serious problem with talent evaluation in this organization.
Don't some folks "over-minimize" (I guess I really mean "underestimate" or "undervalue" or perhaps "overstate the minimality of the impact"??) the role of a baseball manager, however? Where would the Astros be, for example, had Jason Lane been benched in, say, freaking April, and this ridiculous platoon abandoned in favor of the obviously better hitter (yes, below-average, inconsistent, streaky Luke Scott is markedly better than AAAA Jason Lane)? How much impact has leaving Biggio in the leadoff spot all those games, especially after getting to 3000, had? Dude is *obviously* not a leadoff guy anymore. Could a manager not find *somebody* on his roster to get on base at least 31% of the time? What about guys missing signs, forgetting how many outs, poorly positioned for fielding, the embarrassing defensive miscues--that *looks*, to a guy with admittedly precious little real-life knowledge of such things, like a team that is unprepared. Is that all on the players? We say that the players always get the credit and the managers always get the blame, but I seem to remember Dierk and Ruhle being roundly praised for the pitching's success in the late '90s (and rightfully criticized for the fall of Elarton, etc.). Disclaimer: these are "devil's advocate" questions, posed in order to gather opinions from others and not to express msn's opinion. Currently msn has no opinion on the matter.
Depends on what they do in the offseason. If there's a new CFer who can bat at the top of the lineup....
on Eric Young and Jesus Ortiz's show last night, I got the impression that the Astros are going to go hard after Torii Hunter this offseason.
imo, he'd have to be a very, very good one (with OBP, speed and some pop, not a Taveras-clone) to justify putting him in the lineup over Scott. That said, if such a player were available, I wouldn't be opposed to putting Scott on the market to see what kind of pitching he could bring in. Scott's proven too valuable as a hitter not to be a starter for someone.
