It's funny Mr. Astro how most people on this board that you talk down to have hit the nail on the head when it comes to the Astros while you have been wrong more times than you have been right.
What a tremendously awful move for the franchise. With several quality candidates named in the search, I simply cannot believe they chose Wade. It sounds like Tal has a long history with him, so that had to weigh heavily. Otherwise I don't see the logic.
Sorry dude; when you're the one doing the accusing, the burden of proof is on you, not me. I need specific things to address.
Wade was hired to rebuild the Phils farm system. They didn't let him stick around to see the fruits of his labor. But the team that's competing for the NL East right now was put together in the farm system while he was there.
your the one who called some of the fans "clueless", so imo the burden is on you to prove that statement. You defended Purpura, what happened? Garner, what happened? You said Burke should be starting, what happened? The Jennings trade was good, what happened? You said Pence was not ready, what happened?
That's hilarious. I also love broken records. So much, I have to sometimes use ignore I love them so much.
ok my turn. Scott Rolen, Curt Schilling, Mike Lieberthal, David Bell, Bobby Abreu, and Jim Thome. good and bad he's mediocre at best
How much did he have to do with the Philly farm system? For example, Brian Cashman is getting a ton of love right now for the rebirth of the Yankees farm system, but he isn't the person who handled the draft, scouting, etc., it was Damon Oppenheimer. Did Ed Wade conduct the MiLB draft for the Phils? Were those his picks?
And to be honest, most of the good names you both listed came from the phillies farm system which Mike Arbuckle was in charge of, not Ed Wade. Look at the free agent signings (numerous failed starting pitchers and veteran relievers galore) and trades that Ed Wade made when he was there and players he lost like Rolen. I will say that Ed Wade is a good PR man and that he was somewhat limited by constraints put in place by owners who I am not sure want to win. Philly is one of the largest markets but yet spends middle of the road money. So maybe given a larger budget he might do better. But whoever said that Ed Wade bucks the sytem is way off. Ed Wade during his Phillies tenure was more of a Yes Man than anything else.
Before I go into this, I'll point out that I actually didn't defend Garner all that much. I haven't been a big fan of him as a manager for a couple of years now, and my posts reflect that. As for the rest: This is the perfect example of what I was talking about. Casual baseball fans are too reactionary. They judge everything by the final result, and don't consider uncontrollable luck that the person/player had little to do with. Just because Purpura was fired doesn't mean he was a bad GM. He was largely fired because of fan unrest (a terrible proposition) and the Jennings deal, which leads to the next point. I still think the Jennings trade was a good trade, at the time it was made. Unfortunately, Jennings was pitching hurt all season long and quite obviously had lost significant velocity relative to the rest of his career. If a player with Jennings' career numbers became available again this winter and we still had the players we dealt last offseason, I'd do it again. I think it was a good risk. Unfortunately for Purpura, random luck happened and it didn't work out. As for Burke, he should be starting. I didn't realize anything had shown otherwise. He needs to be given a season of consistent ABs (400+, minimum) to show what he can do. Also, you're oversimplifying, another characteristic of some of the casual fans. I never said Pence wasn't ready. What I said is that it's bad business practice to assume a player is ready based on a hot spring training (see 2005 Luke Scott) and three weeks of AAA experience (and less than a year at AA, I think). Usually, it takes much longer than that. Pence was a rare, rare exception to the rule, and somehow casual fans turned that into evidence that the Astros hold every prospect in the minors for too long. That's absurd. Pence was a case of random luck striking in the Astros' favor (the opposite of the Jennings deal), not something from which you can draw an organizational conclusion. That's the biggest problem I think some people have in evaluating general managers. It's not as simple as separating the good results and the bad results and comparing the two. Within each, you have to see which was actually planned well or poorly, and distinguish that from the things that happened simply by random chance.
