With whom? The roster has changed at an incredible pace over the last 2 months. It's actually different day to day. Earlier in the season, especially when there was some decent baseball being played, I agree. Right now, all he can do is play the matchups with the roster he has.
He focuses too much on matchups and shuffles the lineup too often. Part of this is on Luhnow, IMO. Roster needs to be fixed.
I agree, all season the guy has been yanking people around. I mean wasn't Altuve batting 8th at one point?
Mills should definitely not be brought back. Schafer & Moore need to be DFA'd. They need to bring Wallace up to start at 1B. Need to put Paredes at 3B or RF. If Paredes is at 3B, Martinez needs to be up to start in RF.
"Mills is standing in the way of the Astros being a 100 win team?" mills is that you?? If so you're an idiot.
Mills is indeed an idiot for taking a job that had an ownership chance after his first year and a complete roster blowup by the middle of his second year. I suspect that Luhnow will judge Mills's performance mostly on player development and decidedly not on lineups or in game decisions.
So you think he is going to judge Mills' performance on what are more the responsibilities of assistant coaches, and not on the decisions that the manager alone is accountable?
Some of the "obvious" manager decisions may be not be that straight forward. Mills running out Cordero in two save situations was just plain dumb. But Luhnow probably wanted to catch lightning in a bottle before the trade deadline. Same could be said for Scott Moore verus Brett Wallace. Building trade value for Moore and preventing Wallace from getting Super Two status were Luhnow's decision.
Absolutely, but batting Moore in the 3rd spot in the lineup is on Mills. Batting Schafer leadoff for most of the season is on Mills. Keeping Altuve in the 8th spot for so long was on Mills. Refusing to define relief roles for most of his pen aside from closer is on Mills.
I think it's a foregone conclusion that Mills is gone at the end of the season. I wouldn't be against doing it now and giving someone w/in the organization an audition (if there was someone worth giving one to). What damage could be done now? 107 losses? Maybe it wakes the kids up. I can live with the losing. I can't stand rolling over...which is what they're doing on the field. If I could right now, I'd DFA Bixler, Moore, Downs and Schafer. Call up Dominguez, Paredes, Wallace and Barnes. Go out with a lineup of Altuve 2B Paredes RF Wallace 1B Martinez LF Barnes CF Dominguez 3B Gonzalez SS Catcher P
Managers at most can make a 4 win difference. At the beginning of the season, the Astros roster as constructed struggled for each win. After the Lowrie injury and the trading of the vets (best pitcher, closer, best RBI man and Happ), even more so.
I would not be surprised if Luhnow did not have some say in these decisions. As far as I am concerned the entire craptastic bullpen is all on Luhnow. The fact that Moore and Schafer on the MLB roster is all on Luhnow. At the end of the year, the Astros will have the worst record and the top draft pick. Luhnow will work his magic in the 2013 draft, perhaps even more magical given a full year to have his hand picked personnel prepare for that draft. And the 2013 will be a brand new season. The thing that I blame Mills for is the poor year JD Martinez is having. As a player he has not developed and has even regressed.
Of this team, who would you bat in the 1/2/3/4 spots in the lineup? Altuve would be 1 or 2. What other 3 players would you put up there? Altuve batted in the 8 spot for all of 7 games. Is that really excessive for someone who was totally unproven? Most of the bullpen sucks - I don't think assigning roles really would help or fix anything there.
