I miss Dierker :(

i don't miss larry dierker. I think he was the right manager at the right time and Jimy Williams is the right manager at this time. Larry would let Hampton, Lima, Reynolds, and Kyle pitch through their troubles. Jimy Williams realizes the astros starters other than miller and oswalt don't have the ability to do that so he goes with the best 1,2,3 combination in the bullpen.

I didn't want to see Dierker go until i saw some of the stupid decisions he made in the 2001 division series against Atlanta. Julio Lugo should have been benched for Jose Vizcaino and yet he wasn't and his errors led to one of our losses. Now go back a second to game 1 when the stros had a 1 run lead in the 8th and the best setup man in baseball was warming up in the bullpen. The game was all but in the bag until Larry strolls to the mound and signals to the bullpen to bring in Mike Jackson of all people. We all know what happened after that. Anway... i just feel his decisions toward the end were terrible and it was time for a change. Considering the injuries to kent and oswalt the astros are very fortunate to be where they are right now, a game out of first or something relatively close to that.

 

Dierker often managed with a "hunch" rather than a distinct philosophy.

In fact, I can tell you exactly why he brought in Jackson in the 8th inning of the 2001 NLDS game 1, instead of Dotel... its beacause
1.) Dotel had just emerged as an elite bullpen pitcher in the second half of that year, and Dierker thought a proven playoff veteran such as Jackson would be better suited for the playoffs.

2.) Just 4 days earlier, in the biggest win of that 2001 season at St. Louis (the 1st game of that final series), Jackson had come on in a pressure packed situation to strikeout the fading Mark McGwire... I'm sure that did a lot for Dierk's confidence in Jackson.


This was often the reasoning behind many of Dierk's decisions... and more often than not, they usually worked (you can't argue with his regular season success... its very impressive). Unfortunatley, when it didn't work, it was normally in a playoff situation.

No way Larry could orchestrate the starters and bullpen as Jimy has done... then again, the starters were much better during Dierker's tenure.

 

I dont miss him at all.

We needed a change because obviously Dirk wasnt getting through to the players.

It remains to be seen if Williams can do that. I give him one more year, then bring in someone else.

 

And I miss Mike Scott but he's not coming back.

How many times can you beat this horse? If Dierker was still the manager, I could not see him sticking with the current starting pitchers late into thae game. They've sucked. It's the fault of the pitchers as well as Hunsicker's and Drayton's, not Williams. Jimy's not yanking guys with 3.05 ERAs a la Dierker.

Redding 4.07
Linebrink 4.26
Miller 4.49
Munro 4.87
Robertson 5.29
Johnson 5.87
Saarloos 6.20
Moehler 7.90

Of the 4 primary pitchers, Redding has throw a ton of pitches per inning all year. Now he is throwing terribly but he still projects to throw from 180-190 innings. Jimy's fault?

Miller is inconsistent but he is still on pace to pitch over 200 innings and if Roy would have been healthy all year he's project to throw about 220 innings.

Robertson was downright terrible. Here's some numbers on Jeriome:

April: 4.73 IP per start with a WHIP 1.73, BAA .313
May: 4.73 IP per start with a WHIP 1.61, BAA .320
June: 5.44 IP per start with a WHIP 1.41, BAA .268

The fewer baserunners allowed, the deeper he pitches into the game. It's the starting pitcher's responsibility to pitch late in to the game. Robertson's *starting* to earn that right because he can keep the team in the game.

I don't see how Dierker would have handeled this pitching staff much differently. Williams has to work with what the GM has given him. Hunsicker handed him a rock solid bullpen and a mediocre to downright terrible starting staff. If you have a problem with the performance of the rotation, ask for McLane's head in not increasing payroll to acquire another starter.

I was one of the few who was not enthused about the Kent signing for fear of defensive and starting pitching problems. Kent was McLane's baby as was re-signing Biggio. But neither of those guys will be traded. I just hope that a solid proven starter can be traded for a la Astacio. Williams needs more to work with in the rotation.

 

Part of the reason for their high ERA is when they turn over a situation to our bullpen, they let a lot of inherited runners score. Dierker used to let his starters work their own way out of a jam.

This group of starters manages to blow leads on their own quite well. It's not the relievers letting their runners score. Dierker's starters were good enough to work themselves out of jams - these guys aren't.

After all, the starters are better then the relievers.

In general, yes. On our team, hell no.

 

We should have gotten Felipe Alou.

 

I think people are way too hard on jimy williams.

The guy has not had his team clicking on all cylinders at all so far, and he has them in first place.

If you told me bagwell would suck after april, miller struggles, kent would miss a month, as would oswalt, and hidalgo, and we lead the division at the halfway point, I would have called you crazy.

Plus I left out lance's slow start.

The 4 bright spots this 1st half are ensberg, the awesome bullpen, robertson/redding, and hidalgo's reemergence as a premier slugger. But the bad far outweighs the good through 94 games, and we are in first place.

I say lay off the man.

Plus, who can hate a guy with a story like this one.

From espn.com

Double Switch of the Half-Year
You can go to baseball games for about the next 6,000 years and not see a lefthanded-throwing pitcher trot out to second base in a big-league game. But if you were paying close attention, you could have seen that exact sight June 24 in Arizona.

After Houston's Jose Vizcaino got hit by a pitch and broke his wrist, Astros manager Jimy Williams sent pitcher Jeriome Robertson in to pinch-run for him. Robertson wasn't even wearing spikes at the time, but he followed orders.


Ah, but the surprises were just beginning. He was just getting over the shock of pinch-running when his life really got interesting. The inning ended, and Robertson was heading off the field when Williams told him, "Not so fast," and then pointed him out toward second base.

They then tossed him a glove from the dugout -- but it was a right-handed glove. So there you had it -- the goofiest scene of the year: a guy wearing a glove on the wrong hand, wearing sneakers instead of baseball shoes, manning an actual position in the middle of an actual major-league game.

So what was this about? Well, it sure wasn't because Williams wanted to turn Robertson into Jeff Kent Jr., or even into a human trivia question. In honesty, the manager just needed to buy more time until reliever Ricky Stone got warmed up.

But nobody told Jeriome Robertson that. He was planning just to stand there between first and second -- except Jeff Bagwell then decided to make this really amusing, by flipping him ground balls. And Robertson did his best to shot-put them over to first.

"I know those throws weren't looking good," he told MLB.com's Jim Molony. "But I was hitting him in the chest."

Finally, before this turned into a scene out of "Major League," Williams headed for the mound, waved for Stone and double-switched Robertson out of this mess. But nobody had ever let Robertson in on that plan -- until it happened.

Asked what he would have done had the game started, Robertson replied: "I would have called time." Yeah, for about an hour.

 

DVauthrin

I was confused as to why Williams needed to go to such histrionics for the double switch in that instance. Robertson was already in the game as a pinch runner. Do double switches have to occur with the team in the field? Why couldn't he have simply gone to the umpire after the Astros batted and said, "We're bringing in a relief pitcher and batting him in Vizcaino's/Robertson's spot and bringing in a 2nd baseman to bat int he pitcher's spot."

Also (not to rag on Williams), but with the number of injuries the pitchers have had running the bases, it seems the last thing they would want is to have a young pitcher running the bases in his tennis shoes. Either Robertson should have been prepared, or someone else should have run the bases.

 

I was confused as to why Williams needed to go to such histrionics for the double switch in that instance. Robertson was already in the game as a pinch runner. Do double switches have to occur with the team in the field? Why couldn't he have simply gone to the umpire after the Astros batted and said, "We're bringing in a relief pitcher and batting him in Vizcaino's/Robertson's spot and bringing in a 2nd baseman to bat int he pitcher's spot."


I think the idea was that, with Robertson going to 2nd, he gets extra time to warm up there as a new fielder. That allowed Stone more time to get ready in the bullpen.

 

I agree with that, but the article DVauthrin posted, as well as an article in the Chronicle, mentioned the double switch aspect.