Bill Brown and JD are great. Not only do they call a good game, they also have a lot of fun. I'm not sure how they could be better. I still haven't heard enough of the new guys to make a judgment. Milo, however, is still awful. He always seems interested in everything BUT the game at hand. He thinks that whatever he has to say is more entertaining than the action on the field, and he's wrong. The day he's gone can't come soon enough.
This is true. He just seemed grouchy, which was a complete 180 from how he used to call games. He's still an Astro for life, but he probably feels like he got shafted. IMO: Tossing Dierk for Jimy Jenius was one of the worst mistakes this organization ever made.
Stros had no choice, Dierk lost the players & wrote his own ticket out of town. Not that hiring Jimy turned out to be a great move by any stretch.
Twice in as many days. Not that I have a huge frame of reference to compare them to, but I love Brown and Deshaises. Mark me down as one who enjoyed Ashby as well. I wasn't at all angry when they moved in another direction, but I didn't dislike his work at all.
In the end, they overcompensated. After Dierker and Collins (both were first-time MLB managers), they wanted somebody with MLB experience. Garner was a candidate, but they also wanted somebody with post-season experience/success. Jimy was the only guy who really fit all those categories, and he did end up doing some good things that benefitted this team the following years... he threw Lidge right in there during his "rookie" year, and made him face a lot of high pressure situations (led the team in appearences). He taught Ausmus a lot about how to handle a pitching staff (Ausmus was quoted before as saying that he often disagreed with Dierker, but Jimy was one of the smartest he'd ever come across). Finally, he nurtured (and didn't overuse) Roy Oswalt... a lot of young guys get ruined early in their careers, and even though the groin prevented him from throwing a lot of innings early, Jimy made sure that even when healthy, Roy would not risk himself to injury by overuse. In the end, the team took-off after Garner came... not neccesarily because of his moves, but because you couldn't supress the heart of these teams forever. Jimy was a little too hands on, and that may have masked some of the natural passion that this team needed... but he wasn't as terrible of a manager that many people suspected.
