Porter was the wrong hire, but only in retrospect. Obviously, what Jeff thought Bo would become as a manager isnt what he did become. How can anyone project what a guy is going to do with any certainty into the future, especially a guy with no past experience in the position your placing him? Such a hire, any hire really is a roll of the dice. Porter more so than a guy with a past. Jeff gambled. Did he lose? Perhaps. But anyone with a brain knows it wouldn't much matter who was there in the 2013-14 era. We were going to lose a lot, period. While its hard to say, the perfect hire back then wouldn't change things much as they now look, IMO. This was a placeholder hire plain and simple. It did offer the opportunity to move forward into something more permanent, had it worked out I think. But it didn't, and really in the big picture didn't have to. Nor was expected to. That said, the guy who runs the 2015 squad will matter more. A lot more.
Most of the press has, too. As for the city, as long as football is going well, they won't move on to a new team but rather choose to not follow baseball. That's fine. When the Astros pick it back up, the fans will come back too. It isn't how I like it to be, but hey, it is what it is. No one is finding a new team, but rather waiting for them to be good again.
I think if there weren't any other issues, Porter would still be here. The team has been playing at nearly a .500 clip for a majority of the year. This isn't simply about the won-loss record. The quips coming out about former players/coaches expressing grave concerns, along with the weird antics (mirrors in lockers, chairs facing out, like they were 10 year-olds) made this happen. Sure, it's a black eye on the franchise, but all will be forgotten if they continue to make the strides they have been. I may be in the minority, but I sure enjoy rooting for a "****ty" team with a bright future over the ****ty teams from the late 00s with no future at all. I'll let bobrek comment once he's back from vacation on the many questionable in-game moves made by Porter. It's not like we just lost a brilliant tactician.
^Agreed. By the way, where were all these people when Drayton was leading the team to 100 loss seasons, signing albatross contracts, and destroying the farm?
How is failing to sign Mac Marshall a negative? He was drafted in the 21st round. Only the Rays signed more picks in 2014. Pretty sure they should fire the guy in charge of IT security if they haven't already.
Ironically, complaining that they should trade away all their big contracts and rebuild the team from scratch...
Pretty level-headed and fair article in Grantland: http://grantland.com/the-triangle/houston-astros-fire-manager-bo-porter/ A snippet, read the whole thing.
Oh yeah, I agree with you here about Porter's shortcomings. It wasn't as if they just fired Tommy Lasorda here. My take is that the guy was simply a straw man from the git-go and was hired because he was so easily disposable. I fully expect their next hire to be so as well. Where we differ is on the so-called "bright future" of this franchise. Crane & Co are selling this vision that while the present blows chunks the future is filled with SO MUCH promise (and sunshine and flowers and even unicorns). I simply ain't buying. In my lifetime as a native Houstonian, I have been witness to the trials and trepidations that is Houston professional sports teams. They are experts at mediocrity, in disappointing their legions of fans and most of all in their inability to build and maintain successful winning organizations. I have only seen them win it all twice (Houston Rockets 1994, 1995). NOTHING I've seen from this organization (from the ownership on down - ESPECIALLY OWNERSHIP) gives me the faith to believe that they actually can pull off what they are promising. They epitomize the guys at Enron who fancied themselves the smartest guys in the room before everything crashed and burned all around them.
So you know the future isn't bright because the history of people who are in no way affiliated with this team anymore was one of failure and because you think they are the equivalent of cheaters and crooks.
I'm guessing you haven't watched this team since George Springer was called up in May. They're playing very nearly .500 ball since then and that's with Springer being out over a month.
You are right to not buy promises about the future. Anyone making such promises is a fool. But one can, through a study of history, make a forecast or educated guess about where a team is heading. The 2007-10 team(s), had no future. Bad contracts, a disinterested owner and a depleted farm made any other forecast at the time a unlikely one. While the future of the current team may or may not turn out to be bright, it has the potential for such where the 2007-10 era future did not. It may turn out that we merely get back to where we were in 2007-10 in terms of wins and loses. But all the pillars for which a team stands on are different now vs then. And for that reason alone, the ceiling is higher.
Obejction your honor, relevance. Whether or not the current regime drafted him makes no difference in his production on the current MLB team and how they have been playing since he was called up (nevermind the fact that the player who took up the slack with an amazing second half is a Luhnow-acquired player). What is a fact is that their farm system has gone from the bottom of the rankings to the top since Lunhow took over. Whether or not that means great success in the future or not, it's sure a lot better than how things looked at the end of the last decade. And considering where our GM came from and how that team continues to compete by restocking their big league club with prospects when losing other players, I'll call the glass half-full with regards to the current state of this franchise as a whole.
Honest question that I'm not sure can be honestly answered... could the system (and big league team) be where it is today without looking like an absolute laughing-stock/joke/integrity-questionining-farce at the MLB level? And I'm not talking about signing a bunch of over the hill free agents just to make the payroll look respectable. Acquiring guys like Fowler (who is definitely paid more relative to the rest of the team), McHugh, and even signing somebody like Feldman seems like it could have been done along the way the last three years... and they still could have been devoting resources at the minor league level in order to get the system close to where it is today. As it is, the above guys likely aren't core pieces to the next great Astros team... but they do make these seasons more tolerable. (and yes, a lot of this could be based on the sentiment that the farm system is not all that much better with the last two #1 picks that were results of Luhnow's tanking... Correa's pick was actually the result of just being a bad team at the end of the Drayton era).
