Nothing really. I was looking for a stupid pic of Coop, and saw this one. When I saw this pic, it felt like he was laughing at everyone. "No matter how stupid I manage this team, that direct deposit keeps showing up on my bank balance."
"Thanks for the job!" ----------------- ----------------- ----------------- "What's this wooden object in my hand?" ----------------- "FML!"
Cecil Cooper is a terrible manager. I have never, in over 30 years of watching baseball, seen a manager mishandle a pitching staff on a daily basis. I would like to see him run out of town. Jimy Williams looked like a genius compared to Cooper.
Perhaps but in Coop's defense, he really wasn't handed that much of a pitching staff to begin with. Anyway, it's all academic since Coop and the entire coaching staff will be let go at the (merciful) end of the season. After all, somebody has to take the fall for the organization's past mistakes and from what I've learned from watching Jerry Jones, Mark Cuban and Les Alexander, that someone is never the owner.
No defense of Coop here. The only thought I have is that I'm not sure Joe Torre, Sparky Anderson, Leo Durocher, or even Jesus could coach this team to at or above .500. An honest look at the lineup, bench, and pitching staff top-to-bottom without our lovin-Houston-colored-glasses on, at least IMO, reveals that this team just really sucks. Berkman and Pence are great. Bourn is fantastic. Tejada and Lee are good. Those guys have been inconsistent, though, and the rest of the offense is very pedestrian or just sucks. Roy and Wandy are great. Then you have "promising rookies" and old scratch-and-dent refurbs you're relying on. Bottom line: this team can overperform when everyone gets hot at the same time, but generally they fare somewhere between mediocre and flat-out-sucktitude. ....but they're still my Astros, and I'll still catch every game hoping they win!
All of this is true, but it does not change the fact that Cooper is an awful, awful skipper. You could give that guy the 1927 Yankees and he'd find a way to not win the pennant.
cooper isnt going out playn the game. blame the players fo us sucking. blame the catchers for not doing n e thing productive. blame kaz for not really hittin this year. blame blum dont say hes good a .263 batting average with 9 homers is not good for a 3rd baseman and for the 5 batting spot. blame ed wade for no getting any pitching this year. next year if we wanna be a good team we need to get 2 more starting pitchers bud has been great. give maysonnet a shot at 2nd. find a good hitting third baseman n get a catcher. try towles again
Nobody is saying the teams failures are all his fault, but when dealt with so many average/below average players, you have to make all the right moves to be a good team, and Cooper has made a lot of poor moves this season that make zero sense.
You know, based on fan opinions, it seems every manager the Astros have had sucked badly. Dierker kept getting us into the playoffs, and people thought he was worthless. Garner took us to the WS, and people kept calling for his head. If someone was just reading fan opinion on our coahes, you'd think the Astros were the Pirates the past decade or something. Cooper may or may not be a good manager, but to me the results are not that bad. If indeed he's losing control of the team, he deserves the axe. But otherwise I find him living up to expectations of our talent.
Was it really that bad with Dierker? I know he always left starters out there for too long, but I think most fans liked him. Jimy Williams was an awful choice in my mind, and I never liked him. Garner got his fair share of criticism for making what seemed like stupid moves, but for whatever reason the team seemed to believe in him and he made it work. Cooper is a like Garner, except the players don't seem to like him.
Dierker got criticized quite a bit because he was a laid back manager. Basically he never does any "managing", so to speak. He doesn't go to the pen at the sign of trouble. He doesn't do a lot of sneaky base stealing or other type of "small ball". He generally just filled out the lineup card and let things run its course. My point is that you can pick on a manger regardless of his style. So in the end, I usually just look at the record. Jimy Williams' teams were clearly underachieving. But Cooper's team has not. Doesn't mean we can't do better. And I'd love to get a more established manager. But it also doesn't mean Cooper's the most horrible manager in existence.
