Joe Espada may not be responsible for Jose Abreu's presence on the roster but he is responsible for putting him in the lineup. Abreu should be stubbornly kept on the bench till he is DFA'd without regard to his salary. You do not put the worst hitter in the league into the game, period.! Joe Espada may not be responsible for Bregmans weak hitting but he is certainly responsible for putting him in a crucial spot in the lineup every damn game. Who is it that keeps putting Pressly into high leverage situations knowing full well he is a bad choice for those situations? Joe is being paid to manage to win games, that is the job of a manager. He is responsible for making decisions that put the players in position to win. He needs to begin today by sending Cabbage and Singleton down and playing Loperfido every day at first base. Putting Abreu's ass on the bench permanently. Pitching Abreu in the eighth inning and putting Pressly in low leverage situations till he recovers his confidence. Come to the realization that Bregman is a defense first third baseman, play Dubon at third if you need offense there. He may get fired for defying someone higher up if he does these things, but at least he will not get fired for being a bad manager.
But his advanced metrics earlier in the season merely suggested "bad luck"! (I too thought he looked worse than his numbers were actually suggesting). We've always had the issue where analytics conflicts with the eye test... and then you get everybody in here quoting "back of the baseball card" in a facetious manner and blaming Bagwell in a facetious manner, and then its hard to say what should be done.
He actually doesn't control all aspects of the lineup or pitching decisions. A front office that can "control" the manager's decision is probably what every front office secretly wants... as soon as the Astros go with a more established manager, they're going to probably fight all of this and then we end up with the 2023 Astros. When the manager and the front office are on the same page... that's the best case scenario.
Bagwell did that to himself by making that statement. Maybe he shouldn't really say things like that and have people make rash judgement.
Or maybe people shouldn't take everything that is said by former players to the media as gospel or a sign that they're the "defacto GM making all the signings". Bagwell was forced (or chose) to be the spokesperson for Crane while they were in between GM's. That's all. Now Brown gets to talk to the media while Bagwell hasn't said much in months (yet he still gets all the attention). Also half the stuff Brown says to the media is just random fluff/speak that is all over the place. Its also like people forgot how cliche or fluff/speak Bagwell/Biggio used to be to the media in the 90's... of course this is pre-twitter/BBS and people still got all their sound bytes from the local news or newspaper.
Yes, people really shouldn't take what former players say as gospel, but Bagwell is more than just a former player. He is part of the front office, and hadn't he stated he was part of signing Abreu? Sounds to me like he's more than just a former player, so why shouldn't we take what he said as something that represents the current front office's ideals? Dana is just as bad...worst even than Bagwell so far. People are just dogging Bagwell because of the current Abreu frustration...once Abreu is gone then people will forget about Bagwell and his role with the Astros admin.
That's the extrapolation fans have made. What's his title? Yes, he helped recruit Abreu as a member of the traveling party that went to his house... did he put out contract terms or add extra years to the deal? Did anybody really complain about the signing at the time here? No. Brown is the GM, he has a title and he can say whatever he wants. Bagwell is also getting blame for Montero, the Watergate scandal, the Kennedy assasination, and Jim Crane's poor golf scores.
Bagwell poo poo’d analytics. That is what rubbed fans the wrong way. He did do this on more than one occasion and he did it in the booth during games too. Truth is, nobody knows how involved he was or wasn’t in the decision making. Anyone who blames him or excuses him completely is purely talking out of their ass.
Perhaps... but then analytics suggest Pressly is doing fine in the 8th inning role and shouldn't be moved. Analytics suggest the Astros are actually going to have a course correction and should technically be above .500 if not for "bad luck" that analytics says should correct itself over 162. Analytics predicted Bregman's turnaround and he should have been kept in the cleanup spot (or higher) in order to get that production when the turnaround happened. Analytics say that Singleton shouldn't be on a major league roster. It works both ways. Click's front office was all for signing Abreu and extending Montero. It was universally celebrated by all parties here, both analytically and those who just love the "splash". Former players do provide insight that transcend analytics, but to think that the front offices based all their decisions solely on his recommendations is total BS. And former players who question analytics often do so in the mindset of putting blind trust in just those numbers, and not using any actual context of playing the game with decisions. The 2015-2019 Astros still incorporated plenty decision making based on players or former players, whether it was Cora, Hinch, Beltran, Strom, and Bagwell/Biggio sitting in Crane's seats throughout those runs. Codebreaker was introduced by an intern in 2016 apparently and became a primary focus that ended up evolving into what we know... getting back to that level of "obliterating the competition" by all means necessary will probably never be part of this team again, yet it did provide the foundation for the competitive advantage we want them to have once again.
This is all very well known. What I was saying is that we just don’t know how involved he is in decision making. Of course Abreu looked like a solid acquisition at the time, although some of us did question his power outage in 2022. Again…nobody here knows anything about Bagwell’s actual level of involvement.
No competent manager is going to put up with that **** for very long. He was hired to manage and that is what he should do. Brown and Bagwell have no experience running a team. they can go pound sand. Crane only has whatever options Espada gives him. He can let him manage the team or he can fire him. Espada is in the dug out every day. He writes the line up card every day. If things continue as they are he will certainly be fired. If he stands up and runs the team he has a better chance of winning and winning fixes everything.
Joe Espada is receiving orders from Jim Crane and Jeff Bagwell, there is no doubt about it. Jim Crane wants it to work, the management want to try out Singleton, Dubon. Alex Bregman, Jose Abreu lack of hitting at the 4th or 5th spot in the lineup hurts the team. Now Jeremy Pena, whoever at the 5, has to pick up Bregman, Abreu slack.
94 pitches and you take out Blanco. Throwing a no-hitter. You bring in a closer with a 4 run lead. Tired of your managing.
The health if the SP is much more important than a no hitter. I like the move. If you let him pitch the 8th and he doesn't give up a hit then you have the pressure of possibly sending him back for the 9th with 100+ possibly 110+ pitches. If he can't finish it, what does it matter if he's pulled after 7 or 8? Verlander went down and this team has no replacement. Imagine if Blanco had gotten hurt?
