Brad Ausmus - .293 OBP Jose Vizcaino - .200 OBP The Astros just trotted out the single worst pair of 1-2 hitters in MLB today. When Biggio isn't playing, Ensberg should lead off. And what's up with sitting half the team on one day? Does Jimy actually have something against winning streaks? Roy wasn't even pitching...
major: Fine, rest Biggio. And it looks like everything will work out today... but Ausmus and Vizcaino are offensive black holes, and Lugo and Merced are poor hitters as well. Add to that the pitcher... and the Astros had exactly 4 people in the line-up who are reliable run-producers. Not a good ratio. And that's even if one considers Morgan Ensberg a "reliable run producer." And to put two of those guys at the top of the order? That's icky .
Biggio has missed 3 games this season due to Williams resting him. He missed last Sunday also. So I think it may be more than every other Sunday.
Well guys, that weak line-up just scored 7 runs without the benefit of an error, so maybe Jimy knew something we didn't. Rock on! 2 out of 3 in Hotlanta!
deepellum: Even the crappiest team in the league will usually win 60 games in a year. Jose Vizcaino is a terrible baseball player. Brad Ausmus is a terrible hitter. Merced is a poor hitting outfielder. If you play these guys often, especially at the top, you will lose more than you should. Incidentally, Houston has a losing record. Is Williams to blame when we lose? Or are the players to blame? Sort of nice when you get a free pass... Put the best players on the field possible, and you'll optimize your run production. That's all you can hope for. EDIT: Incidentally, if the Astros win 85 games, the season will be a failure. Win 95, and the season will be a success. So basically, if Williams cost the Astros 1 win for every 9 or so through his wacky line-ups, then he's single-handedly ruined the Astros season. He doesn't need to lose many games, just a few... by playing guys who don't deserve to be on a major league roster (vizcaino).
Hey Haven I sincerely apologize for being happy that the Astros won today. I'll try to remember the futility of my previous post when I choose to celebrate a win. Get over yourself, dude. I was just cheering.
What are you talking about? Almost everyone always blames the manager when you lose and praise the players when you win. If anyone gets a free pass, its the players. I have been irked by some of Williams moves so far this season too, but, in my opinion, even if the Astros miss the playoffs this year, if it means they move past the first round during some part of Williams tenure, then it will be considered a success, otherwise a failure.
I'm talking about this: the difference between a decent and a good team is very, very small. Managers' influence over any game is overstated. 99% of the time, the manager isnt' to blame for a loss, or to be credited for a win. All a manager can do is put out the guys who are most likely to win on any given night. I don't think that Williams does this. I think Williams has an unwholesome fascination with mediocre veteran journeymen and yanking starters too early or too late. I live in Boston, remember. I probably seem more impatient with Williams, but in reality, I've been more closely following him for a few years than most people here. He's not all bad: he does seem to eek out the best from the same mediocre players he's so infatuated with. But even if he does get slightly more out of them, is it really worth him underplaying the guys that are really special? Is it worth it not getting the youngsters, like Ensberg, experience? I don't think so. I prefer stars and rookies with potential to career journeymen. And I prefer the managers that play them.
Well, if we continue to suck, you will see Williams shoulder nearly all of the blame - with the rest falling on Drayton's shoulder. That you can be assured of, especially given the situation for which he was brought in.
Now some of the Astros fans know what us Red Sox fans were going through.... BTW - haven, you know why Jimy trotted out that line-up? Manager's decision!
We won 2 out of 3 IN Atlanta and you guys are complaining about fu%king lineups?!?!?! Give me a break......
Timing: Why do you feel the need to use pejoratives without arguments? Probably because your arguments are usually terrible regarding baseball. All I want you to do is explain why two players with sub .300 OBPs are batting 1-2 on ANY day *ever* for any team that's not losing 120 games in a season. That should never, ever happen. Ever. And any manager that allows it, should be fired without a single question. Even if it's only once. You want a leadoff hitter to have an OBP of at least .350. And even that isn't really a good leadoff guy for a contending team. The really good ones are at .370+. Brad Ausmus is probably one of the 20 or so worst hitting regulars in MLB. Vizcaino is one of the absolute worst hitters in baseball, period. Starting or not. Tell me why they should bat 1-2. Please explain it, without being insulting. Just reasons why these two horrible hitters have any business batting at the top of the order. If you cannot do this, never speak on the subject again. drewdog: Let me reverse that for you. We have a losing record. Who should I give a break ? Managers have trouble winning games. It's their job not to screw up. That's about all they can do.
You know haven, I do agree with your point, but you are being inconsistent here. You list Ausmus's and Vizcaino's OBP from this season as reason they should not bat leadoff, but you also say that looking at what Blum has done so far and what Ensberg has done is not enough sample size to start Blum over Morgan. Now, looking at Ausmus's career OBP as well as Vizcaino's, you still have a point. Brad has a career OBP of around .330, while Viz's is .318. Neither is stellar, and neither should be leading off. I just thought it was a bit hypocritical to use the small sample size for one argument while bashing people who use it in another.
First of all don't you ever tell me what to speak on and what not to speak on. That act isn't playing here so skip it. Second of all, you have posted some of the weakest opinions on baseball I've ever read anywhere. Ichiro with his weak arm and average bat, Lugo the above average .260 and 10 homerun hitting 100 strike out having hole in the glove shortstop who you now call a poor hitter, and Pujols just another rookie slugger who just happened to have one of the best rookie seasons in history. Does it get any more ridiculous than that? Well apparently it does because now you're wetting your pants over Morgan Ensberg, the 26 year old rookie who has been over aged for every league he's ever played in and isn't even considered one of the top prospects in the organization. You rely on MLE's like they're as certain as the sun rising in the East when I can name many prospects all better than Ensberg who never amounted to anything. Oswalt of course must average 105 pitches/game without ever throwing more than 110, a nice trick I guess. Apparently he shouldn't be taken out of the game after 85 pitches even if he wanted to come out. Dave Mlicki? The worst pitcher in baseball last year according to you is now the second or third most reliable arm on the team, you want to explain that one? Luck? Didn't you call for Jimy's head for even considering keeping Mlicki on the staff over Redding? Oops... hey what are Redding's projections? You want to stick by those too? You know at some point you're probably going to have to come to the realization that players aren't stats on a piece of paper. They're living breathing humans who don't posses the "on average" consistency that you rail on about. They also don't play in plastic bubbles, they play in weather, heat, and humidity. All are things that affect player performance that don't fit into your calculator mentality. It's been incredibly obvious that you've been on a Jimy hater trek since even before the season started and it's been an amusing read. To answer your question, in any one random game throughout a season it doesn't matter a whole lot who's leading off or batting second. You're b****ing and moaning like he's thrown this lineup out 30 games in a row or something. You have no clue in any one random game if Ausmus will go 4-5 or Ensberg will go 4-5. You can't average that out and the likelihood of Ensberg doing it over Ausmus is next to nothing. The lineup scored 7 runs with Ausmus leading off and the next game may only score 2 runs with Biggio leading off. Vizcaino, the worst hitter in baseball, had two hits in that game. That's probably not even statistically possible according to you but obviously Jimy knew that Viz was 3 for 7 career off of Albie Lopez so that's just one more reason why he started and batted second. Going into that game Ausmus had a .693 OPS and Ensberg had a .721. Wow... now that's some really compelling stuff for your argument I guess. Add in the fact that Ensberg is a rookie playing the Braves for the first time and Ausmus is quite the veteran then it's not at all surprising why Ausmus would lead off. There is no way for anyone to predict how a rookie having marginal success like Ensberg will respond to failing in the lead off spot. Do you have an algorithm for that anywhere? You don't see using Vizcaino or Merced today as an investment for something tomorrow. It either goes by your averages or it's "luck". We've tried playing our best players for 162 games and in the end they failed miserably which of course was just "bad luck" according to you. I guess it was "bad luck" 4 times in 5 seasons or maybe we can add the 3 consecutive second place finishes with late season collapses to that so make it 7 times in 8 seasons. That's a lot of bad luck. Jimy isn't the general manager of this team, he's the field manager and it's quite evident that he's of the opinion that his team will be better off in the end if the whole team plays and gains confidence from playing time. If you have a problem with the players he's playing then blame Hunsicker. Of course most teams aren't going to be able to afford your ideal players so virtually every team in baseball is rolling out mediocre players off the bench. Where does that compute?
