Barring a miracle (ie: a seven-game sweep of the Cards), the Astros are out of the race. A simple question: In "your humble opinion" was the Astros organization correct in moving Dierker? Would he have made the difference this season? I think...yes. Jimy took far too long to learn the ins-and-outs of this ballclub. By the time he, the team, and his management style were all on the same page, the team was already too far behind. They do have momentum, and next season looks to have possibilities, but this one was (in part) lost due to the change in the manager's seat.
I didn't approve of some of Jimy's moves, but I don't think he was the reason we didn't compete this season. Partly it was due to injuries, partly to players just not producing until it was too late, partly just bad luck. One thing I did like about Williams was how he handled our young pitching staff, and him not allowing them to pitch their arms off early in the season. That will be key in future seasons.
Generally when there is a managerial change there is a dropoff that first year. Our dropoff hasn't been that bad. You don't make managerial decisions based on the short term. You decide whether to make a change looking toward the future...the future may be 2 to 3 years out...but it's still the future. This team was NEVER gonna get out of the first round under Dierk...so yes it was a good move.
I think they should of kept Dierker where he was, and should of kept Randy Johnson. It was 2 stupid moves, and look where we are now....
Randy Johnson was going to Phoenix regardless. We offered him a very competitive contract...but he was going to go where his offseason home and his family were...and that was Phoenix.
Dierker wasn't the problem the last several years and Jimy wasn't the problem this year. The players simply have to perform somewhere near reasonable expectations, and our guys simply didn't do it in the playoffs or early this season. Managers can't make players hit or pitch well. When all your pitchers have ERAs in the 5s or 6s, that's not the managers fault. When your star players bat 0.200, there's nothing a manager can do but keep running them out there.
We offered something like 3 years/$36 million and Colangelo offered something like 4 years/$50 million. Randy and his agent probably noticed that $14 million he would be leaving on the table to sign with Houston. Honestly, it wasn't a competitive offer.
$36M / 3 yrs = $12M a year $50M / 4 years = $12.5M a year It was a competitive offer. The difference was an extra year...which Johson, his agent and the Astros management KNEW he would renegotiate at the end of the deal.
It was the correct move for management to make after the Astros postseason meltdown. Someone needed to go (players, manager, GM, or owner), and unfortunately it was Dierker. I would have rather had Drayton pack his bags. You all know how I feel about Drayton so I won't go into detail again, but Dierker was not to blame for the team's failure.
Well now that I look it up it was 4 years $53 million. 53 - 36= $17 million $17 meeeeellion dollars isn't chump change. Everyone would take 53 over 36 except for Ken Caminiti and the only reason he'd take less is crack related. Definitely not competitive and really just typical Drayton. Slide in there with your inferior late Kile offer to make it look like you're doing something to become a champion today.
Wow...I've never seen somebody ignore facts quite this badly. You act as though the 53 and the 36 are comparable. You have to look at what was being offered PER YEAR. 13.25M a year to 12M a year. Did AZ offer more? Yep...but it wasn't overpowering. the fact is that our offer was 1 YEAR less. Anybody but a deaf, mute 3 year old knows that the Unit would have saught an even bigger contract (and gotten it) after year 3 had he stayed here. When all else fails bash Drayton I guess. I'm not so willing to expect Drayton to go NEARLY as deep into debt as Colangelo did in order to assemble that team. In case you missed it they are HUNDREDS of millions of dollars in debt...like you said...not chump change. And for the record...we made an offer to Kile. We never heard anything back. He went out of town that weekend and signed with the Rockies. We were never informed of the Rockies' offer...much less given an opportunity to match. THAT is the way it went down...and it was crappy on DK's part. Feel free to revise the chain of events so you can bash Drayton a little more.
In the short term (this year), it was not a good move. Under Dierker we would probably be a playoff team right now. Under Williams, it took 2 months before we started getting on a roll. At that point, its just an uphill battle. In the long run, this is a good move. I think we will get off to a much better start next year and that should be good enough to keep us in the race all year long. Also, Miller and Oswalt will be back along with some more experienced players in Hernandez, Munro, and Saarloos.
I think the players stopped listening to Dierker and he seemed a bit burned out, as well, so I think his removal was the right thing to do. I would have preferred someone other than Jimy Williams, but the Astros weren't in contention because of the manager. They were victim of a weak left side of the infield and, as someone mentioned in this thread, a few too many of our key players taking most of the spring off.
You bring up an excellent point. We spent the first 20 games or so with that horrible Everett and Ensberg experiment. We put ourselves in a hole from day 1.
Originally posted by Refman Wow...I've never seen somebody ignore facts quite this badly. You act as though the 53 and the 36 are comparable. You have to look at what was being offered PER YEAR. 13.25M a year to 12M a year. Did AZ offer more? Yep...but it wasn't overpowering. the fact is that our offer was 1 YEAR less. Anybody but a deaf, mute 3 year old knows that the Unit would have saught an even bigger contract (and gotten it) after year 3 had he stayed here. When all else fails bash Drayton I guess. I'm not so willing to expect Drayton to go NEARLY as deep into debt as Colangelo did in order to assemble that team. In case you missed it they are HUNDREDS of millions of dollars in debt...like you said...not chump change. Of course 53 and 36 are comparable, it's guaranteed money for a guy who'd be 39 years old in the last year of his contract. Does that deaf mute 3 year old know what happens to power pitchers that blow their arms out in their late thirties? Well they don't get $17 million a year. Everyone in baseball particularly at Randy's age signs with Arizona when presented with those two offers. I was embarrassed for Drayton that he initially offered $11 million/year and then REALLLLLY dug deep to offer $12 million when Arizona was already offering more per with an extra year. He was just going through the motions to make it look good. And for the record...we made an offer to Kile. We never heard anything back. He went out of town that weekend and signed with the Rockies. We were never informed of the Rockies' offer...much less given an opportunity to match. THAT is the way it went down...and it was crappy on DK's part. Feel free to revise the chain of events so you can bash Drayton a little more. I don't recall your chain of events. I recall Drayton playing hard ball with Kile in arbitration the year before and then offering him $6mil/season after Kile had a great year. Colorado came straight up with $8 million/season and then Drayton realizing that ole Darryl wasn't giving blue light special home town discounts upped it to $7mil/season to make it look good. Then he's shocked that Kile would actually leave over $1million/year apparently oblivious about how to treat players who are free agents.
Well, along w/ Randy Johnson, I really hate it that management made stupid moves to give up on former Astros players (Finley, Schilling, etc.). And now, those players are just making us look stupid by becoming All-Stars and Cy Young winners.... Why don't they ever try to keep something together that might turn out to be an actual World Series contender? We always come so close, then lose to Atlanta in the 90's, and then dump everyone so we can rebuild over and over again.... It just sucks!
The chain of events is as I said it happened. In fact when it all went down Barry Alexrod (who represented DK and Bagwell) had a lot of explaining to do to his client (Bagwell). Nobody in the Astros org saw it coming...NOBODY. The initial offer was $6M. After DK rejected it, Drayton offered $7M (which was considered by many to be a fair offer). Then on Monday DK had signed with Colorado...out of the blue. That is what happened.
I understand your frustration. But NOBODY expected that Schilling would become the real deal. When we had Schilling the team was going nowhere. It was 1991 and rookie Jeff Bagwell and friends were playing in front of 15,000 a night and contending for third place in the division.
Wait a second...what owner/team doesn't talk bad about the player in arbitration?? That's the problem with arbitration in general. That point seems to be really emphasized in the Kile negotiations because he cried to the media about it. Darryl left without giving Houston much of a chance...
in fact, while he was with the astros he thought he was going to be a closer...he thought he was a bullpen guy. and so did everyone else.
