Williams fired today and replaced by Phil GARNER, news conference at 1PM announced by 610. Excuse me for the name spelling error-----gee whiz!!! It is a good thing I didn't kill anyone.........
Well, Jimy did his best IMO and it didn't work out. Tough to see him leave when there was lil he was capable of doing. Sometimes change is good. I hope this holds true in this case.
GARNER.... I guarantee you that his name is going to be mispelled a great deal. Of course, it took us all some time to get used to typing Jimy.
Garner seems pretty easyt to spell. lol Any Astros fan shoud know that. Lets just call him "scrap iron".
what do you think, codell?? what do you think of garner?? i want you...buck...behad...and rm95 to give me opinions immediately. i need them in memo form. thanks in advance.
I think Garner is a risky choice. Hes had mediocre results with mediocre teams. Bad results with bad teams. We have yet to see what he can do with a team full of talent. Hell bring alot of fire. The best we could hope hell do is motivate the players to give him better results than they gave Jimy. In reality, I want to see if they are going to replace Spillman. I think a change in the hitting coach could make the biggest difference for this team. We have good hitters, they are just wildly inconsistent and have no chemistry as one lineup. Maybe a new approach can help these guys avoid so many costly slumps.
This team just needed a change ... that's the only reason this move was made ... I think we need a new hitting coach as well to get a different opinion out to our hitters who might just a need a new approach Good luck to Jimy and I hope you land somewhere else soon
I don't think it matters very much since managers are incredibly overrated. I'm more interested in a new hitting coach.
"The station also reported Astros hitting coach Harry Spilman and pitching coach Burt Hooton were expected to be relieved of their duties Wednesday and replaced by Gary Gaetti and Jim Hickey, respectively. " http://houston.astros.mlb.com/NASAp...714&content_id=800048&vkey=news_hou&fext=.jsp 07/14/2004 11:23 AM ET Williams reportedly dismissed Garner expected to be named Astros manager By Jim Molony / MLB.com HOUSTON -- Houston Astros manager Jimy Williams has been fired, a Houston television station reported Wednesday morning. KRIV-TV, citing unnamed sources, reported Williams has been dismissed and replaced on an interim basis by Phil Garner, former manager of the Milwaukee Brewers and Detroit Tigers and a former Astros player. The station also reported Astros hitting coach Harry Spilman and pitching coach Burt Hooton were expected to be relieved of their duties Wednesday and replaced by Gary Gaetti and Jim Hickey, respectively. Astros owner Drayton McLane Jr. and general manager Gerry Hunsicker were not immediately available for comment Wednesday morning. Attempts to reach Williams were unsuccessful. Williams was in his third year with the Astros after succeeding Larry Dierker as Houston manager before the 2002 season. He piloted the team to two consecutive second-place finishes but after signing free agents Roger Clemens and Andy Pettitte last offseason, the Astros were picked by many to win the National League Central Division this year only to enter the All-Star break at 44-44. Williams was 215-197 (.522) with Houston. Jim Molony is a reporter for MLB.com.
I'm sorry to see Williams go, as I thought he was a great coach, however, is his exit the answer to our woes...I doubt it... I'm not jumping up and down on the Phil Garner bandwagon...I would have preferred Baylor... Not sure if this will help...
Out of all the major sports, I think managers in baseball have the least contro over their team's performance. Still though, sometimes change is good, just for the sake of change.
I tend to think it is the head football coach simply because so much of the general decision making and game planning is left to the offensive and defensive coordinators. Actually, once a game is going, the soccer coach doesn't have a lot to do since there are limited substitutions and the players (at least on the national level) know what set plays to run, I actually think the baseball manager has more of an impact (at least during the actual playing of the game) simply because baseball is not a "flow" game. There are lots of starts and stops. Steal, hit and run, pitchouts, pinch hitters, relievers, etc. A manager has a lot of decisions to make during the actual game most of the time. In football, it tends to be, "Why did Chris Plamer call that draw play?" as opposed to "Why did Dom Capers do it".
OK, so now can we get another arm for the bullpen? Every single one of our relievers makes me nervous except Lidge ...
Excited about Gary Gaetti? But he was a career .255 hitter in 20 seasons. He struck out almost three times more than he walked and his OBP was .308. Maybe he's a good motivator/encourager?
