Astros Fire Cecil Cooper
Allow me to be forthcoming and honest when I say I have no idea whether Cecil Cooper managed well or poorly over the course of his time in Houston. I can look at the numbers, I can read opinions of analysts I trust, and I can attempt to form an opinion from that. What I do know is that he was not Houston’s biggest issue — unless he is the worst manager in the history of baseball that is – because managers can only work with what they are given. Take a look at how Cooper’s team ranked in the major statistical categories:
Rotational FIP: 12th
Bullpen FIP: 17th
Lineup wOBA: 24th
Team UZR: 16th
Positional Player WAR: 25th
Pitcher WAR: 23rd
That’s a middle of the pack team at best. They have a laundry list of issues heading into this off-season, and it starts with their self-evaluation. Lance Berkman and Carlos Lee will be 34-years-old next season, Geoff Blum will be 37, Miguel Tejada – if he returns – will be 36, and so on. The lineup is mostly on the wrong side of 30 with Hunter Pence and Michael Bourn being the only projected main clogs younger than 30. With such you would expect a bit of a decline to occur with aging.
Despite tallying only 22 WAR to date, the Astros will win more than 70 games this season. A replacement level team wins a few less than 50 games, so that’s about right. Maybe the Astros are a few wins better at true talent level – I don’t believe they are, but follow with me here – say 75 wins. Most teams would look at that lineup, stacked with a few guys who won’t be with the Astros the next time they hit 90 wins, and say: “Gee, we need to rebuild, we’re a mediocre team right now.”
Are the Astros going to reach that conclusion? Doubtful. The worst thing that could happen to the Astros was overachieving once more and pushing their draft pick in 2010 towards the middle of round one. I find that a lot more troubling for the future than whether Cooper is their manager or not.
41
typical ed wade move.
he ‘released’ bowa with a week or so left in philadelphia, too.
Such is the life of a ML manager. As a Philly Phan, I can tell you that winning the WS made Charlie Manuel go from village idiot to President of the local Brotherly Love Mensa Chapter within the span of one October in the eyes of the fans and media.
+1
To be fair, this is the same guy who said this about Lance Berkman bunting:
“That’s a baseball player’s play. It’s a nice job. We need baserunners. If you hit a ball out of a ballpark, I call them rally-killers when you get down like that. We need to keep a rally going, and that was a nice play to me.”
Jesus.
Props to Cecil for supporting his player. Now if Cecil put the bunt on….
The statement was fine until the whole “rally killer” part, I mean obviously getting on base = good play. Then he had to go and continue.
I have watched some Astros games this year and you could tell Cooper wasn’t the greatest in-game manager in the world. But, nobody could have won with this team.
bad contracts + no rotation depth + awful defense = a 70 win team
With the Astros probably cutting back on spending next year and no new blood on the way, the Astros are going to be in rough shape going into 2010
They should see is Sam Koch of the Ravens wants to play baseball. Then they can add to their Nebraska punter tally.
That = winning.
Firing a manager with 13 games left in the season tells you all you need to know about Astros management. This group is clueless.
About a month ago, with a man on 2nd and two outs, Cecil intentionally walked Nick Johnson to get to Hanley Ramirez. It was quite hilarious. Not that NJ is a bad hitter, but Hanley also had nearly a .150 OPS advantage at the time. But apparently Cecil would rather face Hanley with a man in RISP than NJ. Hanley would of coarse single in the run.
Not to mention his conversation with Hunter Pence, where the young hitter was criticized for drawing to many walks and hitting the ball to all fields. Cooper told him to swing more and only try to pull the ball, resulting in a minor increase in SLG and a huge drop in BA and OBP.
He was also terrible for the pitching staff. I would suggest that he caused many opposing runs scored through his meat grinder approach to the bullpen.
To be fair, Pence’s May was a huge-BABIP case. Definitely didn’t help that in August, he only took 5 walks in 104 PA.
I don’t understand how a guy managing a team can’t process that a regular player makes an out 64%-70% of the time he steps to the plate, and that everytime you don’t, you’ve succeeded to a certain degree. Not a tough concept, the top 3 AL teams in OBP are NY, BOS, and LAA. In the NL, the top 2 are LAD and COL. Getting on base = good. Guys who get on base = good, or at least useful.
It has to be time to completely dismantle this team and start over. Berkman could be worth a lot to an AL team like the Angels (assuming Vlad goes back to the outfield), or the White Sox.
Why? Not that Berkman couldn’t benefit any team, but the Angels already have a good defensive, slugging switch-hitting first baseman. Berkman or Morales would probably be more suited to playing the OF than Vlad at this point, and that assumes you don’t resign Abreu. Berkman is still a very good defensively player, so there is no reason to hide him at DH.
The Astros have been streaking into contention down the stretch with a lousy team for so long that they had begun to expect it. Cooper may have been a lousy manager, but he’s getting fired because of ridiculous expectations for the team.
They did him a favor by canning him with a career record of 171-170. Might give him a chance to land a Nationals/Pirates gig someday.
Scratch that, Cecil is obviously a future Royal.
I don’t think Cooper was fired because of high expectations. He was fired because he is terrible manager, a coach who is the epitome of the Peter Principle (an employee rises in an organization to his level of incompetence). I watched almost every Astros’ game, and W/L record would have little to do with my evaluation of him. The Astros biggest failure is refusing to fire him earlier in the season.
By all accounts, he lost the respect of his team before this season even started. When beat reporters say that at least 3/4 of the team had lost respect for the manager because of lack of communications and bizarre strategic moves, the team has a managerial problem which should have been remedied earlier. This is a manager who repeatedly encountered “miscommunications” problems with his pitchers that caused him to keep injured pitchers in games until they exacerbated their injuries. By comparison, Cooper makes Dusty Baker look like one of the most brilliant managers in baseball.
As for the Astros roster, it has structural problems which are tied to contracts which pre-date Wade and which are close to irresolveable due to no trade clauses. The team really has little choice but to improve the farm system, which is starting to happen, and in the meantime pursue a “satisfice” strategy of plugging holes around the aging veterans, waiting until younger players move up from the lower minor league levels.
The Astros are a mess. They have, for a long time now too, neglected their minor league system. To be worth a damn in the short term, they have to go get fill-in vets on short deals. They instead traded what depth they did have for Tejada, haven’t looked to deal Lee to an AL team, their rotation is a disaster, and they hired a guy who believes HR’s can be rally killers. I swear, they honestly think their roster this year was good and they were just banking on a late-season push b/c it’s happened before. That squad looks pretty terrible right now and no help is in sight. Also, their GM is Ed Wade.
I don’t think they gave up much of value for Tejada. It would be next to impossible to deal Carlos Lee since he has a no trade clause and is unlikely to waive it. But sure, they’re terrible… there’s not much they can do about it though unless Drayton McLane decides he wants to spend like the Yankees. They don’t have much choice but to do what Ed Wade has been doing, patching things up and getting good drafts to rebuild the farm system. Barring an (unlikely) raise in payroll, they’ll like continue to tread water until at least 2011, probably 2012 or 2013.