Big hand to Cecil

by WSAstrosfanWS on Sep 28, 2008 6:51 PM CDT

Wow.
That's how I start this blog off, Cecil is no dummy, but in his first year, he really pulled it together, Cecil is now 86-75 as a manager. Isn't great but it is pretty good for his first year, he has learned more about the game and different situations, who knows what he has in store for us next year.

Cooper was honest with his words when asked to grade himself, from start to finish. He gave himself a C-minus for the first two months of the season, a B or B-minus for the middle two months, and a B or B-plus for the last two.

-Alyson Footer

Who knows how great Cecil is going to be, but he has done good so far.

Course Ed Wade also came in and got it done this year. With a lack of pitchers on the market he put us together for an okay season with offense.

Couple of side notes,
Brad Ausmus, We will all miss him dearly, he may still play in the Majors, but as a back up catcher near home, probably San Diego if anywhere. Know one will forget his Astros top chart career RBI's for a catcher. What will be most missed is his arm and throw-outs at second. I wouldn't be suprised to see him on another team, but I hope he retires with his last year in an Astros uniform. Good luck to Brad and his family whatever they decide to do.

Great year. Here are the last 5.

2004: 92-70

2005: 89-73

2006: 82-80

2007: 73-89

2008: 86-75 (1 game cut out)

Mike Hampton, what is everyone's thoughts on him, just trying to get a general idea of what everyone thinks, personally I am not sure about him.

I know we were all ripped off in losing one game, we wouldn't have made it to the playoffs, but people years to come, if they add that up won't make 162, and I am sure they will wonder. They should have let us play in Houston as well. Can't wait come March. What will the off-season have in store? A lot of blogs will be wrote with signing's and such.

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Yep

Cooper turned it around… after having a rocky start and getting a ton of criticism from me and others here… he turned around and became a pretty decent manager… good enough that I actually have him in my top 3 for manager of the year.

Go 'Stros!

by Stros Bro on Sep 28, 2008 8:19 PM CDT 0 recs

I still think...

Letting Oswalt go back out and pitch the next inning after having an injury was one of the dumbest things I have ever heard. I think he does the right thing a good portion of the time but he needs to learn to handle the pitching staff a little better.

If a woman has to choose between catching a fly ball and saving an infant's life, she will choose to save the infant's life without even considering if there are men on base. ~Dave Barry

by TimStros on Sep 28, 2008 10:39 PM CDT 0 recs

Other than the Oswalt thing (and it was a big thing)

he’s been pretty good with the pitching staff. If anything, I’d say he tends to be a bit trigger-happy with the bullpen. But, after his experience with Brocail mid-season, he tends to distribute the work pretty well, too.

But, yeah, risking the franchise’s #1 or #2 asset is probably the stupidest thing he could do.

by Only_A_Lad on Sep 29, 2008 12:40 AM CDT up 0 recs

Tim

It was his first year.

by WSAstrosfanWS on Sep 29, 2008 6:14 AM CDT up 0 recs

No that doesn't count

Cecil Cooper has been in baseball for literally his entire life. He’s been in a managerial/coach role for a decade. The man has more experience and intuition to draw on than few others, yet he made asinine and infuriating mistakes over and over again. You don’t to get to write off mismanaging your Ace as first year jitters. Neither does telling the league you’ll run everyone, all the time, or running out a middle aged man with heart problems just because it was the 8th inning all the time, thereby rendering him ineffective for a significant part of the season. Cecil Cooper did an awful, F, job of managing for the first few months. He just got lucky that his team caught fire to mask some of his rife mistakes. He did a better job in the second half, but the first year excuse is ridiculous. He just finally turned on his brain.

I won’t even touch his line-ups…

A good friend of mine used to say, "This is a very simple game. You throw the ball, you catch the ball, you hit the ball. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes it rains." Think about that for a while.

by DyingQuail on Sep 29, 2008 9:29 AM CDT up 0 recs

Christ, his lineups suck

“Tejada is having his worst year since his rookie season. He’s posting a .314 OBP. I’ll bat him 3rd. And let’s bat Blum in front of Hunter, too.”

And there was no excuse for giving everyone the green light to run for the first half of the season, let alone for telling the league that everyone had the green light.

But he got his act together after the break. He still calls for stupid hit-and-runs too often, but virtually all managers do that, so I’ll cut him some slack.

by Only_A_Lad on Sep 29, 2008 10:34 AM CDT up 0 recs

I was critical of him early in the season...

but he seemed to have a good learning curve, and he didn’t continue some of his first half mistakes in the second half of the year. At one point during this season, there were questions about whether the players bought into his managerial ability. But I think the August/Sept. run shows that he re-gained the players’ respect (if, in fact, he had actually lost it, earlier). Cooper took a lot of criticism for predicting a 90 win season back when the Astros appeared to have crashed. However, I bet the players appreciate that he continually showed that kind of confidence in them. I think he showed himself to be a “player’s manager” in this second half. I agree that the Oswalt incidents were mishandled. I’m not sure if that is Cooper’s fault or the pitching coach’s fault.

by clack on Sep 29, 2008 8:07 AM CDT 0 recs

I was...

On hand for the Astros vs. Diamondbacks series, and i will always remember when Cooper gave the ball to Dave Borkowski, with the pitchers spot, the D-backs call on former swinging sensation Micah Owings, first pitch right down the middle, two-run home run, and the Astros lost. In reality, Cooper made many mistakes and if the Astros front office can’t find a solution to finding a new skipper, 09’ could be another disappointing year. Yeah, I forgave the Astros for not making the playoffs in 07’ just for the fact that we learned about one Hunter Pence. The positive about this year is that we know who is consistent, and we won’t have to burden a rookie catcher with a task he isn’t ready to eat-up.

A Walk Is As Good As A Hit.

by NocturnalMatt on Oct 4, 2008 1:53 PM CDT 0 recs

No offense

But you really don’t know what your talking about. When you talk about one pitcher making a mistake. Because it is going to happen, Borkowski has to pitch he is being paid, he isn’t good, I don’t think, him and Broc-ee . But reality is you have to pitch them sometime they do cost money.

by WSAstrosfanWS on Oct 4, 2008 9:08 PM CDT up 0 recs

Oh yeah

And this was Cooper’s first year, More than likely they will give him more than 1 year to sort things out. Once again, you need to be patient.. Let things settle in.

by WSAstrosfanWS on Oct 4, 2008 9:09 PM CDT 0 recs

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NL Central Standings

	W	L	PCT	GB	STRK
Chicago Bleed Cubbie Blue	97	64	.602	0	Lost 4
Milwaukee Brew Crew Ball	90	72	.555	7.5	Lost 1
Houston The Crawfish Boxes	86	75	.534	11	Won 1
St. Louis Viva El Birdos	86	76	.530	11.5	Won 6
Cincinnati Red Reporter	74	88	.456	23.5	Lost 5
Pittsburgh Bucs Dugout	67	95	.413	30.5	Won 1