Baseball Musings: Astros Retooling

August 27, 2007

Astros Retooling

Whenever a team changes management, I try to figure out a clear reason. In the case of Tim Purpura and Phil Garner, I just don't see it. Tim signed Carlos Lee over the winter, and while there are concerns with the length of the contract, Carlos certainly performed up to expectations this season. As I mentioned in the previous post, playing Biggio so he could reach 3000 hits didn't help the team, but I doubt that using Craig was something Pupura and Garner would do if Biggio wasn't the face of the franchise. I didn't see Tim trading away the farm, to win now. So this year didn't work. Is three years really enough time to judge a GM?

As for Garner, he's been a mixed bag. Three years in a row he pulled off great comebacks, twice to make the playoffs and one near miss. Was that skill or luck? Was it a manager who looked at his personnel and made adjustments as the year went on, or was it just a team regressing to the mean? Maybe Phil was actually good, and just had bad luck this season.

McLane decided that the long term prospects under this management regime were poor, so he made a change. It's good in that Drayton wants to win, and I like seeing that in an owner. But it was his decisions that helped bring in Purpura and Garner. Why do we think he'll make better decisions this time?

There's plenty I don't know about the situation, but it strikes me that these two managers deserved another season. This could all just be bad luck, and it's sad to see people fired for that. Especially when Littlefield still has a job.

Update: A commenter mentions the Jennings trade. Here were my thoughts on that at the time, but it certainly turned out to be a negative for Pupura.

Posted by David Pinto at 03:39 PM | Management | TrackBack (0)

Comments

Purpura also made an ill-fated trade with Colorado, dealing speedster Willy Taveras and promising pitching prospects Jason Hirsh and Taylor Buchholz for Jason Jennings, who was 2-9 before he was placed on the disabled list with a bad elbow on Aug. 21.

Posted by: John at August 27, 2007 04:00 PM

Three years may be pretty short, but there are a lot of other GMs just starting a new regime that he's being compared to and not passing muster. Kansas City is at least appearing to move forward with Dayton Moore, Seattle's Bill Bavasi has seemingly jump-started his ailing club in a short period of time, etc. (I'm actually blanking on whether that "etc." is actually representing someone I'm not thinking of, or if it's just an excuse - feel free to correct me there.) I guess Pat Gillick with the Phillies hasn't done anything too damaging, nor is a team in a playoff hunt really going to buck their GM until after the season.

For the Astros, now isn't the worst time to change things up in the front office. With Biggio out, Lee's contract under scrutiny, this team needs a new leader. A new GM is more likely to put a new face on a franchise (see: Minaya, Omar) when he's put in place, while an established GM may find that a more difficult obstacle.

Posted by: NoPepperGames at August 27, 2007 04:11 PM

Tim also didn't resign Clemens & Pettitte. Now, maybe there were financial issues involved, but that was still a big hit to the rotation.

Posted by: rbj at August 27, 2007 04:15 PM

Does this mean Brad Ausmus is going to be traded back to the Tigers?

The roster construction was just flawed with this club. Too many outs in the lineup (Everett, Ausmus, Ensberg) and not enough pitching to make up for it.

Posted by: JakeLuft at August 27, 2007 05:33 PM

Purpura also managed to sign zero players in the first four rounds of the draft this year. He lost first and second round picks for signing Lee and Woody Williams, then missed out on three sandwich picks by not offering arbitration to Pettite, Clemens, and (who am I missing??), and then was unable to sign the team's third and fourth round picks.

Posted by: MH at August 27, 2007 07:59 PM

I believe the third player they didn't offer arbitration to was Aubry Huff.

Posted by: MH at August 27, 2007 08:36 PM

Drayton McLane IS the management regime in Houston. It seems silly for him to claim he expected his signing of Lee to keep them contending and to balance the losses of Clemens and Pettitte. He must not have noticed that pre-season picks placed the Astros 3rd or 4th in the NL Central.

Last off-season they needed a bat to protect Berkman in light of very bad '06s by Ensberg & Lane; McLane spent on Lee. They needed serviceable arms to take the spots of Pettitte & Clemens and give their young guys (Sampson, Albers) a chance to mature; McLane spent modest money on Williams and Jennings. Going into the season you had to wonder about Ensberg, Lane & of course Lidge; but Purpura and McLane both made comments during Spring Training suggesting Lidge could be moved but that other teams were trying to pick their pockets--so I guess you've got to include McLane on that decision.

Some moves worked, some didn't (1st time that's ever happened?) It's hard to see what's different now than at the end of Spring Training...other than 3/4 of the line up hitting 20-50 pts below their career avg. I don't see how that's the GM's fault; I'm not even sure how it's Garner's fault.

Yes, it's good that McLane wants to win since many owners don't seem to care. But if he's concerned about the long term prospects for the team, then he shouldn't run it by responding to short-term factors like fan frustration and bad headlines. That's a curve he'll never get ahead of.

Posted by: TSK at August 28, 2007 01:44 PM

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