March 14, 2009
Cooper Unhappy
Cecil Cooper doesn't like the way the Astros are playing right now.
He is quite frustrated with the Astros' offense this spring, which makes sense considering they are hitting .224 this spring.
"I wasn't happy, totally not happy," Cooper said. "Heck no, I'm not happy with that, not at all. We're hitting .220 (.224) as a team in spring training. Nobody hits .220 in spring training as a team. Come on. Two hundred? Are you kidding me? I don't care if it's spring training. I don't care what it is, .220 is .220."
The team isn't very sure-handed either:
So, the defense hasn't exactly made Cooper happy either. Carlos Lee had one error Friday.
"We can't go one stinking game without making an error," Cooper said, "and they're easy errors."
This, unfortunately, reflects badly on Cooper. This strikes me as an unmotivated team. Ron Washington went through something similar at the start of the regular season in 2008. With luck, Cooper will find his answer before the games start to count.
Posted by David Pinto at
12:04 AM
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Mark my words, the Astros are going to be bad..worse than people expect. I was just saying over at Baseball Analysts yesterday in a comment, that I think the Astros will come in last place. I don't see the 'stros beating anyone in their division and it's a relatively weak division...which means they won't be beating anybody, except maybe Washington and San Diego?
Didn't the Astros go through something like this early in the regular season last year? Cooper seemed to be losing control, the players were not motivated, the team was losing, etc. They somehow got their act together and finished up in 3rd place in the division with a respectable record.
Is there something real behind this or is it just the "chemistry" thing? i.e. chemistry is good when you're winning and bad when you're losing.
Cooper won't get a chance to prove his value as a manager in Houston. The Astros are an old, bad team. They have two stars, Berkman and Oswalt; they have a couple good players getting old in Lee and Tejada; they have one good young player in Pence; otherwise, they're a collection of has-beens and never-wases. You run the likes of Towles, Bourn, Erstad, Boone, and Blum out there, you're gonna get a punchless offense.
If the team fails, though, it's the front office's fault, not Cooper's.
