iBrad said:
The Beef01 said:
jja79 said:
AggieJ2002 said:
Astros players and coaching staff should be forced to watch every second of the Mariners celebration clinching the division at the completion of our game in the minor league locker room
They went out and got Naylor and Suarez, both of whom had been Mariners, for Brandyn Garcia, Tyler Locklear and some other minor leaguers. Naylor and Suarez are still good. I don't know what the Astros gave up but the reunion tour with Correa didn't work.
Correa has had a WAR around 1 with the club; he hasn't been the problem, in the least.
The Mariners were laughably terrible about 3 weeks ago and their deadline acquisitions weren't doing much for them.
The reality is that this team quit and as much as I hate the reality of Joe Espada as this club's manager; it's not his fault. He absolutely never should've been hired in the first place and was flashing almost immediate signs last April that he was in over his head.
There is absolutely no way that the club can bring him back as the hallmark of his time with the Astros was finding a way to get the least out of the star players he had.
Pretty easy to get the least out of your players when they're all on the IL.
So is your argument that Espada needs to be brought back?
You don't have to be an expert in understanding body language to know that the guys who deal with him every day don't feel that way.
Every team has injuries they have to deal with; yes, the Astros have had historically bad injuries this season; but even when they've had a healthy lineup, they haven't been good.
This team has been broken since Espada took over; there are no perfect teams in the league and the lazy argument is "they have a bunch of washed stars."
I'll say it again, I'm positive that if the Astros chose to do something drastic and sold off Walker, Paredes, Sanchez, Urias, Correa…at least 3 (likely all) of those guys will have a career resurgence somewhere else next season.
Furthermore at some point, the injury situation stops being about luck and in cases for teams who are both good at avoiding IL time and absolutely awful at it…the communication with the players is central.
I'm sure Joe's office has already been packed for him while they're gone, but **Spoiler Alert** there will be a ton of revelations in the offseason about problems between the management staff and players.
This feels like it'll be a replay of the final stretch in 2009 when the team cratered (lost 16 of their last 20 IIRC), fired Cecil Cooper with like 2 weeks to go and then stories started trickling out about how much the players couldn't stand Cooper (wearing shirts in the clubhouse which simply said "Really?" since he made so many boneheaded strategic decisions). Different culture and era here 16 years later…but I'm willing to bet the stories will be similar next week when Espada and his staff are officially jettisoned.
