texasaggie2015 said:

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They don't project Salazar as a starter but think he's a capable backup with a high IQ behind the dish.

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Just get Caratini some of whatever Raleigh used to play 159 games this year and hit 60 homers. Will fix him right up...

Silent For Too Long said:

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texasaggie2015 said:

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Silent For Too Long said:

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He was managing the most injury riddled roster in the MLB, not punting on games. Load management is something done by every single successful franchise.

Joe isn't getting fired. There is zero percent chance that will happen. Getting within 1 game of the post season with the most injured roster in MLB is going to buy him 1 more season, as it should.

Snicker and Cintron are at least realistic possibilities, but if any of you are holding out hope for Espada getting fired you are completely wasting your time, energy, and bandwidth.

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I don't know what they plan to do - but there's a well over 0% chance he's not retained.

I would be more surprised if he's retained than if he's let go.

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Its not going to happen.

If Paredes stays healthy we make the post season.
If Yordan stays healthy we make the post season.
If JP stays healthy we make the post season.
If Hader stays healthy we make the post season.

Knowing all that, you would have to be severely lacking in the ability to make rational, objective decisions to blame this on Joe. Jim Crane isn't that guy.

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Mrs Espada finally decided to get a Texags username? Username checks out...

Silent For Too Long said:

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texasaggie2015 said:

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Silent For Too Long said:

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He was managing the most injury riddled roster in the MLB, not punting on games. Load management is something done by every single successful franchise.

Joe isn't getting fired. There is zero percent chance that will happen. Getting within 1 game of the post season with the most injured roster in MLB is going to buy him 1 more season, as it should.

Snicker and Cintron are at least realistic possibilities, but if any of you are holding out hope for Espada getting fired you are completely wasting your time, energy, and bandwidth.

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I don't know what they plan to do - but there's a well over 0% chance he's not retained.

I would be more surprised if he's retained than if he's let go.

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Its not going to happen.

If Paredes stays healthy we make the post season.
If Yordan stays healthy we make the post season.
If JP stays healthy we make the post season.
If Hader stays healthy we make the post season.

Knowing all that, you would have to be severely lacking in the ability to make rational, objective decisions to blame this on Joe. Jim Crane isn't that guy.

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FYI, you can agree to not blame any of those things on Joe and still find plenty of reasons to want to fire him for the decisions he made this season, not the least of which was how he handled Framber beaning his own teammate.

I could see it going either way. New manager to replace Espada and he gets to bring in who he wants to assist. Espada stays but they make the hires around him (hitting coaches, training staff, etc.). Either way, he's either gone or he is on the hot seat next season.

I'm telling you - they might decide to keep him around. But there's a legitimate chance he's not retained. That's not speculation

Silent For Too Long said:

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texasaggie2015 said:

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Silent For Too Long said:

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He was managing the most injury riddled roster in the MLB, not punting on games. Load management is something done by every single successful franchise.

Joe isn't getting fired. There is zero percent chance that will happen. Getting within 1 game of the post season with the most injured roster in MLB is going to buy him 1 more season, as it should.

Snicker and Cintron are at least realistic possibilities, but if any of you are holding out hope for Espada getting fired you are completely wasting your time, energy, and bandwidth.

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I don't know what they plan to do - but there's a well over 0% chance he's not retained.

I would be more surprised if he's retained than if he's let go.

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Its not going to happen.

If Paredes stays healthy we make the post season.
If Yordan stays healthy we make the post season.
If JP stays healthy we make the post season.
If Hader stays healthy we make the post season.

Knowing all that, you would have to be severely lacking in the ability to make rational, objective decisions to blame this on Joe. Jim Crane isn't that guy.

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might happen, might not


but Joe absolutely lost the team...we started getting all those guys back and the team performed WORSE that before

sorry, but Joe aint the guy

Silent For Too Long said:

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texasaggie2015 said:

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I'm telling you - they might decide to keep him around. But there's a legitimate chance he's not retained. That's not speculation

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Unless your source is Jim Crane they are absolutely just speculating.

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You must be new here...2015 is well connected

I'm a whole lot less interested in whether last season was Joe's fault and a whole lot more interested in whether we think Joe is the right answer for next season and beyond. Last year's performance is instructive and valuable, but not determinative in my opinion. You could reasonably come to the conclusion that he was dealt a bad hand with all the injuries, and navigated the best he could, but still isn't who you want in the chair for next season. That is where I am at on this, and I would go in a different direction.

Silent For Too Long said:

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EastCoastAgNc said:

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Silent For Too Long said:

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texasaggie2015 said:

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I'm telling you - they might decide to keep him around. But there's a legitimate chance he's not retained. That's not speculation

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Unless your source is Jim Crane they are absolutely just speculating.

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You must be new here...2015 is well connected

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I'm well aware of his history. I also know he's not besties with Jim Crane. Whose the only person who matters here

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If that is the standard, we don't have much to discuss until G1 in 2026.

texasaggie2015 said:

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Hmmm okay

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Either Silent is related to Espada the way he is fighting for his case or he's a huge troll.

It's not about Ws and Ls

Joe lost the clubhouse. He had a pitcher call out his teammates for his mistakes publicly. That same pitcher intentionally crossed up his catcher so he could throw a FB into his chest. Guys quit down the stretch. I saw Yanier stop hustling. Pena mailed it in with his oblique BS. The clubhouse literally fell apart down the stretch.

Joe also made no improvement along the way for things that clearly needed attention. For example, runners taking any base they so pleased. There was never an effort to nip that in the bud early on when it was clearly an issue.

Joe never made any staff changes. Tony P sucked ass as a 3B coach. That also was clear early on in the season and remained an issue late. Not to mention the hitting coaches. Granted this may be a Dana call but my point still stands.

Joe also sucks ass at communication. Remember the cringey Cam Smith incident early on? How many times did he contradict what Dana or even he himself said about injury timelines? Dude can't communicate and if he is around he needs public speaking lessons ASAP.

Yes we had a historical number of injuries but Joe did nothing to address anything to try and counter those losses. I'd be willing to bet he lost respect from a lot of guys the way the second half went down. You can't create a winning culture if you've lost respect of the players.

Not sure what I did to piss you off today

I'm well aware I'm not Jim Crane. But I'm confused on how you can speak in absolutes but when I chime in with what I've heard it's a problem?

Silent For Too Long said:

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texasaggie2015 said:

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Not sure what I did to piss you off today

I'm well aware I'm not Jim Crane. But I'm confused on how you can speak in absolutes but when I chime in with what I've heard it's a problem?

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Its nothing personal. I think you are great source of information.

The fact is, I'm the only one here approaching this objectively. Apparently that means I must be having sex with Joe.

The irrational hate some of you harbor for Joe is weird.

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You do realize 2 things can be true at the same time, right? He was dealt a bad hand by injuries, but at the same time showed he had no clue how to handle problems in the clubhouse, coaching staff not doing a good job, or communication issues. All of those scream not being a good manager.

"Zero chance he's let go"- Silent

"There's a greater than zero percent chance" - me

Why is my comment met with "you're not Jim Crane" but your comment (an absolute) fine?

Unless of course…. You're Jim Crane. Wouldn't that be wild?

My comment has nothing to do with liking or disliking Joe FWIW.

Silent For Too Long said:

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texasaggie2015 said:

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Not sure what I did to piss you off today

I'm well aware I'm not Jim Crane. But I'm confused on how you can speak in absolutes but when I chime in with what I've heard it's a problem?

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Its nothing personal. I think you are great source of information.

The fact is, I'm the only one here approaching this objectively. Apparently that means I must be having sex with Joe.

The irrational hate some of you harbor for Joe is weird.

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I have no hate for Joe. He is by all accounts a likeable guy. I just don't think he is currently a good MLB manager. He was a good bench coach, but the skill set for that job and the skill set for being the manager are not a 100% overlap and I think Joe was deficient at the parts of the job that had the potential to jeopardize his "friendship" with the players. I think it is possible he could learn to be a better manager, but I want him to do that somewhere else, not in the middle of trying to hang on to the last year of two of our window for playoff success before a larger rebuild becomes necessary. I think he would be a perfectly serviceable guy to run a club with a bunch of new guys and no real playoff aspirations. But the lineup we had and the challenges that came from all the injuries were beyond his skillset to manage effectively.

texasaggie2015 said:

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Also I'll add this since I've seen his name thrown around a bit over the last week or so...

I don't expect Houston to re-sign Caratini. They like Salazar and that money will likely go towards pitching.

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Spotrac has his market value at 1 yr $2.25M. Don't know how accurate that will end up being, but I can't imagine they wouldn't sign him for that little.

Silent For Too Long said:

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Apparently that means I must be having sex with Joe.

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I bet Cintron has pictures of your squeeze play. That would explain a lot.

Silent For Too Long said:

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txags92 said:

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Silent For Too Long said:

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texasaggie2015 said:

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Not sure what I did to piss you off today

I'm well aware I'm not Jim Crane. But I'm confused on how you can speak in absolutes but when I chime in with what I've heard it's a problem?

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Its nothing personal. I think you are great source of information.

The fact is, I'm the only one here approaching this objectively. Apparently that means I must be having sex with Joe.

The irrational hate some of you harbor for Joe is weird.

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I have no hate for Joe. He is by all accounts a likeable guy. I just don't think he is currently a good MLB manager. He was a good bench coach, but the skill set for that job and the skill set for being the manager are not a 100% overlap and I think Joe was deficient at the parts of the job that had the potential to jeopardize his "friendship" with the players. I think it is possible he could learn to be a better manager, but I want him to do that somewhere else, not in the middle of trying to hang on to the last year of two of our window for playoff success before a larger rebuild becomes necessary. I think he would be a perfectly serviceable guy to run a club with a bunch of new guys and no real playoff aspirations. But the lineup we had and the challenges that came from all the injuries were beyond his skillset to manage effectively.

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They were beyond literally anyone's skill set to manage effectively. Are you kidding me? Look up how many times in history a team that has had this many injuries won 87+ games.

Go ahead. Look it up.

There's just a lot of recently bias going on here. Which is understandable. The season just ended and it ended in a disappointing fashion.

You can put on razor thin magnifying glass on Joe's bad decisions and ignore that he managed a team completely, utterly, decimated by injuries to 87 frikken wins.

If you step back and look at his 2 year resume, he rallied a team in a big hole to a division win in year one, and rallied a team completely decimated by injuries to i7 wins and 1 game out of the playoffs in year 2, thats two massive, massive feathers in Joe's cap.


Name me the available possible future GMs that have those kind off accomplishments on their resume.

Who are you replacing him with?

For the record, I fully acknowledge that decision might work out. Coaching changes are a massive crap shoot.

But Joe's total big picture resume has some very impressive accomplishments in 2 years.

If we are healthy next year with Joe Espada as GM we win the division. I feel more comfortable saying that then anyone that. I think is realistically available.

But if some one can make an argument for a legitimate alternative I'm all ears. How are you going to improve the team other then Fire Manager?

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Our pitching got us to 87 wins in spite of anything Joe did and when the pitching broke down and we needed to manufacture some offense, Joe had no answers. We had our best month when we had the most starters out and were playing a AAA lineup, so the injuries were not the reason we missed the playoffs. And frankly, he completely lost me when he made Salazar take the blame for getting drilled by Framber. And I suspect he lost most of the clubhouse at that point too.

One one hand, you lost wins on production lost to injuries - no doubt.

But the problem with blaming everything on injuries is that some of the worst-handled managing was with players who WERE on the field.

- How to handle the Framber-elephant in the room
- Not utilizing the running game more to produce runs when you are having a power outage
- But most of all, the biggest problem was communication and tone-setting (basically leadership). If we struggled to drive runners in because you were having to count on a guy that shouldn't have been in the lineup, that is not the manager's fault.

However, one of the most-damning traits of this year's team was the you knew the outcome of each game by the third inning. When we came out and scored early, we tended to play competitive ball. When we gave up runs in the first and then went down in order on ten pitches on our side, there was NEVER a bounce back. The team would play lifelessly the whole night. Not just in terms of outcomes, but in terms of energy.

I am in no way implying that guys were quitting or not trying, but this is not a binary factor in sports. You can be trying but still not in the best mindset. Espada never seemed to push buttons to break funks.

There was zero drama in our losses - we never even competed in games we lost. The only drama in games was if we had to bite our nails in closing out a game without letting a lead slip away.

Game after game where we got mowed down by 6.00+ ERA pitchers without even competing at the plate - all of that speaks to leadership.

The Correa trade told me what I needed to know. Correa is a good player. But I think that move was an acknowledgement of lack of leadership (especially after Bregman's departure) and the need to find a strong voice in the room. Having player leaders is important. But we didn't seem to have one in the big chair.

txags92 said:

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Silent For Too Long said:

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txags92 said:

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Silent For Too Long said:

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texasaggie2015 said:

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Not sure what I did to piss you off today

I'm well aware I'm not Jim Crane. But I'm confused on how you can speak in absolutes but when I chime in with what I've heard it's a problem?

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Its nothing personal. I think you are great source of information.

The fact is, I'm the only one here approaching this objectively. Apparently that means I must be having sex with Joe.

The irrational hate some of you harbor for Joe is weird.

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I have no hate for Joe. He is by all accounts a likeable guy. I just don't think he is currently a good MLB manager. He was a good bench coach, but the skill set for that job and the skill set for being the manager are not a 100% overlap and I think Joe was deficient at the parts of the job that had the potential to jeopardize his "friendship" with the players. I think it is possible he could learn to be a better manager, but I want him to do that somewhere else, not in the middle of trying to hang on to the last year of two of our window for playoff success before a larger rebuild becomes necessary. I think he would be a perfectly serviceable guy to run a club with a bunch of new guys and no real playoff aspirations. But the lineup we had and the challenges that came from all the injuries were beyond his skillset to manage effectively.

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They were beyond literally anyone's skill set to manage effectively. Are you kidding me? Look up how many times in history a team that has had this many injuries won 87+ games.

Go ahead. Look it up.

There's just a lot of recently bias going on here. Which is understandable. The season just ended and it ended in a disappointing fashion.

You can put on razor thin magnifying glass on Joe's bad decisions and ignore that he managed a team completely, utterly, decimated by injuries to 87 frikken wins.

If you step back and look at his 2 year resume, he rallied a team in a big hole to a division win in year one, and rallied a team completely decimated by injuries to i7 wins and 1 game out of the playoffs in year 2, thats two massive, massive feathers in Joe's cap.


Name me the available possible future GMs that have those kind off accomplishments on their resume.

Who are you replacing him with?

For the record, I fully acknowledge that decision might work out. Coaching changes are a massive crap shoot.

But Joe's total big picture resume has some very impressive accomplishments in 2 years.

If we are healthy next year with Joe Espada as GM we win the division. I feel more comfortable saying that then anyone that. I think is realistically available.

But if some one can make an argument for a legitimate alternative I'm all ears. How are you going to improve the team other then Fire Manager?

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Our pitching got us to 87 wins in spite of anything Joe did and when the pitching broke down and we needed to manufacture some offense, Joe had no answers. We had our best month when we had the most starters out and were playing a AAA lineup, so the injuries were not the reason we missed the playoffs. And frankly, he completely lost me when he made Salazar take the blame for getting drilled by Framber. And I suspect he lost most of the clubhouse at that point too.

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Ding ding ding.

Not only can you say the pitching is the only thing that held it together for so long, but you can also say that the pitching broke down when Framber decided to **** on his teammates and thus meltdown the rest of the season. Joe completely mishandled that whole situation which is when it finally all fell apart. Between having no clue how to manage players and their personalities and being too loyal to his best friends already on the coaching staff, he can't make tough decisions that a manager is required to make.