"We have to make a stronger investment and smarter picks in the draft," McLane said. "You’ve got to invest in young talent. To do that, you need patience, and that’s hard for me."
"From my business training, you want results very quickly," he said. "That doesn’t always happen in baseball. We spend $4 million to $6 million in the draft every year, but we haven’t always made good decisions."
0 recs | 18 comments
You said it made your jaw drop and I thought to myself “Pshaw, what about this game could make his jaw drop”
Then I read McLane’s quote. And my jaw dropped.
I was very happy to see that. That being said, he’s owned a baseball team for 16 years and he’s just now figuring this out? I guess you can teach an old dog new tricks.
AstroAndy - June 5, 2009
which part surprised both of you....
his recognition that the Astros need to invest more and do better in drafting….or his admission that he has a hard time with patience for young players?
clack - June 5, 2009
Really the general idea
That Drayton McLane was taking explicit ownership of problems within the organization, admitted that way the team had been run had pretty much gotten us here, and then entertained various ways to get out of it.
Stephen Higdon - June 5, 2009
What surprised me most was that he didn't use the word "champion"
It was the first time I’ve seen Drayton McLane not acting like a salesman, accurately identifying weaknesses with the club, and actually attributing some of those weaknesses to himself. [basically ditto DQ]
I’m wondering who it is best to credit with Drayton’s recognition of the importance of drafting well. Tim Purpura’s failure to do it well followed by media criticism? Tal Smith? Ed Wade? The success of Bobby Heck’s young pitchers at Lexington?
I like this Drayton a lot better than the Ultra-homer we are all accustomed to seeing. It gives me a little more confidence in the way the ball club is being run.
AstroAndy - June 5, 2009
McLane sent this email to Newsday....
It’s interesting that McLane would respond so explicitly to the Oswalt trade rumors. And the language is fairly definitive. I noticed that Justice’s article indicates that McLane talked to Cooper about his relationship with Oswalt.
clack - June 5, 2009
I had stumbled across that yesterday
It’s interesting that he went out of his way like that to dismiss the rumors. Maybe Roy was truly rattled by Coop’s public statements, all the trade talk, etc.?
Stephen Higdon - June 5, 2009
Regarding Justice's column on Tejada's current hot hitting....
First, the ZIPS-updated projection puts Tejada at .325 BA and .847 OPS (compared to original of ZIPS projection of .325 and .817). DQ said the other day that it’s hard to know how much confidence to put into the ZIPS update, without knowing more about it…but that is the current projection anyway.
Second, I wrote an article about Tejada projections before the season started, and I concluded that we can likely expect improved offense this year from him. You might recall that Dan Symborski, the ZIPS creator, commented and provided probabilities on Tejada reaching various offensive levels. Maybe if I get time at some point, I’ll go pull that article and comments up.
Third, it’s difficult to know what caused Tejada’s sub-par offense last year…age, fatigue, or perhaps stress of legal problems, or maybe just bad luck.
clack - June 5, 2009
Justice's column references his two hour interview with Drayton
so I got sucked into reading that, and in it, among other things, Justice writes:
“As for Cecil Cooper, I can’t imagine he’ll still be the manager on opening day 2010. McLane surely sees the things everyone else sees and may now understand that what seemed like a great idea at the time wasn’t.”
Which leads me to wonder: Did hiring Cooper really seem to be such a good idea at the time? Which leads me to further wonder: What was the take at Crawfish Boxes when Cooper was hired?
I seem to remember it being fairly negative. Is there any way to go back to the comments made then and find out what the Crawfish Boxes faithful had to say?
bwhite2323 - June 5, 2009
After some digging
http://www.crawfishboxes.com/2007/8/27/143625/567
http://www.crawfishboxes.com/2007/8/28/195058/976
http://www.crawfishboxes.com/2007/9/28/183955/069
What I pulled from those snippets was that there was a fair amount of skepticism about it here. But that’s just what I could find in the archives, anyone who was here at the time, feel free to chime in.
Stephen Higdon - June 5, 2009
you beat me to it!
AstroAndy - June 5, 2009
Unemployment has it's perks
Like being able to obsessively check the blog or having your Safari lose all the work you made on a post and still having all the time the world to redo it.
Stephen Higdon - June 5, 2009
Ah, the Memories
I enjoyed reading those -
Joe in Birmingham - June 5, 2009
took the words right out of my mouth
man… makes me miss Rastro, too. i really enjoyed his insight and his witty writing style. don’t get me wrong, i really enjoy DQ and HLP, especially with the volume of content and quality discussion they’re rolling out, but Rastro was just awesome.
littlevisigoth - June 5, 2009
Here’s the post regarding the press conference where T. Purp and Garner were fired and Cecil Cooper was named interim manager. When Coop was annointed long-term manager in the offseason (9/28/2006), I don’t think there was much hoopla in the Crawfish Boxes.
AstroAndy - June 5, 2009
so does this mean
we can resume the “JD 4 Manager” campaign?
Only_A_Lad - June 5, 2009
I'm in
Danyah - June 5, 2009
ditto
although i’d hate to lose him from the booth.
littlevisigoth - June 5, 2009
The comments WERE filled with skepticism
and concern about Cooper, but obscured by the perceived mess that Pupura was being labelled for, rather than McLane. Now, with Pupura gone, it’s easier to see more clearly – the problem was and still is (until we get something more than a public hand wringing) Drayton.
Thanks, clack, for retrieving those comments!
bwhite2323 - June 5, 2009
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