After a stunning victory last night to square up the season series between the Cardinals and the Astros—and secure a series sweep—we're presented with an off day to kick back into neutral before the Mets bring Johan Santana to the bump. Instead of worrying about whether Lance Berkman's calf will be better or cringe at the thought of Mike Hampton being Santana's mound opponent, here are five tid-bits for you to roll around in your mind instead:
1. We like to criticize Cecil Cooper around here. Well, it's not so much that we like to criticize him, it's just that he deserves to be criticized based on some of the decisions he makes. My whole theory on managers is that the decisions they make during the season pale in comparison to the decisions of the GM from November-March. Seasons are won and lost in the offseason. Managers can set the tone for a team, and keep players motivated, but for the most part, a player is who he is, and that's that. If anything, managers through their decision making usually cost their team chances at winning, and Baseball Prospectus agrees.
After re-reading a chapter of Baseball Between the Numbers that dealt with the importance of managerial decisions, they included a chart that laid out the best ML managers from 1972-2004, based on strategies (hit and run, sacrifices, intentional walks, etc). Their conclusion was that in the thirty three seasons covered in their study, "only six times did any manager use sacrifice attempts, stolen base attempts and intentional walks to increase his team's win expectation over an entire season." Even the great managers cost their teams a handful of games in most any given season.
Larry Dierker is no exception, but during his five seasons as the Astros' manager, he did a relatively good job of limiting this negative effect. In fact, Dierker ranks 10th on their list of the all time best managers from 1972-2004:
| Seasons | SH | SBA | IBB | Wins | Wins/Season | |
| Larry Dierker | 5 | 116 | 935 | 114 | -8.97 | -1.79 |
Dierker had many a good team during his time as manager in Houston, and didn't do much to take away from that talented group.
2. Perhaps my post last week about Carlos Lee's sudden power outage was premature. In the past two games, Carlos has 2 home runs, and seven RBI. He has 15 career grand slams, ranking him in the top five for active players. With Lance out today, and most likely the first game against the Mets, Carlos, Miguel and Hunter are going to have to continue to do what they did last night- take advantage of Matsui and Bourn getting on base by knocking them in.
Speaking of Mr. Lee, check out his various batting splits over the course of his career. This has been pointed out before, but he is incredibly consistent in most any situation- late inning, 2 outs, no outs, down by four, down by one- it doesn't seem to matter. He isn't a super star, but he is a helluva hitter.
3. Awesome Picture of the day:
Man-Love.
Is it too much to ask for this picture to repeat itself this season? I dunno if Lance can lift Miggy Tejada as easily. I could definitely see Mike Bourn taking the place of Adam Everett.
4. As I was watching Baseball Tonight on Tuesday evening, (and yes, I did get a slight headache from listening to John Kruk for an extended period of time) former top of the order-man Fernando Vina did a segment on how Michael Bourn's ability to be a viable leadoff hitter is what separates the Astros from the Cardinals and Cubs, at least in his mind. Here are the leadoff men for the Astros, Cards, Cubs and Brewers, and how they stack up against each other. (Even though Felipe Lopez was just acquired for the Brew Crew, I threw him in there):
| Player | WAR |
| Michael Bourn | 2.5 |
| Skip Schumaker | .3 |
| Kosuke Fukudome | 2.2 |
| Felipe Lopez | 2.1 |
Vina was right in asserting that Bourn was the best out of these players, but not by much, at least in the cases of Fukudome and Lopez. I realize that Fukudome hasn't been the Cubs' leadoff man for long, but I'm assuming that he will be down the stretch. For what it's worth, Vina did mention stolen bases as a big part of why he liked Bourn, and he is clearly the best of this group, and most probably the entire NL, in terms of base stealing.
5. Digging around on Baseball-Reference, for the first time in my life I decided to see what our franchise record is. Lo and behold, the Astros/Colt .45s are a scant six games below .500 at 3,787-3,793 all time. If the Astros want to finish the season with a franchise record over .500, they'll have to take thirty-seven of their next sixty-seven games (.552 W%) which would leave them at an 86-76 mark for the season and a 3824-3823 mark as franchise.
Pulling above .500 as a franchise would kill two birds with one stone for the Astros. Coolstandings.com's play off odds report (the only service to have updated for 07/22/09's action at the time this was set to publish) has the NL Central being clinched by 84-85 wins, so 86 would put us in a strong position to not only make the postseason, but also make this franchise a winner in the larger sense.
0 recs | 6 comments
On baseball tonight after the game....
Fernando Vina and Steve Phillips were crtical of Dave Clark’s decisions as third base coach. They did an “analysis” of the stop signs he gave in the game as an example of the “little things” which could have cost the Astros the game, if they had lost it. (IMaybe this script was prepared before the 9th inning, but had to be quickly modified when the Astros won the game.)
Vina, in particular, felt that you have to force Rasmus to make that 1st inning play against your fastest runner in order to set the aggressive tone and not be intimidated by the rookie centerfielder. Vina broke down a Ludwick throw to show the number of steps which have to be perfect in order to get the out, in making his argument for aggressiveness when you play in a low scoring pitching dual.
My reaction to the BBTN analysis is that any one of the stop signs could be rationalized, but when you all of them back to back, it does make the third base coach seem overly cautious.
clack - July 23, 2009
correct last sentence: ''...but when you see all of them back to back,"
clack - July 23, 2009
Last night was frustrating to watch
There were several moments when I thought a run or two would score but didn’t because of the stop sign at 3rd. While I believe Dave Clark should of sent the runners a couple times to force the throw, I remember a discussion Brownie and JD were having on who you would pick off the team to run a 4-man relay. The discussion included Bourn, Pence (obviously), Hampton and Backe (I believe Kaz was DL’d at the time and Kata was in the minors). I tried to think of someone else you could replace Hampton and Backe with as far as position players. The truth is we don’t have a whole lot of speed on the team aside from Bourn, Pence and Matsu. So while I get frustrated with the stop signs sometimes you have to look at whose running.
As far as the 1st inning with Bourn on 2nd, I don’t know the scouting report on Rasmus arm, but it was a good chance Rasmus nails Bourn if he had been sent. I think the bigger issue was Tejada and Lee didn’t get the job done, you figure your 3 or 4 hitter could get that run in with 0 outs.
Timothy De Block - July 23, 2009
Clack that is a good point. If we had scored that run in the first inning it would have changed the dynamics of the ball game. However, as you have said, none of the stops were blatant.
Killer Bee - July 23, 2009
What I find Intersting
Is if the Astros go 41-26 the rest of the way and end with a 90-72 record they could make Cooper look like a genius, for predicting a 90 win season.
Of course I think Cooper will find a way to ensure that doesn’t happen.
Timothy De Block - July 23, 2009
Leadoff hitters
Think Vina may have a point. Bourn may be even more valuable against good starting pitchers, the kind you would face in a short playoff series. His ability to steal bases, get an infield hit, and go first to third really helps then. Don’t know if there’s a way to break down WAR when facing pitchers with era below 4.00, but it would be interesting to see what that looks like.
Although, that throw home last night was UGLY (he’s usually much better than that).
jmike - July 23, 2009
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