Talking baseball: Chipalatta commenters get their say

Our previous post on the delayed firing of Joe Espada led to some excellent thoughts from our commenters that roamed the far reaches of baseball and its future, both here in Houston and everywhere.  I’ve always believed that we have some of the most thoughtful (and polite) commenters in the world of sports blogs.

Discussion on the value of managers

From Devin: “Listening to sportstalk radio the other day there was a college football analyst who was speaking about a particular head coach. Basically, he felt like this coach would put his team in position to win close games and that his teams would have an advantage over the opponents in those close games most of the time. That’s really how I feel about baseball managers. Why would we ever give AJ Hinch, Dave Roberts, or Aaron Boone a pile of accolades for winning the division with the most talented team(s) in the league? Excepting some disasters like the Mets those teams can roll out of bed and win 90 games each year. The real question is how many games a manager can swing one way or the other by making or not making moves. “

From Dan P: My personal thoughts slide into some examples of how the players’ talent trumps the manager’s. Think about Casey Stengel, who managed both Brooklyn Boston to a combined 581-742 record over 9 seasons and never finished about fifth place. He is surprisingly given the reins of the Yankees, and in 12 seasons his record is 1149-696, and he wins 10 AL pennants and 7 World Series. And of course, he finishes his career with 3-1/2 seasons with the Amazin’ Mets going a miserable 175-404 and redefining the meaning of last place in the NL.

Would A.J. Hinch have squeezed a few more wins out of the Astros than Joe Espada? Hey, Hinch like Stengel had bad seasons with bad teams in Arizona, mediocre seasons with mediocre teams in Detroit and great seasons with great teams in Houston.

Discussions on the search for the next GM and manager

From Larry Leach: “I know that Crane is very wise and confident in the decisions he makes. He believes in his decisions. But surely within his bright mind, he can ascertain that he just might not know everything he might think he knows about building and maintaining a competitive baseball team. The same goes for Bagwell. We’ve seen already how his advice turned out. Please look to Tampa, Milwaukee or Cleveland for a bright and analytical baseball mind. Get Bagwell the hell out of the front office and leave this new GM alone to rebuild this team.”

From Steven: “My first lesson in upper management was always allow your subordinate supervisors the rope. If you are going to hold them accountable, it’s hard to do so when you made half their decisions for them. And the biggest issue, if all these blogs and podcasts and radio shows are reading the room right, is upper management is not holding themselves to any account on these issues.

My hope is Crane changes that, hires one of those Luhnow nerd types, and gets completely out of the way, and takes his golf buddy with him to the golf course.”

From Dan P: I want Jim Crane to do exactly as Larry says. I want him to take to heart what Steven says about holding himself and his upper management responsible. He may think that firing Dana Brown and Joe Espada is holding upper management responsible, but in reality he needs to be examining his decision process. Just like with his other businesses, it is critical who has his ear, who has the ability to influence that decision process.

With Reid Ryan gone, with his last three GMs Jeff Luhnow, James Click and Dana Brown gone, with other talented front office people (David Stearns, Mike Elias and Sig Mejdal to name a few) gone – who is left to tell Jim no? Who is putting together the 5 year plan for the Astros? Or the 1 year plan? Or the 1 month plan?

And where the hell is Jim Crane? He needs to get in front of the microphones and explain himself, address what brought them to their current state and what will be done to dig them out of their current hole.

Discussion on the Astros lagging gap to the best teams

From daveb: “Last night the TV guys were saying the Bums have a higher payroll than the combined payrolls of the three teams still playing baseball in 2026. I’m sure the big money owners will use that stat in the coming months.

All I know is that with my own foggy eyes I can see a huge gap between the quality of baseball played by our Astros and the three teams still playing in 2026. That old saying about once into the post season, anything can happen is total BS when you’ve got an old, worn down team. It’s one thing to battle through injuries during a 162 game season and get a team healthy for the post season. But the Astros regularly make their way through the mine field of those 162 games and end up with nothing left.”

From Dan P: My brother and I were texting back and forth while watching the Dodgers take a 4-0 lead in Game 4 of the NLCS, just to have the Brewers methodically march back into the game and take it 6-4 to complete a sweep of the most expensive team ever compiled. And we kept saying how the Brewers so reminded us of the Astros in Game 2 or Game 5 of the 2017 World Series against the Dodgers. An offensive behemoth that could not be stopped. But the Astros are not that team anymore and there is that big gap between them and the very best teams left in the playoffs. And it is hard to see where that gap will be made up.

Discussion on the state of the game

From Chip Bailey: “Dave, several weeks ago, I lamented the game that, I believe, Manfred has helped to create in his tenure.

You just outlined one of those reasons. He’s helped to create that gap, just as Crane has overseen the Astros’ slide in recent years. There are the haves (Yankees, Dodgers et al) and then there’s the rest of us. Unfortunately, even the Astros, who live in one of the biggest TV markets, are among the ‘rest of us’.

Football and other sports have navigated that, and while we may have complaints about parity or lottery picks, etc. more teams than not can begin the season with a reason to play.

You can argue that it’s not Manfred’s fault, and there may be some truth to it… But it’s happened on his watch, and he’s allowed the game to recreate itself. I put it in the category of reacting and not intentionally acting. Goodell is more intentional and forward-thinking, IMO.”

From Dan P:  Chip, baseball has been lagging behind the NFL for quite a long time in popularity.  Manfred has been flailing around in every which direction in trying to hit a popularity button with the younger fans. Speeding up the game has probably helped and hopefully the ABS appeals which happen quickly and for everyone to see are seen as a good thing. (Don’t ask me about the extra inning man on second decision….).

Even with this one off of a year where a smarter / cheaper team will take home the trophy it does not take away from the fact that there are many more seasons where a championship can be bought and that leaves the fans of the have nots with a bad taste in their mouths.

Discussion on a favorite team to hate

From Sarge: “Dodgers get SWEPT!!! No world series for them!!!!”

From Dan P: I’ve hated the Dodgers from the days of Tommy Lasorda ignoring our Astros in filling out the All Star rosters when he was in charge of it. Now I hate them for something the players and the fans can’t help, which is that they have an owner with a bottomless pit of money to scoop up and hand around. (Though I am sure they are all happy about that fact).

I was pulling against them hard against the Brewers and I was speculating that they would accuse the Brewers of cheating, because they were better than the Dodgers. (In the SoCal world, the Brewers should have played down to the Dodgers level and everyone should have gotten a participation ribbon).

This was a bit of a rambling piece, but I wanted to highlight the many great takes we get every day from a terrific set of readers / commenters.