The end of September leads all eyes to focus on the potential postseason teams.\u00c2\u00a0 Excitement-filled nights in October await eight teams and only one will emerge from the marathon MLB season with their dreams fulfilled.<\/p>\n
It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a captivating story that leaves us all engrossed every year, but for many it seems a long way away.\u00c2\u00a0 While some managers are getting ready to lead their charges into the playoffs, others fear the axe or are packing their bags already.\u00c2\u00a0 <\/p>\n
The Houston Astros sacked manager Cecil Cooper<\/a> on Monday, a decision that had seemed on the cards for months.\u00c2\u00a0 His appointment to the permanent position of manager at the end of September 2007, a month after replacing Phil Garner on an interim basis, raised eyebrows to begin with.\u00c2\u00a0 Cooper\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s managerial pedigree up to that point consisted of two uninspiring years at the helm of the Milwaukee Brewers\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 Triple-A team.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n Houston finished third in the NL Central last year, largely on the back of a 36-18 record over August and September.\u00c2\u00a0 That positive end to the season convinced owner Drayton McLane and General Manager Ed Wade that their team was not far away from being a contender in a wide open division.\u00c2\u00a0 They were correct in thinking that the NL Central was there for the taking, but they showed a lack of understanding when it came to their own roster.<\/p>\n The 2009 Astros look similar to teams of previous years, with the same predictable results.\u00c2\u00a0 Although they have an excellent core of veteran players, the supporting cast matches up poorly to those found on the teams that are challenging for playoff places.\u00c2\u00a0 Too many roster spots have been taken up by players of minimal value and, combined with injuries, that has made the contributions by the likes of Roy Oswalt, Wandy Rodriguez, Carlos Lee, Lance Berkman and Hunter Pence count for little once again.\u00c2\u00a0 Even a surprisingly productive year by Miguel Tejada has made little difference.<\/p>\n Flaws in the team\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s roster construction should come as little surprise when Wade\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s offseason work is considered.\u00c2\u00a0 He offered starter Randy Wolf a three-year\/ $28.5 million deal and then pulled it off the table before he could consider it.\u00c2\u00a0 The harsh reality of the economic climate made them re-think the proposed contract and the fact that Wolf went on to sign a one-year deal with the Dodgers worth an initial $5 million (with an extra $3m in incentives now earned on top of that) showed that they were right to do so.\u00c2\u00a0 However, that they offered it to him in the first place indicates how badly they had misread the market and the end result was that they lost out on a decent starter who could have been acquired on a short-term deal at a fair price.\u00c2\u00a0 The Astros\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 loss was the Dodgers\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 gain.<\/p>\n The doubts over Cooper\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s managerial skills have perhaps been proved to be well founded.\u00c2\u00a0 The article by Astros beat writer Brian McTaggart on MLB.com stated: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Cooper’s managerial abilities and communication skills frustrated the majority of the team. The players were often befuddled by his in-game tactics, and some of his clubhouse decisions were even more puzzling to the players\u00e2\u20ac\u009d.\u00c2\u00a0 The decision to sack him can therefore be understood and maybe a new manager will help to get the Astros going in the right direction again.<\/p>\n However, the manager wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t the only person culpable for the poor performances, even though Wade was firmly putting the blame for the Astros\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 failings at Cooper\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s door.\u00c2\u00a0 He said in the press conference: “This is the most expensive baseball team the Houston Astros have ever had … we’ve made a huge investment of over $100 million. We invested in players we thought could be championship players\u00e2\u20ac\u009d.<\/p>\n If Wade is genuinely proud of the roster he created with such \u00e2\u20ac\u0153huge investment\u00e2\u20ac\u009d, the Astros aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t going to reverse their fortunes so long as he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s in charge, regardless of who they appoint as Cooper’s permanent successor.<\/p>\n Cox continues for one more year<\/strong><\/p>\n For a while it looked like the Atlanta Braves\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 manager Bobby Cox would be joining Cooper on the sidelines in 2010.\u00c2\u00a0 Rumours were circling that he would be calling time on his managerial career at the end of the season when his current contract expired.\u00c2\u00a0 Those rumours were put to rest when Cox signed on<\/a> to manage the Braves for another year, his twenty-fifth with the club, although it was confirmed at the same time that 2010 will be his last season.<\/p>\n When Sir Alex Ferguson announced he would be retiring as manager of Man Utd before the 2000-01 season, his authority over the players seemed to have been diminished.\u00c2\u00a0 It no longer mattered so much if they crossed his path because they could just sit back and wait for the new manager to come in (his authority was firmly re-established when he went back on his decision in early 2001).\u00c2\u00a0 However, such a situation is not going to occur in Atlanta.\u00c2\u00a0 The role of manager in MLB is different to that of a manager in the Premier League, the latter normally having full control over who comes and goes from the squad.\u00c2\u00a0 And far from easing off, Cox is held in such high esteem by his players that they will be trying harder than ever to give him a fitting send-off.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" While some managers are getting ready to lead their charges into the playoffs, others fear the axe or are packing their bags already. Read about Cecil Cooper’s sacking and the impending retirement of Bobby Cox in this edition of ‘Weekly’ Hit Ground Ball.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[553],"class_list":["post-4761","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-weekly-hit-ground-ball","tag-mlb-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4761","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4761"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4761\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4768,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4761\/revisions\/4768"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4761"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4761"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4761"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}