A surprisingly large dump for you this morning. Wait...
*The Astros still have money left in the checkbook, but it seems as though their big spending this off-season is pretty much over. Within that Chron link, there's a good salary breakdown by position type.
*Even though Venezuelan Winter League club Magallanes tweeted that Jose Altuve would be joining them in a couple of weeks, the Astros have not yet given their approval for him to do so.
*The Astros treated Lowrie "like a goal, not a contingency" this off-season, said Brodie Van Wagenen, Lowrie's agent.
*Keith Law, on Jed Lowrie ($):
It's a deal that underpays him based on expected performance but prices in his injury risk and the probability that he's not able to stay at shortstop for the entire deal.
*Houston signed Dan Johnson to a minor-league deal with an invitation to Major League Spring Training. Johnson has spent just 114 games in the Majors from 2008-2014, but hit a cool homer in the bottom of the 9th during G162 for the Rays that helped them get to the playoffs. So that's what the Astros will be looking for this September: playoff-clinching homers.
*Palm Beach County commissioners approved a deal to seek a land-swap with the city of West Palm Beach on a proposed Astros/Nationals Spring Training facility, but it may not happen. Line of the day comes from Palm Beach County commissioner Steve Abrams, regarding the deal:
It looks like we're trading Giancarlo Stanton for a .200 hitter on the Astros.
*Delino DeShields just wants to help the Rangers, despite being hesitant:
I was hoping I would get selected, but not by the Rangers, of all team, the Texas rival. It's a good opportunity to get my career going...They can move me around a little bit if they want to. I didn't forget how to play second base. It's only been a year. I adjusted to the outfield pretty good. I'm athletic enough to do whatever they tell me to do. Whatever role I have on this team I just want to do whatever I can to help.
*Not sure how I missed this from earlier in the off-season but the Braves not only hired Bo Porter as their 3B coach, they hired former Astros bench coach Dave Trembley as their Director of Player Development and Minor League Field Coordinator. Former Astros catcher Robinson Cancel will manage the Braves' Gulf Coast League team.
*Wesley Wright signed with Baltimore.
We didn't come out here to play tiddlywinks, son.
-Hal Smith
Showing posts with label Dave Trembley. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dave Trembley. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 17, 2014
Tuesday, September 2, 2014
Astros fire Porter and Trembley on Labor Day: Part II
Interesting day in Astros baseball. As an Astros fan, I am kind of getting sick of interesting, and would take a boatload of boring right now. Just boring winning, that is all I want. A boring 100-win season would be great, right about now.
Bo Porters firing has attracted a lot of attention in the Ultimate Astros part of the Chronicle, with a dozen separate articles or photo essays dedicated to either the outgoing manager and coach, the incoming replacements, or future potential replacements. Since I wrote the brief synopsis this morning, Sports Illustrated has written an article with some opinion, and some various other articles have appeared around the web. I imagine more will be posted tomorrow as the staff at Fangraphs, BPro or Baseball America come back from their long weekends.
Some have spoken of the curious timing of the firing, with a month to go in what is essentially a lost season and all. As I wrote earlier, the firing happened on the first off day after the Rosenthal article broke, and that may explain the timing. That would mean that something happened in the last week or two to make Porter's position untenable - either a single incident or an accumulation of incidents - and the Astros were just waiting for an off day to make it official.
I am always a little suspicious when big news is released on a bank holiday, when media outlets tend to be a little understaffed. I know that a lot of news around the world that people want hidden is released right before Christmas, for example, when the people who would analyse this would be expected to be taking holidays. Labor Day may, or may not, be significant.
The Astros were also fortunate to announce the firing on the day that J.J. Watt got paid, and the Phillies combined for a no-hitter.
The opposite explanation, however, is that only a horrible cynic would read too much into the timing. Who knows.
In bullet-point form, some other thoughts:
Well, I guess we know who is in charge... If there ever was an arm-wrestle between Jeff Luhnow and Bo Porter, we know who has the ear of Jim Crane. Luhnow wins, hands down. Interesting, Cliff Corcoran's take is that the firing of Porter may weaken Luhnow et al's position, as it "removes a layer of insulation" - or eliminates a fall-guy - for the future.
Luhnow's meta-message better not get lost in translation... Cool article on Jeff Luhnow's career prior to baseball, and his work as a management consultant for McKinsey. The project / grand experiment that Luhnow has steered the Astros toward is all about acquiring elite baseball talent. The meta-message behind all of that is that everyone needs to be paddling the canoe in the same direction, sending the same message, emphasising the same things, because tiny little things may be the difference between winning and losing.
I would imagine that Luhnow's career would mean that he is highly attuned to who is on board with "the plan", and who isn't. As Lindsay Naegle answered when someone asked her what she actually produced: "Synergy, and books on how to cheat at Bridge". Luhnow needs synergy to make this work, and he has spent a career producing it.
Check your egos in at the door... Also in the previously linked article, much of the decision making seems to be left to computer algorithms. Or at least, the algorithms influence the timing of the decision / promotion / whatever. I imagine that there would be considerable resistance to the removal of the "human element" from across the game of baseball, as boatloads of scouts, coaches and cross-checkers in the industry would be proud of the fact that spent a lifetime honing their skills, and really believe in their ability to identify and rank talent. Being told that your "opinion" is one of a number of data-points that are being assigned relative weights inside a computer would be potentially crushing on the ego, I would guess. So one could easily anticipate some tension between the number-crunchers and the subjective human analysts who pride themselves on their skills, gut-feel and nose for the game. Luhnow doesn't want that tension.
Bo's position was always going to be hard... Partly because of the losing, partly because of the fact that he was the lubricant between a proudly analytical front office and the human beings running around on the field. It would be easy to anticipate constant friction between the new and the old, or the numbers and the players. I would think that in some cases, Porter was simply on a hiding to nothing attempting to manage that friction. It isn't about whether there is anger and discontent in the clubhouse or not, but rather how much anger and discontent there is, and if it disrupts anything else. Good luck handling that.
Some gormless sports-writing has attempted to identify the moment... One article sort-of-kind-of wondered whether the Wesley Wright pitching change in May last year (when Wright was removed prior to throwing a pitch) was a vital data-point in Bo Porter's firing. Others have talked about the Jed Lowrie incident, which I doubt was significant, because Bo was (in my opinion) just trying to protect his players. The Mark Appel bullpen incident seems to have gotten a bit of air-time.
But Richard Justice's and Brian McTaggert's articles - granted, which are both from MLB.com, who have a massive vested interest in promoting the game of baseball - both downplay the role of individual incidents (such as the Appel one), and seem to hint (or even overtly state) that Porter's communication style with both his superiors and the players was clumsy or inappropriate at times. The extension of this thought is that his communication difficulties were perhaps identified early, and he was given an opportunity to redress this, but problems continued.
Porter, if he had a fault that I could see, was a bit full on... He seemed a little like the Rainer Wolfcastle in the all-night Gym - shouting slogans while Homer was using the abdominator. I remember cringing a little when I saw a photo of the inside of the Astros' clubhouse, and Bo Porter had put his own quote on the wall. I thought that was.... odd, especially given how many inspiring quotes from baseball and non-baseball greats would have been available. Richard Justice confirmed that he seemed to come on a little strong in his article, with the mirrors in the lockers, and the chair-turning and so forth, and that some of his ideas seemed a little infantilising.
I am going to miss Bo's genuine delight when his players succeeded... If Bo had a strength, it is that he really, really cared for 90% of his players. Or cared for all his players 90% of the time. The caveat is in there because he did throw his players under the bus at times, but it seemed infrequent and more out of frustration than anything.
Regardless, Bo seemed to genuinely celebrate Chris Carter's recent hot streak, Jose Altuve's excellent 2014 season or and Dallas Keuchel's filthy May run and breakout season in the video that I saw of many of those highlights. He always acknowledged the hard work of the coaches and playing staff, and pointed out that the success of the player was well deserved. I didn't get the impression that he celebrated those exploits because he looked better in winning the ballgame or anything like that - he seemed to have a genuine passion in his players succeeding in the top levels of the game, and being rewarded for their effort and hard work.
I am going to really miss how every other sentence at a post-game press conference started with the phrase "that there... " Can't really add to that.
I know nothing about this firing, and why it occurred, and this is all just speculation... The Astros seemed to handle this very cleanly and uncontroversially - at least at this stage. Porter is obviously upset, but everyone (including Porter) seems to have handled this with class and professionalism to this point. Perhaps something more specific will come out, perhaps it won't, but at least there has not been weeks of speculation and innuendo, and the parting seems to have been almost surgical.
Please, just make the PR nightmares stop... I can handle a losing baseball team. Over 162 games, there is normally enough to celebrate to keep a dedicated fan coming back. I can't handle a team that is (i) constantly a punchline to a national joke because of the drama and disorganisation or (ii) can't get their own sh*t together. Good year (thus far) for the Astros at the major-league level, but some big Correa-Appel-Aiken-sized hits elsewhere. Some of these lie squarely in the laps of the front office, and some of these are random events. But it is really hard to support a chaotic organisation, even if that is only the perception of the organisation. Winning cures much, but it may take a while for the reputation of the Astros to recover after some of the cringeworthy events of the last few years.
Well, that got pretty long, didn't it... I promised wordy, ill-informed analysis once the dust settled, and here it is!!
I am sure that the other Astros County writers are brewing some awesome articles up as we speak, so I will stand aside so that others can hear their thoughts...
Bo Porters firing has attracted a lot of attention in the Ultimate Astros part of the Chronicle, with a dozen separate articles or photo essays dedicated to either the outgoing manager and coach, the incoming replacements, or future potential replacements. Since I wrote the brief synopsis this morning, Sports Illustrated has written an article with some opinion, and some various other articles have appeared around the web. I imagine more will be posted tomorrow as the staff at Fangraphs, BPro or Baseball America come back from their long weekends.
Some have spoken of the curious timing of the firing, with a month to go in what is essentially a lost season and all. As I wrote earlier, the firing happened on the first off day after the Rosenthal article broke, and that may explain the timing. That would mean that something happened in the last week or two to make Porter's position untenable - either a single incident or an accumulation of incidents - and the Astros were just waiting for an off day to make it official.
I am always a little suspicious when big news is released on a bank holiday, when media outlets tend to be a little understaffed. I know that a lot of news around the world that people want hidden is released right before Christmas, for example, when the people who would analyse this would be expected to be taking holidays. Labor Day may, or may not, be significant.
The Astros were also fortunate to announce the firing on the day that J.J. Watt got paid, and the Phillies combined for a no-hitter.
The opposite explanation, however, is that only a horrible cynic would read too much into the timing. Who knows.
In bullet-point form, some other thoughts:
Well, I guess we know who is in charge... If there ever was an arm-wrestle between Jeff Luhnow and Bo Porter, we know who has the ear of Jim Crane. Luhnow wins, hands down. Interesting, Cliff Corcoran's take is that the firing of Porter may weaken Luhnow et al's position, as it "removes a layer of insulation" - or eliminates a fall-guy - for the future.
Luhnow's meta-message better not get lost in translation... Cool article on Jeff Luhnow's career prior to baseball, and his work as a management consultant for McKinsey. The project / grand experiment that Luhnow has steered the Astros toward is all about acquiring elite baseball talent. The meta-message behind all of that is that everyone needs to be paddling the canoe in the same direction, sending the same message, emphasising the same things, because tiny little things may be the difference between winning and losing.
I would imagine that Luhnow's career would mean that he is highly attuned to who is on board with "the plan", and who isn't. As Lindsay Naegle answered when someone asked her what she actually produced: "Synergy, and books on how to cheat at Bridge". Luhnow needs synergy to make this work, and he has spent a career producing it.
Check your egos in at the door... Also in the previously linked article, much of the decision making seems to be left to computer algorithms. Or at least, the algorithms influence the timing of the decision / promotion / whatever. I imagine that there would be considerable resistance to the removal of the "human element" from across the game of baseball, as boatloads of scouts, coaches and cross-checkers in the industry would be proud of the fact that spent a lifetime honing their skills, and really believe in their ability to identify and rank talent. Being told that your "opinion" is one of a number of data-points that are being assigned relative weights inside a computer would be potentially crushing on the ego, I would guess. So one could easily anticipate some tension between the number-crunchers and the subjective human analysts who pride themselves on their skills, gut-feel and nose for the game. Luhnow doesn't want that tension.
Bo's position was always going to be hard... Partly because of the losing, partly because of the fact that he was the lubricant between a proudly analytical front office and the human beings running around on the field. It would be easy to anticipate constant friction between the new and the old, or the numbers and the players. I would think that in some cases, Porter was simply on a hiding to nothing attempting to manage that friction. It isn't about whether there is anger and discontent in the clubhouse or not, but rather how much anger and discontent there is, and if it disrupts anything else. Good luck handling that.
Some gormless sports-writing has attempted to identify the moment... One article sort-of-kind-of wondered whether the Wesley Wright pitching change in May last year (when Wright was removed prior to throwing a pitch) was a vital data-point in Bo Porter's firing. Others have talked about the Jed Lowrie incident, which I doubt was significant, because Bo was (in my opinion) just trying to protect his players. The Mark Appel bullpen incident seems to have gotten a bit of air-time.
But Richard Justice's and Brian McTaggert's articles - granted, which are both from MLB.com, who have a massive vested interest in promoting the game of baseball - both downplay the role of individual incidents (such as the Appel one), and seem to hint (or even overtly state) that Porter's communication style with both his superiors and the players was clumsy or inappropriate at times. The extension of this thought is that his communication difficulties were perhaps identified early, and he was given an opportunity to redress this, but problems continued.
Porter, if he had a fault that I could see, was a bit full on... He seemed a little like the Rainer Wolfcastle in the all-night Gym - shouting slogans while Homer was using the abdominator. I remember cringing a little when I saw a photo of the inside of the Astros' clubhouse, and Bo Porter had put his own quote on the wall. I thought that was.... odd, especially given how many inspiring quotes from baseball and non-baseball greats would have been available. Richard Justice confirmed that he seemed to come on a little strong in his article, with the mirrors in the lockers, and the chair-turning and so forth, and that some of his ideas seemed a little infantilising.
I am going to miss Bo's genuine delight when his players succeeded... If Bo had a strength, it is that he really, really cared for 90% of his players. Or cared for all his players 90% of the time. The caveat is in there because he did throw his players under the bus at times, but it seemed infrequent and more out of frustration than anything.
Regardless, Bo seemed to genuinely celebrate Chris Carter's recent hot streak, Jose Altuve's excellent 2014 season or and Dallas Keuchel's filthy May run and breakout season in the video that I saw of many of those highlights. He always acknowledged the hard work of the coaches and playing staff, and pointed out that the success of the player was well deserved. I didn't get the impression that he celebrated those exploits because he looked better in winning the ballgame or anything like that - he seemed to have a genuine passion in his players succeeding in the top levels of the game, and being rewarded for their effort and hard work.
I am going to really miss how every other sentence at a post-game press conference started with the phrase "that there... " Can't really add to that.
I know nothing about this firing, and why it occurred, and this is all just speculation... The Astros seemed to handle this very cleanly and uncontroversially - at least at this stage. Porter is obviously upset, but everyone (including Porter) seems to have handled this with class and professionalism to this point. Perhaps something more specific will come out, perhaps it won't, but at least there has not been weeks of speculation and innuendo, and the parting seems to have been almost surgical.
Please, just make the PR nightmares stop... I can handle a losing baseball team. Over 162 games, there is normally enough to celebrate to keep a dedicated fan coming back. I can't handle a team that is (i) constantly a punchline to a national joke because of the drama and disorganisation or (ii) can't get their own sh*t together. Good year (thus far) for the Astros at the major-league level, but some big Correa-Appel-Aiken-sized hits elsewhere. Some of these lie squarely in the laps of the front office, and some of these are random events. But it is really hard to support a chaotic organisation, even if that is only the perception of the organisation. Winning cures much, but it may take a while for the reputation of the Astros to recover after some of the cringeworthy events of the last few years.
Well, that got pretty long, didn't it... I promised wordy, ill-informed analysis once the dust settled, and here it is!!
I am sure that the other Astros County writers are brewing some awesome articles up as we speak, so I will stand aside so that others can hear their thoughts...
Monday, September 1, 2014
Astros fire Porter and Trembley on Labor Day
The Labor Day bit just adds to the irony.
As of a few hours ago, the Astros announced that Bo Porter and Dave Trembley have been "relieved of their duties", and replaced with organisational managerial stand-in Tom Lawless and ex-player/roving instructor Adam Everett respectively.
The Front Office Press Release specifically stated that the firing was nothing to do with current record, but more to do with differing philosophies. In fact, Luhnow specifically takes the blame for the win-loss record, while pointing out that perhaps Bo was not paddling in the same direction. The press release provides no real further detail.
The shakeup comes on the first off-day after Ken Rosenthal's story broke that cited numerous anonymous sources that discussed "tension" in the front office. The Chronicle Astros Blog commented on the story, seemingly pouring cold water on it. Fangraphs, in an earlier conversation, detected no animosity or hint of difficulty between Porter and Luhnow. Then this happened, and it appears that Rosenthal's sources were correct, and that the Astros may have been waiting for the off day to do the firing.
I may perhaps publish a long and rambling, overly wordy article on this later in the day, but my first thought is that this must relate to a relatively recent event or series of events that made Porter's position untenable. As the interface between the number-inclined Front Office (all decisions made by a computer algorithm, donchaknow!) and the human-beings with thoughts and feelings running around on the field, there is always going to be some friction, and the job is more about how that friction is handled. Handle it the wrong way, and the wrong message gets sent to the players; handle it right, and that is important in getting the buy in of everyone.
My second thought is one likely shared by most of you. Man, the hits for the PR side of the organisation keep coming. When do the Astros stop resembling a joke?? Winning is going to cure a lot of hard feelings (if it ever happens) but at the moment, the organisation looks chaotic and disorganised at times, with periods of relative calm in between. The Ground Control leaks were bad, this is bad, Jarred Cosart's chip is bad, Bud Norris' earlier comments were bad... you get the point. Sheesh, when will this all stop.
Finally, it seems that Bo Porter is the first casualty of the new regime. He came in at the very bottom - at a critical time of the rebuild - and won't get to see the fruits of his labours, or the rewards for lots of losing. That, to me, is sad. Best of luck, Bo.
ESPN has a good early take which is very speculative here. I am sure more ink will be spilt about this story in the next few days.
Enjoy Labor Day.
As of a few hours ago, the Astros announced that Bo Porter and Dave Trembley have been "relieved of their duties", and replaced with organisational managerial stand-in Tom Lawless and ex-player/roving instructor Adam Everett respectively.
The Front Office Press Release specifically stated that the firing was nothing to do with current record, but more to do with differing philosophies. In fact, Luhnow specifically takes the blame for the win-loss record, while pointing out that perhaps Bo was not paddling in the same direction. The press release provides no real further detail.
The shakeup comes on the first off-day after Ken Rosenthal's story broke that cited numerous anonymous sources that discussed "tension" in the front office. The Chronicle Astros Blog commented on the story, seemingly pouring cold water on it. Fangraphs, in an earlier conversation, detected no animosity or hint of difficulty between Porter and Luhnow. Then this happened, and it appears that Rosenthal's sources were correct, and that the Astros may have been waiting for the off day to do the firing.
I may perhaps publish a long and rambling, overly wordy article on this later in the day, but my first thought is that this must relate to a relatively recent event or series of events that made Porter's position untenable. As the interface between the number-inclined Front Office (all decisions made by a computer algorithm, donchaknow!) and the human-beings with thoughts and feelings running around on the field, there is always going to be some friction, and the job is more about how that friction is handled. Handle it the wrong way, and the wrong message gets sent to the players; handle it right, and that is important in getting the buy in of everyone.
My second thought is one likely shared by most of you. Man, the hits for the PR side of the organisation keep coming. When do the Astros stop resembling a joke?? Winning is going to cure a lot of hard feelings (if it ever happens) but at the moment, the organisation looks chaotic and disorganised at times, with periods of relative calm in between. The Ground Control leaks were bad, this is bad, Jarred Cosart's chip is bad, Bud Norris' earlier comments were bad... you get the point. Sheesh, when will this all stop.
Finally, it seems that Bo Porter is the first casualty of the new regime. He came in at the very bottom - at a critical time of the rebuild - and won't get to see the fruits of his labours, or the rewards for lots of losing. That, to me, is sad. Best of luck, Bo.
ESPN has a good early take which is very speculative here. I am sure more ink will be spilt about this story in the next few days.
Enjoy Labor Day.
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