Astros can Purpura and Garner

No shock here, that's for sure. I might have thought they'd have waited till the end of the season, and doing a twofer is slightly more unexpected than just giving the manager the heave-ho, but surely there's no one in Houston who's actually surprised that Astros GM Tim Purpura and manager Phil Garner are now unemployed.

I have no strong feelings about this. Garner is what he's always been, a retread who had some decent people skills, and didn't screw up the magic in '04 and '05. Purpura was a bit unlucky, but more than a bit unimpressive. It's a shame for him that he didn't get more of a chance, but I won't go so far as to defend him.

I will, however, note that whatever ails the franchise today, it hasn't been swept away with the two ex-employees. New/interim manager Cecil Cooper shows part of the problem here:

Cooper, 57, is in his third year as bench coach and has experience a minor league manager and major league bench coach following a stellar 17-year playing career with the Boston Red Sox and Milwaukee Brewers.

"We have the talent," Cooper said. "It's just a matter of us going out and playing like we're supposed to, and believe me we will."

Actually, the Stros don't have the talent, as anyone who's been watching the comic stylings of Brad Ausmus and the entity formerly known as Craig Biggio can attest. To be blunt, this team is playing like it's supposed to. That's the issue in a nutshell.

Now, I don't expect Cecil Cooper to step in and slag the roster as part of his first press conference. Never mind his future job prospects, that's just bad people management. But if he gets a contract to stick around, and he doesn't have a frank talk with the new GM about what the talent here is really like, then he'll be where Garner is soon enough.

Then there's Richard Justice, whiffing on an evaluation of Purpura's roster construction skills.

Somewhere along the way, the Astros lost sight of the things that made them so successful over the years.

We might not be having this discussion if Woody Williams and [Jason] Jennings had been what they were supposed to be, but the lack of major league prospects at the upper level of the minor leagues was going to take a toll on the big league record at some point.

I'll stipulate that the Stros got unlucky with Jennings. There was risk in taking him on, but it didn't have to turn out this badly. Williams, on the other hand...well, read what Baseball Prospectus said before the season began:

Williams is not a good choice for the front half of a rotation--he`s fragile, and he needs a big park and/or a great lineup to succeed. Signed to a two-year, $12.5-million deal by the Astros, he`s a fly ball pitcher going to the Non-Carbonated Fruit Beverage House of Pain for Pitchers, and, outside of PETCO, hitters pasted him at a .295/.341/.476 clip. Still, he wanted to pitch at home, and, let`s face it, the guy`s a former 28th-round pick who didn`t become a rotation regular until he was 30, he`s 40 now, and he has 120 career wins--it isn`t like he just threw away his shot at the Hall of Fame by heading to Texas. What he might cost the Astros is a different story.

Indeed. BP's complex player projection system, called PECOTA, put Williams' median forecast at 6-7 in 27 games (18 starts), 113 innings, with a 4.96 ERA. Given that he's actually at 8-12 with a 4.84 ERA in 165 innings (27 starts), he's actually done better than that. But please, let's be clear: Woody Williams was exactly what he was supposed to be. To think otherwise is just crazy.

So I'd say we've now officially closed the books on the 2005 pennant winners. Time to hope that the next one comes quicker than that. My best wishes to the new crew in achieving that.

Posted by Charles Kuffner on August 27, 2007 to Baseball