No Longer Hangin' with Mr. Cooper

Cecil Cooper went from having his option picked up in April, to hoping to keep his job in September, to not having a job today.

My absolute favorite take on the matter came from the ESPN.com article where Ed Wade said:

Astros general manager Ed Wade said a change was needed. He said making the move now will give the Astros a chance to evaluate "other facets of our operation" heading into the offseason.

I think the real problem here was that the evaluation of the facets of the operation BELIEVED (key word) that they could CONTEND (another key word) in 2009.

I'm all for miracle stories in this century, but what they were expecting Cooper and his staff to achieve was almost criminally insane with the lackluster talent Wade put around him.

1. They were asking Cooper to trot out a starting pitcher who had not pitched in 2008 (Russ Ortiz)
2. They expected a pitcher who has had an unfortunate career turn yet even worse (Mike Hampton) somehow magically channel 1998
3. They overworked and overused their ace (Roy Oswalt) and turned him into a middle of the rotation starter.

The Astros ended up tied for 23rd (tied with the Marlins) in Quality Starts coming into tonight.

Moving along from the rotation, next they had Jose Valverde get hurt and that crippled a bullpen whose reliable relievers were only LaTroy Hawkins and Valverde. The Houston Astros lead the majors in blown saves with 26 entering play tonight.

Oh and that spectacular offense chock full of amazing hitters? They rank 24th in OPS at .723. While one contender is worse than them and still keeping their heads above water (San Francisco is 30th, are you surprised?), the Giants have elite starting pitching to sustain themselves with--the Astros had Mike Hampton and Russ Ortiz on the mound. 72 of their 130 (55.3%) home runs (ranks 26th by the way) have come from three players: Carlos Lee (26), Hunter Pence (24) and Lance Berkman (22). No other player is over 11 home runs, Tejada (11) and Blum (10) are close.

Bottom line is, Cooper was set up to fail. If Ed Wade really thought this team should contend and win now, that's his fault, and it's about time he's held accountable for the decisions he's made. However, just as culpable has to be the ownership group if they were encouraging the baseball people that this team, as currently constructed, could win over 82 games.

Maybe they thought when the Astros put up three straight winning months, an 11-10 May; a 16-11 June followed by a 15-12 July, put them only one game under .500 at 51-52. Is that a contending ball club? The answer was a resounding no as they fell apart to a 19-27 record over the last two months.

The decision that Wade and his people "can evaluate what they have and what they need over these next 13 games" seems like a cheap excuse after putting together a club that couldn't contend. The Astros are an arm, two bats and many relievers away from fielding a team that can contend next year. Even with those they will still have more questions than answers moving into 2010.

But, this isn't the first failure in Houston and I have a feeling it won't be the last.

When not claiming Fantasy Baseball expertise, Ryan writes about Mid-Major College Basketball at SienaSaintsBlog.com. Ryan doesn't hate the Astros, he grew up one town away from likely Hall of Famer Craig Biggio.