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I've always thought CJ Nitkowski was kind of leaning on his "I played" to make some of his weirdly strident declarative statements wash - and here it's standing in for reporting. Somebody told him Bo Porter was the only one who said he was okay with front office instructions on lineups, etc.
That's annoyingly unverified, but if we assume it's true then this sounds like a tough job. I always thought the Astros were never going to let Porter get to the point of managing their fully matured prospects, if only because a not-small handful of 100+ loss seasons were an inevitability and hiring the guy who led the team to 500 losses in a half-decade would never look like the right guy to take the team to the playoffs.
But I also assumed that if he played his part then he'd be able to leave on good terms and get hired elsewhere. This is going to make that tougher, though if it's true then I certainly can't fault him for not playing his part. At the same time, I have a hard time believing that anything is that different about the Astros arrangement except that it's maybe made more explicit. The Cardinals apparently made some rather substantial moves to make sure that Mike Matheny was playing Oscar Tavares every day. With the weird economic tension requiring teams to exploit the hell out of serf-years talent before they get expensive, there isn't a single manager that wouldn't get some guff for letting a talented young player rot on the big league bench when he could be playing every day in AAA.
But that doesn't seem to have been Porter's issue in Houston. Singleton is playing regularly in spite of not really hitting. Springer was regular before getting hurt. Balancing him, Fowler and the recently-acquired Marisnick would have been an impossible trick since I'm pretty sure Fowler's only real job is to gather trade value - something that works best in center. So Porter was getting the young guys looks.
Past that? There was the weird blow-up about Appel taking a bullpen in Houston. And apparently not knowing that relievers need to pitch to at least one full plate appearance. So I don't know. Every writer is pointing at some kind of power struggle, but the lineup thing doesn't quite work. So, it's probably just accumulated stuff and Porter ended up butting heads with a GM at exactly the wrong time given the shitty summer Luhnow's had.
Is there room to say that I don't think this was the right way for them to do this but that Porter was kind of dumb to let parts of a spat with the front office go public? A manager/GM fight is always stacked in favor of the GM, and while Luhnow may have seemed vulnerable due to a bunch of bad press, Porter has a 110-190 record and never had the capital for this kind of move.
http://www.foxsports.com/mlb/just-a-bit-outside/baseball-joe/blog/wanted-major-league-manager-sort-of-090114
WANTED: MAJOR LEAGUE MANAGER ... SORT OF
CJ Nitkowski
@CJNitkowski
The Astros won't be this terrible forever, it is nearly impossible, and they do have a core of potential good young players in both the big leagues and minor leagues that give hope for the future. In the meantime, with Bo Porter fired, Houston needs a new major league manager.
Who wants the job? My guess is no one.
Right after Bo Porter was hired I was told he was the only candidate who answered "yes" to the question, "Are you OK with influence from the front office in every day decisions like setting the lineup?" There was a reason he was the only one who said yes, no one wants to manage a major league team where they are told what to do by someone who has never played the game or even done the job.
There is balance here. Influences from front offices are part of the new equation in baseball and the game is smarter because of it. Clint Hurdle told me the Pirates utilize a sort of hybrid theory and it is working well in Pittsburgh. He is open to advanced metrics, he listens, he gets it and he and the front office work well together to implement the new school of thought.
There is one essential caveat though, he makes the final in-game decisions, including lineups and he is never second-guessed on those decisions. The Pirates trust their major league manager. He has to lead 25 men, he has to get them to be their best for him every game. Both he and his players cannot ever be questioned or second-guessed by the people above them.
General manager Jeff Lunhow and the Astros have a problem. They have created the perception that they want to control everything. It doesn't work well that way and never has. Communicate, delegate and trust, they must all happen for a system to be productive.
The Astros need two managers. One right now who is not competitive and will do whatever the front office tells him while they're still losing. Then they'll need one when they get good who is ultra competitive and has the track record to tell the front office to back off. Of course that guy will go through the interview process and immediately withdraw his name.
Something has to change or this will be the beginning of a cycle that never ends in Houston. ______________________________
"Walleye, a lot of things are going to go wrong in your life that technically aren't your fault. Always remember that this doesn't make you any less of an idiot"
--Walleye's Dad
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