Mets to hire Art Howe...another llllloooonnnggg season coming

[MrDingleDangle]

y art howe?

i dont see him being able to turn the team around....maybe he will prove me wrong though

 

[Aceshigh]

I am not a fan of Art Howe's at all. He coached here in Houston several seasons and I gotta say he makes some weird decisions at times. Expecially in regards to double switches and pitching changes.

 

[BigSmooth]

I agree with Aceshigh. As an A's fan, I'm not really sad to see him go, even though he had a lot of success in Oakland. He's obviously got some skill as a manager but a lot of his decisions, especially in the playoffs, left me scratching my head (case in point: why did he start Hudson in two games against the Twins this year when they are awful against lefties and you have Zito and Mulder?)

We'll see how Ken Macha fares next year.

 

[manly]

Howe's success in small-market Oakland speaks for itself, but he never was able to get out of the division series. While I don't follow him well enough to evaluate his managing, I did feel his game management in this month's ALDS was lacking. It'll be particularly interesting to see if Howe will play some smallball in the NL. Manager's fault or not, Oakland had virtually all the right pieces in place, but the manager wasn't able to steer the ship through.

As far as fixing the Mets, Bobby Valentine wasn't the problem, was he? It seems like Steve Philips made a lot of blundering, high payroll off-season moves to try to move into the class of the Yankees or the BoSox, and all that managed to accomplish was to waste a lot of money. With the luxury tax kicking in, they need to clean house and start from scratch but New York is notorious for wanting to win NOW.

I'm pretty baffled by the managerial musical chairs, hitting two top contenders in the same division. Was it just a matter of more money, or do Piniella and Howe really want to grind through difficult rebuilding processes one way or another?

 

[MrDingleDangle]

yeah i dunno whats going on with the managers...i know seattle was asking a lot for rights to talk to pinella...if the mets were gonna talk to him rumor had it they would have to give seattle Alomar...i dunno what/if anything we gave up for howe...

as for his questionable calls, he will learn fast that people in NY dont like questionable calls unless they work out everytime.

 

[manly]

Originally posted by: MrDingleDangle
yeah i dunno whats going on with the managers...i know seattle was asking a lot for rights to talk to pinella...if the mets were gonna talk to him rumor had it they would have to give seattle Alomar...i dunno what/if anything we gave up for howe...

as for his questionable calls, he will learn fast that people in NY dont like questionable calls unless they work out everytime.

I watched most of the ALDS games and I wouldn't say he made overtly questionable calls. I know the A's aren't built for smallball, so any Scioscia comparisons would be stupid, but do I fault Howe for not managing the game with any maneuvers to push a run across the board, especially when Twins pitching was doing well with the highly-touted bullpen shutting things down.

I felt he was waiting for his offense to kick in, all the way to the bitter end. It wasn't his fault that the offense wasn't clicking in games 4 and 5, but he should have mixed things up some more in any attempt to close it out. Part of it is his offensive philosophy (waiting for the 3-run homer) and I think part of it is his management style, very easy going and with the utmost faith in his ballclub. I also cringed when he brought in the flame-throwing closer to keep it close in the top of the 9th, but I figure 9 of 10 managers would put the ball in their closer's hands in that situation.

Hopefully, Billy Beane pulled another genius move and extracted top prospects from the Mets in the transaction.

 

[m2kewl]

Originally posted by: Aceshigh
I am not a fan of Art Howe's at all. He coached here in Houston several seasons and I gotta say he makes some weird decisions at times. Expecially in regards to double switches and pitching changes.

don't worry, it's not the manager that sucks...

 

[Red Dawn]

Originally posted by: MrDingleDangle
yeah i dunno whats going on with the managers...i know seattle was asking a lot for rights to talk to pinella...if the mets were gonna talk to him rumor had it they would have to give seattle Alomar...i dunno what/if anything we gave up for howe...

as for his questionable calls, he will learn fast that people in NY dont like questionable calls unless they work out everytime.

Yeah right, then how come Valentine lasted so long. That guy was king of the questionable moves.

 

[Mulderizer]

Hopefully Macha will bring some prosperity to the A's. Although Howe was questionable at times....I'm sad to see him go. I love the A's and I hope they can keep it goin. As for the world series, go GIANTS!