Jerome Solomon has an article this morning harkening back to the Mesozoic Era of Astros baseball, in which Larry Dierker was named manager.
It's an interesting read on how it all went down, and he's a little upset that he wasn't one of The Ten, but there's this:
“The type of guy you need kind of depends on what phase of development you're in. It's virtually impossible to predict if you're going to have a good team or not every year, unless you're the Yankees or the Red Sox who spend so much money. Even then, you can't predict whether you're going to win.
So if you get a guy who might be good and patient working with young players, because you're not expecting to contend for a couple years, you still could end up like the Rays last year and find yourself in the hunt. It's a very sensitive, complicated subject and not anything you can break down statistically.”
Exactly.
We didn't come out here to play tiddlywinks, son.
-Hal Smith
