Just a few key notes from Justice's blog post
It was the worst clubhouse environment I've ever been around and stemmed from the fact that management allowed Cecil Cooper to continue as manager even after it was clear he'd lost the club....
...It was bizarre because management knew there was a problem. It knew the players had lost faith in him, that the atmosphere was terrible. I'm not saying the club could have gotten back into the race, but it had no chance with Cecil Cooper as the manager. Veteran players became very cynical about whether management even wanted to win...
...In Coop's case, strategy was a huge problem and contributed to the bad atmosphere. Also, there was a similar problem between pitching coach Dewey Robinson and the pitchers. I don't know if the Astros are going to be any good in 2010, but simply having a competent manager and pitching coach is going to be a huge step forward.
I'm not sure what prompted Run-DMc and Easy Eddie to keep Cooper around for as long as he did, but I'm guessing it was the fact that they had extended him for 2010 in April. This was an incredibly short-sighted decision. So, knowing that the Astros would be paying Cooper whether he managed or not probably had a lot to do with keeping him around and hoping that he could turn things around. (Remember, Cooper yelled at the players in Spring Training). Cooper will receive $850,000 this year, just to not manage. As with most things Astros, payroll and money had a lot to do with this (non-)decision.
We didn't come out here to play tiddlywinks, son.
-Hal Smith
