In a hundred ways, this isn’t Joe Espada’s fault, though he certainly made his fair share of lineup and in-game decisions that backfired or were perplexing.
Those come with the territory. Make thousands of decisions; some will be wrong. That’s life.
Shell Game
In fairness, Espada was handed a team that was the shell of its championship self, undermanned, banged-up, battered and fragile, yet with the same sky-high expectations from the owner, all while working for a rookie general manager, who traded a decent starting pitcher, of which you had few, for an injured outfielder who hit .172 with a 48 wRC+ and a -0.3 fWAR in his time with the Astros.
It wasn’t Joe who decided to trade Mauricio Dubon, field the worst offensive outfield in baseball, or sign 5 one million-dollar pitchers instead of one five-million-dollar pitcher who would move the needle.
Blame Game
He is also not blame-free. Look no further than accidentally removing Hunter Brown from a game against the A’s on August 22nd to willingly doing it against the same team on September 25th, two games the Astros lost.
Espada has done plenty good, too. The players love him, though that’s not always a good thing, and he seems like a genuinely good guy and great ambassador for the Astros.
Unfortunately, that’s not enough.
Clean Slate
More than any of that, a clean slate is needed, especially if a new General Manager is in the Astros future, which I assume is the case.
Though I wonder what kind of candidate would take this job with this farm system and the current decision making hierarchy in place.
Nonetheless, do it now; don’t wait and force the new GM to take a year or two to “evaluate” Espada.
We have enough evidence. 489 games worth.
It’s time to move on.
Hanging on to Espada would signal that the Astros haven’t acknowledged the failures over the last few years and still believe the way the organization has operated recently is the path forward.
It’s not.
This should be the first move towards showing the fans you want to win and the status quo is not acceptable.
You’ve said it, now show it.
Say it ain’t Joe.