Cecil Cooper Would Fail the Wonderlic Too

"We've been stealing bases all year," he said. "This is what we do. We've emphasized it from Spring Training on. We're going to try and steal as many bases as we can and be aggressive.” -- Cecil Cooper

Reading the entire article just about killed me. The context comes from Coop trying to defend sending Ty Wigginton on a 1-2 pitch to Michael Bourn, from Kyle Farnsworth, a man who hurls the ball at 97 MPH with ease, in the bottom of the 9th with no outs. Here’s the thing, Cooper may just be going senile, because that never happened (for proof, click here). Ty Wigginton was caught stealing second with one out in the bottom of the 9th with Geoff Blum at the plate. Either way, it was stupid call, one that Coop, at least in his made version of the events, “I would do that 100 times in a row.”
Early this season, lambasted Cooper’s hyper-aggressive base-running philosophy as actually having a meaningful run production killing effect. Ty’s CS is probably just as asinine and stupid of a decision as Bourn being sent and caught stealing 3rd in the 6th. Second base is called scoring position for a reason and you keep a guy with speed for the exact reason that he should be able to score from second on just about any hit.

There are two issues I take with all of this. Much like Evan mentioned yesterday, it’s frightening that man who has been entrusted to manage $95 million worth of assets can a) not keep track of crucial game situations and b) knows next to nothing about game theory.

It should be apparent to any Astros fan paying attention recently, that there have been a marked up tick in CS for Michael Bourn and the Astros as a team. Why is this? Well it’s for the exact reasons as the quote I lead off with: Coop is just going to keep sending the runners as much as possible. Thus, opposing managers know -- either by looking at the numbers or paying attention to the media -- that the Astros are going to attempt a steal very often. So as a result, pitch-out’s are called or catcher’s are primed to make a throwing attempt. It’s game theory, if you know how you’re opponent is going to act, you can then effectively choose a strategy that provides maximum benefit given your opponent’s course of action. Think of it like playing poker with a friend. If you know your friend likes to play conservatively and therefore rarely calls bluffs, it makes since for you to try and bluff as often as possible. Logically, you can only do this for so long -- if your friend is smart that is -- until your buddy will pick up on your boldness and change their strategy (please admire my astute political correctness with the pronouns). Cecil, I’ve got some news for you buddy, everyone’s picked up on your strategy; you’re practically shouting from the roof tops.

That such idiocy is allowed to run rampant, is frightening and shameful, but we’re pretty much an organization that is operated on such terms. My advice, fire Drayton McLane. We’ll have more on that to come.

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