I’m becoming increasingly worried about Astros manager Cecil Cooper‘s mental health.

Last year, despite rumors that he was alienating his veteran players, Cooper rode the team to a 86-75 record, third in the division and 3.5 games out of the NL Wild Card.  They outperformed Pythagoras by nine wins – and one way to explain a team outperforming their Pythagorean W-L% almost certainly has to be managerial skill.

There were definite moments, however, where Cooper seemed to be exceedingly out of his element.  This offseason has brought his bipolar disorder into sharper focus.  During the team’s extended winless streak during Spring Training, Cooper began to lose his mind.  On March 10, Alyson Footer quoted him as saying “I don’t have any answers about why this is happening, unless someone put the hex on us,” and that “this is bordering on ridiculous.”

That was when they were 1-10-1.  A hex?  Coop, no one put a hex on the team.  It’s a veteran team, missing key players to the WBC, with very little organizational depth to help them hold leads late in games, once the major leaguers are gone.  There’s no hex, Coop.

The next day was a day off, and Cooper said he went golfing because he “had to hit something.”  Then he bemoaned the team’s low batting average, saying “We’re hitting .220 as a team in Spring Training. No one hits .220 in Spring Training. Come on. Two hundred. Are you kidding me?”

Then, on March 17, Alyson posted one of the most disturbing quotes of the offseason: “I’m not concerned about our pitching.  I’m concerned about the hitting.”  Not concerned about a rotation that includes such luminaries as Brian Moehler, Russ Ortiz, and Mike Hampton in the starting rotation,  spelled by Brandon Backe and Jose Capellan?  You’re more concerned about the hitting of a team that features Lance Berkman, Miguel Tejada, Carlos Lee, and Hunter Pence?

This is also when the rumblings of the players, led by Berkman, began to seep out.  In sharp contrast to Cooper’s daily rants, Berkman and the other players didn’t seem to be paying any attention at all.  It became clearer and clearer that Cooper and his staff were most assuredly not on the same page as their players – at least not their veteran players. 

His inability to coach big leaguers became showed itself when Footer quoted him as saying, “I keep calling them out and nobody seems to step up. That’s all I can
tell you, we need somebody to step up and nobody’s stepping up.”

Then the Astros started to win, at which point Danny Knobler of CBSSports.com quoted Cooper as saying, “We should win 90 games, without question.  We have a terrific bullpen. We have one of the best closers in the game. We’ve got the
ace in the National League. We’ve got three of the best offensive
players at their position. We’ve got, if not the best, then one of the
top catchers in baseball.

“I mean, c’mon. We’ve got what it takes. You’re telling me we’re not going to win that many games?”

FanGraphs reprinted the quote in their article “Cecil the Delusional.”  I understand wanting to pump your team up, but we should win ninety games?  Without question?  “Delusional” is definitely the right word, and kudos to Eric Seidman at FanGraphs for nailing it. 

So Cooper is on the same page as neither the players nor reality.

On March 13, Coop said “…we thought we didn’t have catching.  That was kind of the general consensus of people on the outside.
And for the most part, there were some people here that didn’t think
that. But I had a chance to see five guys catch, and I’m very confident
in all five guys.  They
all can catch and throw. And they receive pretty well… To me, I
think our catching is in pretty good hands for a long, long time.”  Three days later, the report surfaced that the Astros had signed Ivan Rodriguez, pending the end of his WBC service and a physical. 

That’s when it became clearer that Cooper was also not on the same page as the front office, in addition to the players or reality.

Perhaps the most concerning thing, however, has been the way he’s handled the David Newhan situation in Spring Training camp this year.  Newhan was on the 2008 squad, and had a decent September (.281/.314/.344) to help the team in its final playoff push.  He was released and subsequently re-signed as the Astros began to look into utility infielder options to replace the departed Mark Loretta.

Cooper, convinced that the utility infielder needed to be a shortstop, allowing them to spell Miguel Tejada more often.  Despite the obvious truth that spelling Kazuo Matsui (who has never been able to string together even 115 games in a season) should be a priority over Tejada (who has played in fewer than 150 games only once since 1999), Cooper wanted a shortstop who could play other positions, rather than an infielder who could play shortstop.

Which is fine, if that’s what he wants, but he basically took Newhan out of the running without giving him a chance.  Among quotes like, “I have to say this, there’s a difference between a pure shortstop who
can play over there and someone who can maybe go and stand over there,
really. We have to be able to play it,” he didnt’ even play Newhan at shortstop to give him the chance to play himself out of contention.

He simply wrote him off.  Newhan told Cooper he felt comfortable playing there, despite his major league inexperience.  He’s been on rosters behind Miguel Tejada (Houston and Baltimore,) Jimmy Rollins (Philadelphia), and Jose Reyes (Mets).  “There’s a whole bunch of other guys I have to look at there. He did tell me he could play it. We’ll cross that bridge when we
get to it,” was Cooper’s response. 

He even said that there were six others to look at – Jason Smith, Tommy Manzella, Edwin Maysonet, Blum, Drew Sutton and Matt Kata – with shorstop experience, pushing Newhan to seventh.

Okay, fine, put him as seventh coming into the season, but give him a shot.  The worst part was that, despite writing him off so early, was that the Astros then waited until March 29 to release him, seriously affecting his ability to get a job somewhere else.

I have to tell you, I have not been overly impressed with Cooper during his tenure as the Astros manager so far, and this Spring Training has been one enormous train wreck.