He's had to come in after Cox and Dierker, which hasn't helped, as they're two of the best managers of recent times.

However, I vote for goat.

In Frank Robinson's book Extra Innings, Robinson rails against the fact that blacks almost never get a chance to manage teams, where as a number of white guys keep getting managing jobs for no other discernable reason than they've had managing jobs in the past. (Note: The book is from 1987 or so).

I think we can safely call this the Jimy Williams effect.

Jimy Williams. One 'M', no personality. Goat.

http://espn.go.com/page2/s/simmons/010817.html
I just found a Bill Simmons column on Jimy from his RedSox days.

Here is an excerpt:

Jimy Williams, I ask you, are you one of the unwitting geniuses of our time, a Chance the Gardner of the baseball world, if you will?

Jimy: That's for you guys to judge. I'm just a squirrel tryin' to get a nut. Sometimes you come up empty, sometimes you end up scurrying down a tree with three acorns in your mouth. You never know. As long as you stay away from those woodchucks, you're OK.

He has managed 3 teams capable of winning it all and he has taken them all nowhere. Definite Goat!

In a small study for Batter's Box (about pythagorean +/- stats for managers) peppered with warnings about implying causation, back in December, I wrote this:

No team managed by Jimy Williams has ever reached its Pythagorean W-L: not the Jays of 1986, 1987 or 1988; not the Red Sox of 1997, 1998, 1999 or 2000; not the Astros of 2002 or 2003. That's ten teams finishing with records worse than their run differentials would indicate. The odds of flipping a coin ten times and getting tails each time is 1 in 1,024. Maybe Jimy is unlucky and his teams keep coming up tails, or maybe there really is something there. Whether it is ineptitude, misfortune, or some sort of gypsy curse, I would not want Jimy in my team's clubhouse.

I stand by that.

I can't disagree with any of the above, yet the strange thing about Jimy is that he's never had a really disastrous year (at least one that he was allowed to finish, as 1989 may have been fated to be that year).

Disastrous stretches, yes (1987, come on down). Disappointments, yes (almost every year he's been in charge of a big league club). It's noteworthy, I think, that just about all the blemishes on his record are about expectations that weren't met, rather than seasons that were absolute stinkers that defied belief.

He has no business managing a major league club, but he's probably no worse than a lot of guys who've had the chance more times than can be rationally explained (I'm looking at you, Larry Bowa and Jim Fregosi!)

Goat.

In a hitter's paradise, Houston's #2 hitters lead the Majors with 24 sac bunts, eight more than any other team. What year is this?

http://www.sasesportssigs.com/JimyWilliams.jpg
I remember that he would never have any bend in his cap.
COMN

Goat.

Choosing Garth Iorg rather than Cecil Fielder to pinch hit down by 1 run with 2 outs in the top of the ninth and nobody on against Frank Tanana in the final game of 1987 was the poorest managerial game decision I have ever witnessed. OK, OK, I'm sure that there have been worse, but this was way, way worse than Grady Little's decision to leave Pedro in.

Jimy Williams is not a goat, though he does have horns, a tail, and a goatee. I'll leave his true identity as an exercise to the reader.

I like "Jimy Williams effect". We should use that more often.

Goat from me too.

1987 was the big one. Garth (210 avg) Iorg playing nearly everyday while a future all-star in Kelly Gruber sat. Cecil Fielder on the bench in '86/'87/'88 getting under 200 AB's each year despite having a 311/358/527 line as a rookie under Cox in '85, Upshaw playing everyday instead for 86/87 going 251/341/368 and 244/324/391. I could come up with a lot more but I think we all get the idea.

The Simmons column is brilliant. Thanks, Gerry.

Jimy and I stem from branches on opposite sides of the Williams family tree; I'm always amazed that he lasts as long as he does. Baaaah!

I remember that he would never have any bend in his cap.

Great link Christopher, I wouldn't let that guy manage a pair of scissors. Goat!

LOL. Line of the day from alsiem, "I wouldn't let that guy manage a pair of scissors".

...the strange thing about Jimy is that he's never had a really disastrous year

This is true but it's also fair to say that he has virtually always been handed a talented club. He SHOULDN'T have had many, if any, losing records with the teams he has run.

Does anyone else think it would be cool if the Astros replaced Jimy with Cito Gaston, just like the Jays did in '89?

I'm not the biggest Cito fan in the world, but I would like to see him get another chance, just to see what he can do with another team (and God Knows, the Astros are a veteran ballclub).

How many DECADES without winning a playoff series do teams like the White Sox and Astros have to go before they hire a manager with a history of postseason success?

I too think that it would be cool if Cito replaced Jimy. Houston is just the kind of club that Cito would do very well with. Mostly a bunch of veterans who you just put out there and let 'em play.

What I remember most about Jimy, besides his old-school, ie circa 1910, in-game managerial strategies, is that he's the only man I've every seen whose ball cap looks both too small and too large for his head.

And what about playing Blum over Ensberg most of 2003? Probably cost the Astros the division.

For what its worth, my memory of Jimy in Toronto is that he had some of the in-game/strategy problems that I think Tosca has:

- playing favourites
- no idea of how to truly make use of platoon advantages(i.e. blind adherence to L/R matchups without understanding when not to use that rule of thumb (see: Moyer, Jamie))
- bullpen juggling (less so in Houston the last year or so because of Dotel and Wagner)

However, I don't think Jimy has Tosca's redeeming qualities (i.e his apparent abililty to motivate his club and keep the clubhouse happy). Jimy's chippy personality has alienated players all along the way, so I say a definite goat.

Goat. Baaaa.

For one thing, Jimy overuses his bullpen. Here's the list of relief pitchers who have worked 45 innings or more this season in the NL, by team:

Ari: Koplove (46.0)
Atl: Reitsma (47.2)
Chi: Hawkins (47.1)
Cin: Graves (49.2), Jones (51.1), Riedling (47.1)
Col: none
Fla: Benitez (46.0)
Hou: Lidge (50.0), Miceli (49.2), Weathers (46.0)
LA: Mota (54.2)
Mil: none
Mtl: Cordero (47.0), Ayala (46.2)
NYM: Looper (48.0), Stanton (47.2)
Phi: Worrell (45.1); Madson would qualify, except he's started once
Pit: Torres (48.0)
StL: none
SD: Linebrink (48.2)
SF: Brower (55.2)

As you can see, there are only two teams with three hard-working relievers: Cincinnati, and Jimy's Astros. Cincinnati is understandable: their starting rotation isn't exactly deep. (They're now being forced to regularly start Todd Van Poppel. 'Nuff said.) But Houston has a world-class starting rotation; admittedly, some of them have struggled with injuries, but still.

I haven't followed the Astros closely enough to know whether Jimy is still suffering from some of the problems he had in Toronto (the tendency to look panicked in tight situations, and a preference for hardworking young players, preferably light-hitting middle infielders, over veterans). But I'll bet the Astros improve if they dump Jimy.

Cito would be a good choice with this team, I agree, but I can't see him getting hired. I expect it will be some retread.

By the way: Carlos Tosca hasn't worked any reliever more than 39 innings (Adams). Of course, this may be because the Jays are constantly shuffling relief pitchers. Frasor is at 37.1.

Two of Jimy Williams tendencies that cost him in Toronto, and Boston, and probably Houston as well:

1) obsessive tinkering;

2) riding the hot hand to death.

One of the reasons Cito Gaston was so successful coming after Williams was that Gaston put an end to Jimy nonsense like anointing a new starting second baseman every six weeks (honest, this is what went on here in 1987 and 1988).

By the time he left, Williams had also completely screwed up the bullpen. David Wells got off to a good start in 1988; Jimy got him into 38 of the first 65 games. Boomer's arm fell off shortly thereafter, and he was utterly useless in the second half.

Williams even managed to get Tom Henke messed up in early 1989.

The fundamental things Gaston did upon taking over was settle the 2B situation (Lee against LH, Liriano against RH), and define the bullpen roles (Henke, once gets straightened out, finishes, and Wells and Ward are the bridge.)

jimy's a goat. He's always been a bad manager and his inability to motivate, his tinkering, and his stubburness in the face of overwhelming evidence (geoff blum!) are just the manifestations thereof.

Of course, as a cubs fan, i hope he stays and runs the 'stros into the ground.

I stand alone. Jimy gave Garciaparra the job when they already had an established SS. It was controversial at the time (until everyone saw Nomar hit a little). Cito kept Green & Delgado on the bench or back in the minors while he looked for another washed up veteran to throw out there. In 88 Jimy had the guts to pull the MVP permanently out of the field where his purpleness had loafed for years. It was management that failed to back him, both in T.O. & Boston.

Seattle had 3 of the greatest players of a generation together in their midst & has won nothing. It is harder than it looks, even for the Yankees. Finishing second with every team he led is an accomplishment & Jimy helped form those winning teams. There are plenty of bad white managers. Jimy is not one of them.

Bad news, RightyDug. SI.com is reporting that the Astros have fired Jimy-One-M. No word yet on who's replacing him.

http://mlb.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/mlb/news/mlb_news.jsp?ymd=20040714&content_id=800048&vkey=news_mlb&fext=.jsp
mlb.com says its Garner. COMN

Phil Garner's benefitting from the Jimy Williams Effect here. Garner's never done anything to justify being a major league manager. He's superficially a tough guy, but he doesn't coax good short-term performances out of his players. His one moment of glory was in 1992, when he pushed a very medicore team to within four games of the first World Champion Jays team.

That was a weird year; the pitching staff, a very ordinary staff, had a whole bunch of guys turn in career years and they were the best staff in the AL.

Other than that, Garner has presided over a long series of very ordinary teams in Milwaukee and Detroit, including the 2000 Tigers who were supposed to challenge for the division crown and went nowhere. Since 1992, he's never really challenged any of his teams or players.

The Jimy Williams Effect is most pronounced in midseason managerial shuffles. The reason is that most good managerial candidates are attached to other teams; as minor league managers, as coaches, and so forth. The bottom-of-the-barrel guys are all that's left in midseason, unless you have the foresight to have a good replacement manager in your own organization.

The guys that are left are the retreads.

One could argue that when he got the job with the Yankees Joe Torre benefited from what could have been called the "Joe Torre" effect. What success did he have with the Braves, Mets, Cardinals that warranted a fourth gig? Jim Fregosi and Joe Torre neither won any championships at the time, but both were at the top of the rumor mill everytime a managerial change was in the offing. In fact the Sox where hoping to hire Torre instead of Williams when they dumped Kevin "The Hair" Kennedy, but he was still under contract with the Cardinals at the time. (History has always been cruel to the Red Sox).

Torre hit gold in New York where his laid back style just meshed with a talented group that had largely been assembled by Buck Showalter. Not Torre is considered one of the best of all time. Funny how things change. Casey Stengel was a loser and a joke when he got the job in New York for the Yankees-the rest as they say is history.
Will Williams (or Garner) likely ever achieve Torre's level of success? Doubtful. (Unless he is hired to manage the Yankees maybe)Jimy just can't relate to todays players-though his first two years in Boston he was referred to as "A players Manager". He was stabbed in the back by Dan Duquette in Boston who failed to back Williams when Carl Everett was going berserk and who had Joe Kerrigan acting as his clubhouse spy. The clubhouse saw Jimy as having no backing and the insurrection was on...no doubt the fires being fanned by Kerrigan who had designs on Jimy's job.
Certianly Williams did things in Boston that left Red Sox fans scratching their heads but so did Joe Morgan (Mr. "Six, two and even")Grady Little and now Terry Francona who they have taken to calling Terry Francoma in Boston. Second guessing the Manager is a favorite pastime of many.
Williams did a good job his first two years in Boston with a team that wasn't as good as Dan Duquette would lead everyone to believe.Outside of Pedro they had no starting pitching. I believe he won the "Manager of the Year" award one year and was either second or third in the voting another year.
However, by his third year the team had turned on him as the Astros (as evidenced by Lance Berkman's comments at the All-Star game) have as well. But is Williams really the problem?
Shouldn't Roy Oswalt and the rest of the Astros starters with the exception of The Rocket, should be taking some of the heat for failing to perform as expected. Bagwell with his shoulder is but a shadow of his former self. Outside of Berkman who did they have that was All-Star caliber before the acquired Beltran?
Bottom line, he has lost the clubhouse and had to go. But the truth is the Astros were an aging team that was overrated at the start and was never going to contend with the Cardinals or Cubs-even if Joe Torre was the manager.

On the contrary, Joe Torre did a fine job in Atlanta and St. Louis. Coach can probably speak more to his time with the Cardinals, but Torre did very well with some very dodgy teams. It was in St. Louis that his genius for working with pitchers (and especially keeping starters healthy). He never had the horses there.

the truth is the Astros were an aging team that was overrated at the start and was never going to contend with the Cardinals or Cubs-even if Joe Torre was the manager

We'll see. The Astros have not played as poorly as their record indicates, and they have had a tough schedule to date. Their record vis-a-vis the Cards' record improves by about four games when you take this into account. They're too far back for a good shot at the pennant, but they are only 4.5 games out of the Wild Card; they're not as good a team as the Cubs, but they're better than the Giants and loads better than the Brewers and Padres. They have a chance.

If you've seen Will Ferrell as Lipton, the Simmons piece goes from mere "brilliance" to "abso-f#%$ing-lutely hilarious". I can't not hear Ferrell's voice. Heck, he'd probably do a mean Jimy, too.

I've been an Astros fan for years and although Jimy is partly to blame for this year's disappointing season, he's far from being the only one that should be blamed. He was given a patchwork bullpen to work with after Billy Wagner was traded to the Phillies. And it's certainly not Jimy's fault that the offense went into the tank in early May. After all, the manager can't get up there and play himself. To me, the front office and the players themselves are more to blame than Jimy. He was just the fall guy because it's easier to fire the manager than 20 or so players. I also thought it was a really classless act by some of my fellow Astros fans to boo Jimy in front of a nationwide audience at the all star game. Kicking a man when he's down is something you would expect from fans in New York, Chicago, Boston, or Philadelphia....not Houston, Dallas (Arlington) or Atlanta. I wish Jimy the best of luck and hope he's hired by another team soon.