The Pecan Park Eagle

BRAD MILLS, HOUSTON ASTROS MANAGER, 2010.

Brad Mills was born on January 19, 1957 in Exeter, California. He played college baseball as a 6’0″, 195 lb. BL/TR infielder for the University of Arizona, from where he was then selected by the Minnesota Twins in the 16th round of the 1977 draft. He didn’t sign with the Twins and was later taken again, this time  in the 17th round by the Montreal Expos, in the 1979 amateur player draft.

In a five-season minor league career as a third baseman (1979-86), Brad Mills hit  .287 with 37 home runs. He marked his best year with the AAA 1981 Denver Bears, where he batted .314 with 12 HR. It was the only time he ever posted a plus .300 average and double digit homer figures over the course of a full season.

In limited major league service with the Montreal Expose over four seasons (1980-83), Mills batted .256 career with only a single home run.

Brad Mills was traded by the Expos to the Astros on July 4, 1984 for outfielder Scott Loucks, but he never saw MLB service in Houston. Moving over from Indianapolis to Tucson, the Astros’ AAA farm team in 1984, Mills’ offensive production dropped remarkably. He played another unproductive year for Tucson in 1985 and then finished his active career playing with Iowa in the Cubs’ farm system in 1986.

Brad Mills began his five-season (1987-90, 2002) minor league managing career in the Cubs farm system the following season. He didn’t set the  woods on fire in those five years, but he did finish with a winning record of 334 wins, 296 losses, and a .530 plus side winning percentage.

From there, Brad Mills has built a quiet, but glowing reputation and record as the bench coach of Terry Francona, first at Philadelphia, and since 2004 through 2009 at Boston. He was the man who helped Terry Francona lead the Boston Red Sox through the end of the Curse of the Bambino with two World Series victories in 2004 and 2006. He now comes to Houston with highest praise from Francona as an organizer and communicator.

Let’s hope that Mssrs. McLane, Smith, and Wade have just captured lightning in a bottle through the hiring of Brad Mills as new manager of the Houston Astros.

While we’re hard at hoping, let’s also try to hold the reins on our expectations that Brad Mills, or any other manager, could or will be able to fast-track the Astros to a pennant next year in spite of the talent depletion reality that now exists. Mills will have his hands full building a relationship of trust that will empower him to lead. It will remain up to McLane & Company to resolve the other, far-reaching issues.

Drayton McLane was quoted in this morning’s Houston Chronicle as saying, “We need to be where the Phillies are.” Unless I miss my guess, I’m counting fourteen other National League clubs who would probably offer the same sentiment. The difference-maker between those who get there and those who don’t simply reduces to these steps:

1. Those who really want to be champions carefully study what champions do;
2. Then they have to do some serious gut-checking: Do we have the will, the financial resources, and the administrative people in place we shall need to get the job done with a plan for success that will work for us in our town?
3. Is a club willing  to commit to an overt plan for action without cutting corners on what is essential to long-term local success?
4. And finally, if all these steps can be answered affirmatively, is a club willing, right now, to step forward forthrightly and “just do it.”

We fans can be terribly patient when we believe that a plan is in place to really deliver us to a World Series victory. In my book, hiring Brad Mills is a step in the right direction. Now let’s take the Phillies and Cardinals championship books and run with them into a plan that fits Houston.

A plan for similar success in Houston couldn’t look that that different. Could it?

Tags: Baseball, Houston Astros

This entry was posted on October 29, 2009 at 12:12 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.