Happ has really been struggling, leading the majors with 14 losses on the season. He has has allowed at least five runs in eight consecutive outings, the longest such streak in the majors in 60 years. Happ will attempt to right the ship in Triple-A. 60 freakin years? Really been struggling is the understatement of the year.
Not only is Oswalt not hurt, but he pitched a shutout just a few days ago. 8 innings, 8 hits, 9 K's, 0 runs
Correction... Oswalt was hurt and has been pretty damn good since he returned. Happ isn't the part of that trade that will determine a win or a loss in the end. Maybe he'll figure it out. Even Tim Redding is still hanging around.
Wow, good for him. I'll be rooting for him to get a ring. But he was hurt for all of July. Glad we dodged that bullet.
"dodged that bullet"???? WE'RE GOING TO FREAKING LOSE FREAKING 100 FREAKING GAMES. We "dodged that bullet" and took a bazooka shell instead. Laying on the ground in a pool of blood, head mostly severed, one pinky and one knee twitching, thinking "glad I dodged that bullet."
Since we are paying $9 million of his salary, we are still biting that bullet. He would be a type A FA, meaning we could possibly have come out ahead with that strategy, but there is certainly a chance he would have taken the arbitration offer. Really depends on how much winning would have been worth to him.
[rquoter]You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to DonkeyMagic again.[/rquoter] Oh. That? That's just a flesh wound!
The question is not whether it was in the Astros best intererst to trade Oswalt. It revolves more around the return the team got for the most in demand player on the trade market at the time. In related news, I went back and did some searching...it appears both Cosart and Singleton were initially rumored to be pieces in the Oswalt trade. The Astros settled for much less (quality, not quantity, wise).
I haven't really followed the Astros this season, but what exactly happened to JA Happ? He was great last year? Is it his mechanics? Is he hurt? WHat is with the sudden nose dive?
Opening up early and striding to his off-hand side, leaving his fastball up; also leads to minimal control of his breaking stuff (look at his pitch counts). He's been nibbling at the corners all year trying to compensate.
Astros bringing up Happ to join rotation [rquoter]"What we're going to do is we're going to bring back [Henry] Sosa on three days' rest and start him on Thursday," manager Brad Mills said. "We thought this would be an opportunity to be able to do that. We threw him short, five innings. We'll bring him back on Thursday and we'll call up J.A. Happ to start the game on Friday." [/rquoter] http://houston.astros.mlb.com/news/...tebook_id=23629320&vkey=notebook_hou&c_id=hou
The funny thing is that Happ's peripherals are virtually identical to his performance in previous years, or at least were at the end of July (last time I checked). I think the simplest answer is that his luck is evening out. His numbers in previous years suggested his ERAs were incredibly lucky, and that he should be a low-to-mid 4s ERA pitcher. His numbers in 2011 show that he's been incredibly unlucky, and that he should be a low-to-mid 4s ERA pitcher. My guess is that his luck will stabilize in coming years and he'll settle in as a No. 4 or No. 5 type (ala Brian Moehler), sliding between the back of the rotation and a long relief role. He's not as bad as he looks this year, and he's not as good as he looked last year.