Remember, no PBP in these threads and keep the chatter on topic (if it is about something other than this series, talk about it in another thread). 9-18 Bud Norris, RHP (5-3, 5.44) vs. Chris Narveson, LHP (1-0, 4.67) 7:05 on FSN 9-19 Brian Moehler, RHP (8-10, 5.01) vs. Jeff Suppan, RHP (6-10, 4.87) 6:05 on FSN 9-20 Felipe Paulino, RHP (2-9, 6.06) vs. To be announced 1:05 on FSN
This makes me have a little hope that there is some semblance of intelligence in the Astros front office... http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/sports/bb/6624752.html [rquoter]As the Astros play out the final games of the 2009 season, general manager Ed Wade and his front office are planning for 2010. Manager Cecil Cooper has a mandate to watch rookies Chris Johnson and Tommy Manzella, who could man the left side of the infield opening day. Sure, the Astros want to win down the stretch, but the priority is to see Norris, Paulino, Johnson and Manzella. Arias remains on the disabled list after having a setback Wednesday, but he pitched well in relief and is in a strong position for a bullpen spot next season.[/rquoter] You don't know if these kids can play if they aren't playing.
Thrilled to hear this! Next year will be Paulino's make it or break it year and Norris has shown enough that with an offseason of work he could be a good middle of the rotation guy which would make Wade's job alot easier trying to find a quality pitcher to pair with Norris in the 3-4 spots.
I wish we could have been watching the kids for at least a month now. Seriously. At any rate, what is this a 3-game series? Astros lose 4.
Astros have to go 11-5 just to reach .500. I *knew* this was a possibility all year long, but it still just frustrates the crap out of me. Losing sucks. It just sucks. That is all.
LLL whats new. Only thing that keeps me interested now is to see Bourn have a chance to break the franchise record for stolen bases in a season. I think its 65 in 1991. Eric Yielding
Well, Bourn should have 59 SBs right now instead of 58. He was safe stealing 3rd right after stealing 2nd but they called him out. The replay from behind 3rd showed he beat the tag. He hadn't been caught stealing in 21 attempts before that blown call. Regardless, what a special year for Bourn. He's been a complete player.
I also want him to break the Astros single-season record for Triples, but it is looking more and more like he won't. He has not hit one a long time.
Record is 14 but not sure who did it. Maybe Finley. Great season for Bourn. I talked alot of smack about that trade last season but Wade was right.........this time. He was right on Miggy too. He's been bad in the second half but still better than any SS we have had in a long ass time with the bat.
Miggy has definitely been better than previous SSs, offensively, but was he worth $15 million? I'm not saying it wasn't, just food for thought. What if we had never made that trade and had another $10-11 mil or so to spend on pitching this past offseason? Would that have brought in more bang for the buck? Michael Bourn has a higher OPS than Tejada and Bourn's OPS is not very good because of his lack of power.
Tejada may not be awful, defensively, but we certainly aren't paying him big bucks for his glove. For $15 million, you expect an OPS of .850 and up. A .760 OPS with an average-at-best glove is not good value.
Maybe not now...but when he signed that big, fat contract, there were obviously teams that thought he was worth that. You do realize that Tejada is a nominee for the Hank Aaron award, right? That award is given to the best hitter in each league.
In all seriousness, I don't place a lot of significance in an award when I have no clue how the players are evaluated. There are plenty of awards given out across all sports that aren't based on hard data, particularly when sportswriters are involved. Reputation and hype often taints judgment in many cases. I don't know how the Hank Aaron nominees are picked but my guess is that it isn't based on sufficient hard data. There is a lot more to determining a player's value than batting average and total hits. I fully agree about Tejada's market value at the time he signed his contract. I wasn't questioning that. I was simply looking at how he has performed in 2009 and I don't see anything close to a $15 million player. I'm also not questioning whether he is alone in being overpaid for his performance. Every team has players underperforming and overperforming relative to their contracts.
According to Wiki: The Hank Aaron Award is given annually to the Major League Baseball (MLB) players selected as the top hitter in each league, as voted on by baseball fans and members of the media. Fan voting, whether it's for an All-Star game or for an award such as this, is frequently based on things other than strictly performance. The same goes for media voting, maybe just to a lesser extent. The fact that Miguel Tejada is a Hank Aaron Award nominee is meaningless to me in terms of answering the question of whether his performance on the field in 2009 matched his salary. On the other hand, because I generally like Miggy, I'm happy he was nominated. I probably would have voted for him over more deserving players simply because he's an Astro.
I just wanted to see him nxt yr instead of Johnson and Manzella. Offense will be even worst nxt year with 26 and 27 yr old B list minor leaguers in the starting lineup. Going to be another long season. Our outfield is cool but with Johnson, Manzella, Kaz, and maybe even Towles starting next season. Yikes!
