Sad to see it, but the Astros have gone from the height of their relatively unspectaculor history to one of the low points in under a year. Beltran, Kent, and the long line of talent free agents leaving the franchise, plus the aging of Biggio and Bagwell I think have finally taken their tolls. Seems like Biggio is all that's left producing of that young scrappy team that was the beginning of such a bright future. The owner did his best to put a quality team out there, but wasn't willing to spend the big bucks to win it all. I don't blame him. A smartly constructed team can win and be competitive. It's only may, but being back double digits in the standing and with the 4th worst record....one had to wonder what the future of this franchise is. Can we trade Roger back to the Yankees for minor leaguers? To we restock a once rich farm system....only to see once again players move on to greener fields? I don't know...but something has to change.
I think it's time to usher in the new era with gusto! I say, we try rebuilding like the Indiana Pacers of the last couple of years. Their team consisted of a bunch of talented young players and reggie miller slowly reducing his role. If we could do that with Biggo, letting him go for 3000 in the next couple of years, it would be great. I say, bring up the most talented kids, sign the most talented YOUNG free agents, and keep Bidge around for sentimental/public relations reasons. It hurt to see Nolan throw his 6th and 7th no-no in, gulp, Dallas. Seeing his Hall of Fame bust with that big "T" on his cap made me throw up in my mouth. Biggio has been my favorite astro since Nolan. It would kill me to see him reach a career milestone in someone else's uni.
Let's start with the owner. Then we can move on to the General Manager, and finally the team. Drayton and Pupura blew it last summer. They put all of their eggs in the Beltran basket, and the Mets knocked it off the countertop, leaving us with zilch. Bagwell's spaghetti shoulder, which everyone has known about for two years, is now officially al-dente. Don't even make me start listing the decent outfielders and first basemen that were free agents last summer. Drayton and Pupura had no contingency plans. These two are schmoes, not pros.
Nope I remember Dr. John. If baseball owners were rock acts, John McMullen would be Nelson, and Drayton McLane would be Dweezil Zappa. #2 is better than #1, but that ain't saying very much!
The rest of this year and the offseason will be very telling in terms of what Drayton's motivation is and more importantly, Purpura's ability to GM. We all know Drayton has added pieces in the past to try and get us over the hump for that particular year (i.e. RJ, Beltran) but at no "real" expense...meaning no long term big financial commitment. We also know that while, according to Justice, Drayton makes all final decisions, that Hun brought some serious chips to the table in terms of getting these deals in place. I think we can agree (or at least most can) that Drayton and Tim blew it this past offseason...(not just with Carlos...how many of you wouldnt trade Zeke and Burke for Soriano now? assuming it was on the table).and I think we can all agree that we hope that it isn't a sign of future offseasons to come. I'm looking forward to see what deals Purpura can conjure up and make happen. I hope he has the moxie to go out and make us better. We should have a fair amount of cash to spend and we also seem to have some intriguing prospects that we could deal. Going to be an interesting summer and winter for us...but unfortunately, I'm not talking about the games.
McMullen would have told Roger Clemens he was washed up and needed to take a paycut before signing Jim Clancy. Then Roger and Nolan would have something else in common. All of a sudden...I don't feel so good.
Please do list them. Hindsight is 20/20. If Drayton had not pursued Beltran as hard as he did and backed out before the deadline, you would have most likely joined the chorus of fans to trash him for being cheap.
i don't know what RMTex would have thought. but i agree that the sentiment here would have been, "drayton blew it...we had a chance to get beltran..and he blew it. he doesn't care about winning; he only cares about lining his pockets." that's how it would have been viewed. remember at the time that the media was pumping stories about how he liked houston so much...how his wife liked houston so much. how he really liked the guys here he played with. how he appreciated the latin community here reaching out to him so much. and on and on. given that environment...if drayton had come on tv and said, "hey...we believe beltran is going elsewhere..we'd like to introduce the newest Astro, J.D. Drew," most of us would have thrown up a little in our mouths. frankly, i would have too. instead he made a very legit offer exceeding $100 million, that would have put beltran in the top 7 of current major league contracts. i'm not sure beltran is worth that money...but that was the offer. that's why i have a hard time with many who say, "we missed out out on great opportunities for great free agents." first...there weren't that many great ones. second..that assumes they would have signed here (some, like alou, signed elsewhere for different reasons)...third..it meant giving up on beltran, which houston was not ready to do.
The 'Drayton won't pay to win' argument should have been slapped away after last year. And the money he was offering Beltran was serious. Didn't happen, but that was Boras 100%. Now we lick our wounds and start from scratch in Nov. Drayton knows full well that his revenue stream will dry up fast if we can't field a better roster. Evan
Anyone heard any rumors of the potential deals that Purpura was hinting at earlier this week in the Chronicle?!? There's a glaring need for a bat in this lineup, somone to hit in in the three hole and play either OF/1B. Taveras - CF Biggio - 2B Addition - OF/1B Berkman - 1B/OF Ensberg - 3B Lane - RF/LF Everett - SS Ausmus - C (Bench: Lamb, Viz, Palmeiro, Self, Chamo) Clemens Oswalt Pettitte Backe Rodriguez Move Zeke to the pen to set up for Lidge and Qualls back to the 7th inning role until he can find his command. Lidge Zeke Qualls Springer Wheeler Franco Harville Tradeable commodities: Burke (I think Biggio will be back next year to make a run at 3000), Buckholz, and another mid-level pitching prospect). My dream acquisition is Todd Helton (the heir apparent to Baggy, can you imagine his sweet lefthanded stroke at MMP?!?) of the Rockies. As much as it pains me to say it, getting Helton would effectively end Bagwell's Astros career.
I have no problem with Drayton pursuing Beltran like he did, but I do have a problem with him not having a contingency plan in place just in case Beltran signed somewhere else.
So what the hell is the answer? Last year was simply magical, and it caused me to become a huge Astros fan when I've mostly had a Why Bother attitude for years. What I mean by that has been expressed here many times over, but I'll say it again: Baseball seems rather pointless to me. Unless lower-market teams like the 'Stros catch lightening in a bottle, we'll never be able to truly compete with the larger market teams in terms of year-in, year-out contention. Honestly, I think we've done remarkably well in the Hunsicker era given what we've had to work with money-wise, but now reality has set back in and unless MLB changes some things, its back to the era of watching great talent leave for greener and much richer pastures while we all hope and pray that 1) someone agrees to take less cash to play here due to whatever reason, or 2) we do well through the farm system and/or GM wizardry. So again: What the hell is the answer? We all know that while the Astros as an business entity may lose money, Drayton sure as hell isn't: He's only moved up the Forbes list year after year with all his other business enterprises, and the 'Stros could easily be in the red year after year with Drayton STILL making a ton of money. I do give the team mad props for trying so hard to get Beltran, but I have a hard time believing we'd really be that much better with one man, I don't care how good he is. We still let Kent go, along with Randy Johnson, Wade Miller, Billy Wagner, and whoever else over the course of many years, and Jeff Bagwell's shoulder is still Jeff Bagwell's shoulder. So, finally and again: What the hell is the answer? Sincerely, A Disgruntled Astros Fan
The answer is pointed out clearly in your post. MLB has to have an economic system that reflects reality. Until it does, this will be the status quo. It is certainly unfair to say "Drayton's got a lot of money" and expect him to lose money on the team. Even with a $199M payroll, do you think Steinbrenner is losing money? Not hardly. If an owner were willing to lose money on a team year in and year out, I wouldn't want them to be the owner simply because they aren't very bright.
Yeah, it hurts real bad right now. He finally seemed to have felt some urgency to get something done, so he tossed that HUGE contract to Clemens.
Which when you add it to last year's, it makes it market value over the two seasons. And people want to complain about all these hometown discounts.
I hear ya. But if Plan B was to involve great free agents, it was an inherent impossibility. Beltran set his deadline. By then, the cupboards were bare except for Burnitz. And I have NO problem with not signing Jeremy Burnitz.
Hindsight is telling me I disagree with you. Burnitz may have added a couple of wins on his own. I was lukewarm on the idea at the time, but looking back, we should've signed him. However, you're right on the other stuff. The way it was set up, it was either go after Beltran and miss out on the free agents (which I stress, the main ones we were rumored to go after have sucked too) or let Beltran go early and sign one of those guys. Of course, the majority of the same people whining about the offseason would still be doing so. "Look, we signed Steve freaking Finley when we could've had Beltran. Dreighton's a snake, a liar, he's cheap, he tried to murder Hunsicker (which is why he resigned, you know) and he kills small puppies!!!!" And that would've been just from Richard Justice.
1. Exactly on the second part; 2. on Burnitz...you're probably right. hard to turn down ANY offense right now. But at the time I wasn't real thrilled.
