That's what irritates me about Lee being fat. If he's not hitting, he's just simply fat and nothing else.
We're lucky to have even scored those 2 runs off of Hanson. He was picking apart our hitters. Pence got the most extreme of flukey hits and the rest were just weak singles. The fact that Felix drew a walk is possibly worthy of a new thread though. I missed that AB but it looks like Wagner made it easy on him with 4 straight pitches out of the zone. It's still a special moment for the starting left side of our infield. It only took 22 games into the season for either Feliz or Manzella to draw an unintentional walk.
It's shaping up to be the second conescutive day where the Astros, Express, Hooks, JetHawks and Legends all lose their games. Ross Seaton continues to struggle a bit at Lancaster. He only made it through 3 innings tonight, giving up 9 R (4 ER), 8 H, 3 BB, 2 HR. Lancaster is one of the most hitter-friendly parks in all of minor league baseball so it significantly inflates batting stats and deflates pitching stats but the majority of Seaton's work has been on the road this season. His numbers weren't that bad coming into tonight but they weren't very impressive, either.
And there it is... Castro's first XBH of the season and it couldn't have come at a better time. Down 1 run in the top of the 9th with 2 outs, Castro comes in to pinch hit and hits a double, knocking in the tying run. Edit: And just like that, Gary Majewski blows the second lead he was handed in as many innings. RR made two comebacks but it wasn't enough. Was Majewski a Wade signing? Either way, the Astros and all of their affiliates do end up losing for the second consecutive tonight, assuming that Lancaster can't make up 8 runs in the next 2 innings.
Yeah Majewski got an invitation to spring training so he really wasnt guaranteed anything but a AAA spot probably. He went to St. Pias here in Houston. He's from here. Ed Wade has done all he can do under a dictator/owner as a boss. I wish we would just rebuild and trade guys like Roy, Feliz and Myers for YOUNG CONTROLLABLE PLAYERS. Only thing is, some of these players (Feliz, Myers, and possibly Wandy) need more time to boost their value. Roy could boost his more with these superb pitching performances of late, but his stock wouldn't move all that much in my opinion. We all know what we want for the guy and what he can bring to a team at this point in his career. If we rebuilt now, we would get clowned through the media for jumping in the rebuilding pool at the last minute instead of doing it when our stars had legitimate value. It would take a sell of the team, but maybe thats what the city of Houston needs. Just keep our beloved Astros here. The only reason we are so critical of our hometown team is because of the standards they consistently lived up to for what I can call the majority of my life. I'm 20, 21 in July (woo hoo) and since I can remember we have been consistent winners. Only in 2000 when the young pitching was maturing and learning the new ball park, we had a losing season. From 1992-2006 we had 1 losing season! We just offer our best advice to fixing our Astros once and for all. Ed Wade and Bobby Heck have brought this farm along and in two years I'm supremely confident that our farm will be top 10 at the worst. With the 8th, 19th and 32nd pick in this June Amateur draft and the last two strong drafts the FO had, its very conceivable that we we will be making a move by next year. We lose games in the Minors, but that doesn't mean we lack the guys that can make impacts at the major league level down the line.
^^^ Interesting post. My only two thoughts... 1. Feliz' value is unlikely to change at all. He is what he is. Nobody will be fooled if he happens to put up good numbers for a few weeks at this point in his career. 2. We did well in the last 2 drafts by our recent standards, particularly 2 drafts ago, but it's too early to pass judgment. We just need to keep going in this direction. I think that expecting for us to be back in the mix by next season is way too optimistic. I'm thinking 3 or 4 years, at a minimum, if all goes well. We have really been set back over the majority of the past decade because of poor and insufficient drafts. You can't fix that in even 2 or 3 years, esp. when you look at the state of our big club (bad team with an old core). Even the best of the players drafted 2 years ago don't have much of a chance to become impact players until at least another 2 years from now. We just need to be really, really, really patient as an organization and continue drafting in volume and quality year after year after, never allowing the pipeline to dry up again.
I meant to say the farm will be top 10 in two years. Especially if we have high picks next year. We might keep Lance (even though this column says he's staying here his whole career http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/columns/story?columnist=stark_jayson&page=rumblings100429) but if somehow he leaves here, I get the feeling he will be a Type A Free Agent and would most certainly net us another 1st round pick and a 1st round compensation pick just as Valverde this last offseason. Unless the player signing berkman is in the bottom 15 in the standings. (then we would their second rounder instead.) Also we could get a second rounder if a mega team signs berkman and a higher rated free agent. The team who lost the higher rated free agent would get the first rounder. I know.. I know.. This is all speculation.
^^ I see what you're saying now. I hope it works out that way. For us to move up to the top 10 farms from dead last, we don't have to draft well by our standards, we'd have to considerably out draft 20 teams ahead of us. I haven't checked what every other team has done over the last 2 years but we certainly aren't the only team to have drafted a lot of players. Last season, we were in the bottom 6 or 7 in terms of dollars spent on the draft. We didn't take any real chances like we did 2 years ago but we did sign a ton of our picks, which is a very good thing. I don't see us moving into the top 10 any time soon. If we draft better than just about every team for the next 3 or 4 years, then maybe that will be the case. It's just too hard to really know without seeing what every other team has been doing draft wise. For all we know, 25 teams may have done better than us last season. Until all the picks from those draft classes develop, nobody will know for sure. Again, the organization just needs to keep going in this direction and making sure that drafting and developing players is a permanent top priority. If that is embedded into the team's philosophy, one day we will right the ship, whether that is 2 years from now or 10 years from now.
Feliz is a pretty reliable defensive 3rd baseman. I'm not sure what his UZR is this year, but past years have been pretty good. Any team who has an injury at 3rd would give up a b prospect for Feliz at the deadline, of course if he gets hot toward the deadline. Yeah I know. I kind of addressed that in my other post. Forgot to add "two years from now" to the end of my sentence. We are still a top 10 or 15 team in terms of payroll so if we wisely signed a real impact player (not Carlos Lee, Tim Poopura) and brought up some pitchers the likes of: Seaton, Bushue, Lyles, in the coming years, I think we can possibly compete. I'm all for patience if we keep producing the prospects we have been. 05 and 06 were Tim Poopura drafts. He's a CHODE of GM. All roads lead back to Drayton of course who didn't want to sign our draft picks or even bother with scouting properly. Ed Wade and Bobby Heck have been awfully impressive early on in their tenure. Ed helped establish this Phillies team who is on the cusp of being considered a dynasty. Bobby drafted most of the Brewers impact players including Prince Fielder, Ryan Braun, Corey Hart and Rickie Weeks. I'm not sure if he drafted Yovani Gallardo or if Yovani was an international signing, but he's a beast.
I don't think it is entirely outside the realm of the expected. Specifically, I saw a number of people who pointed at his low K/9 number last year as proof that he might stumble upon being moved up. On the other hand, Jordan Lyles seems to be doing really well despite the fact that the next youngest person on his team is three years older than him.
Wagner did make it fairly easy. None were close, mostly fastballs inside. The scary thing was on 3-0 Feliz wasn't taking all the way despite being down 2 runs. The ball was just so high he didn't pull the trigger.
It sounds like Wandy is OK to pitch today. Berkman may be back, too, but I wouldn't be surprised if they hold him out for another day or so. As much as our offense desperately needs him, if he makes the groin worse, we'll end up losing him for even more time.
Wow...this sounds just like the blueprint for the Pittsburgh Pirates and Washington Nationals. Trade for prospects and when they hit free agency, trade them for more prospects. At some point, you actually have to have players on the MLB roster that can, you know, play the game.
And the best way to have a MLB roster that can, you know, actually play the game well (unlike the current group) is to invest resources into young controllable assets. ....or have a 250 million dollar payroll.
And it turned out to be an unsustainable philosophy in today's game. The A's did as much as concede that point when they opened up the checkbook to Ben Sheets. Agreed, but what I read a lot on this board is trading Lee, Oswalt and Berkman. That philosophy smacks of McMullen letting Nolan Ryan walk off to Arlington. There are some guys that you just want to keep in the organization. Not a trade, but the Astros went from Tejada to Manzella...check. Expanded playing time for Keppinger rather than going after an FA...check. Letting Valverde walk and taking the $10M he wanted to get a setup man and a closer is a good example of this. Not to mention saving the salary Hawkins wanted. There are ways to do this that do not involve trading off the lineup.
Refman, How many productive years do you think Berkman, Oswalt and Lee have left in them? 3, 4, 5, other? And how many years do you think it will take, in a best-case scenario, for the Astros to be a playoff team given the current state of the big club and the farm system? 3, 4, 5, other? Or, were you just wanting to keep guys like Berkman and Oswalt for sentimental reasons?
