http://houston.astros.mlb.com/NASAp...d=627106&vkey=perspectives&fext=.jsp&c_id=mlb 01/12/2004 1:37 PM ET Clemens gives Astros top rotation HOUSTON -- The balance of power in the National League Central division, and perhaps the National League, just shifted Houston's way. With the addition of future Hall of Famer Roger Clemens to their rotation Monday, the Houston Astros have arguably assembled the strongest rotation in the division and one of the best in baseball. With Clemens and Andy Pettitte, the Astros have become the team to beat in the division race in 2004. That's right, the same Houston Astros whose rotation trailed the league in innings pitched in 2003 now have a future Hall of Famer in Clemens anchoring what should be one of the most formidable foursomes in baseball in Clemens, Pettitte, Roy Oswalt and Wade Miller. Does it really matter who your No. 5 starter is when your top four went 62-35 last season? At the moment no team in baseball enters the 2004 season with four starting pitchers who won more games in 2003 than Houston's quartet. That 62 is more wins than the more heralded foursome in Chicago (Kerry Wood, Mark Prior, Carlos Zambrano and Matt Clement), or Philadelphia (Randy Wolf, Kevin Millwood, Vicente Padilla and Brett Myers) racked up in 2003. It's even more victories than Boston's new rotation, which now includes Curt Schilling, or Oakland's, with the Big Three of Barry Zito, Mark Mulder and Tim Hudson, recorded last season. Remember the Astros without Clemens and Pettitte finished only a game behind the Cubs last year. With Clemens and Pettitte, they've added two pitchers who won 38 games between them last season. They complement a Houston offense that scored 805 runs last year and help alleviate the pressure on a bullpen that will be without closer Billy Wagner for the first time in years. Octavio Dotel will close in Wagner's stead, but in effect Wagner's lost innings will be taken by Clemens, Pettitte, Oswalt and Miller. Those four pitched a combined 734 2/3 innings last year, or just 134.2 innings less than Houston's entire staff pitched in 2003, and that was with a now healthy Oswalt spending significant time on the disabled list. We're talking about quality innings: The combined ERA was 3.83 and the strikeouts-to-walks ratio was better than three-to-one. It is not a stretch to think Clemens and Pettitte's contributions will trickle down to the rest of the staff with the end result of shaving roughly half a run off Houston's team ERA. For a team that scored 4.9 runs per game last season, that should translate to a significant improvement in the won-loss record. With Clemens and Pettitte, opposing teams will have to attack the Astros differently in 2004. The key to beating Houston in 2003 was to stack the lineup with lefties and get the Astros early, because their bullpen was so strong it was a difficult task to beat them late. In 2004, the Wagner-less bullpen won't be quite as strong, but it will be much harder to get to them with these four, including the lefty Pettitte, starting things off. Houston relievers comprised the NL's busiest bullpen in 2003 (581 1/3 innings pitched, second most in baseball behind Texas) but they should be among the most rested in 2004. Houston's rivalry with the Cubs and Cardinals, which have grown in recent years, will be further fueled by The Rocket's liftoff from Minute Maid Park. You can understand why Houstonians, who were already excited about Pettitte's arrival in town, were catching pennant fever big time on Monday. Coming soon to an NL Central venue near them are matchups worthy of October: Clemens vs. Prior, Pettitte vs. Matt Morris, Clemens vs. Wood. A few weeks ago, the Astros were the team that lost Billy Wagner, the team with major pitching question marks. Today, they are a team to be reckoned with, a team that could accomplish bigger-than-ever things for Houston in 2004.
He had stretched in 2002 that were THE BEST of his career. In 2001, he started the year off HOT, w/ 11 and 13K complete games... but came back to earth and was better than average. Plus, a lot of that hot start could be attributed to none of the league having seen him before. In 2002, he had like a 12-game winning streak, where he was lights out, and he just looked liked the complete ace that everybody expected him to be.
Your comment may have some validity. But I'd rather sign these two instead of the last 3 in the rotation last year --- Roberson, Villone, and Redding.
Saw on the news tonight that Dean and Rog dropped off a white Hummer at Clemens' home today, courtesy of DeMontrond. Apparently now the one from the Yankees was for his 300th win, and his wife is going to keep this one. Found a link on it.
I don't have nearly the money Roger has accumulated, but you'd think they could buy their own hummer. I mean seriously. Should you really be accepting these gifts? The guy is gonna need a mess hall if he keeps this up.
http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/columns/story?columnist=kreidler_mark&id=1706645 By Mark Kreidler Special to ESPN.com The great thing about Roger Clemens' unretirement plan is that it's so close to foolproof, and I say this strictly from the viewpoint of one who perceives how low the bar has been set on this kind of Sporting Return of the King thing. By which I think we all can agree: Michael Jordan. Michael, the icon with the unslakable competitive jones, put the stick way down there in his final drive down the retirement-reversal lane. All Clemens has to do to be relatively fondly remembered in this phase of his career is to be part of a more successful effort with the Houston Astros than Jordan was with the Washington Wizards. That may not be quite the same as a filmmaker trying to surpass "Gigli" in critical acclaim, but you get the idea. Jordan joined a mess of a franchise as a front-office executive without portfolio. Clemens is joining a Houston team that won 87 games last year and missed the playoffs by a victory or two, and he's doing so as an active player. Jordan eventually went down to the court again, presumably to show the youngsters how the game of basketball was supposed to be played. Within weeks, he said this when asked if it were frustrating to see the half-hearted effort of some of the Wizards' players: "Are you nuts? It gives me the understanding that some of these guys may not be back here next year when I go upstairs." That didn't turn out to be the Wizards' players' problem; as you'll recall. Many of them wound up lasting longer than Jordan after he tried to return to his post running the franchise for Abe Pollin. Roger Clemens should have lots of help in Houston. And maybe Roger learned something from Michael -- the second-unretirement Michael, not the first one. (Nobody counts Jordan's return to the Bulls, because almost nobody believed Jordan was retired the first time around). Maybe Clemens didn't simply choose the Astros because they were close to his hometown of Katy, Texas, but rather because they also don't stink. As 11th-hour changes of heart go, this one could have some strong legs. Whereas Jordan went to the Wizards as an unproven commodity in terms of his front-office savvy, Clemens is basically going to get paid again for doing something he knows how to do at a Hall of Fame level. Oh, sure, he's older, and his work from the 2003 season -- 17-9 with a 3.91 ERA for a Yankees team that won 101 games -- was only Top 15 caliber, not otherworldly. But consider the ways in which Clemens hedged this bet. He joins a pitching staff that already included Wade Miller and a presumably healthy Roy Oswalt, then went out and snagged Clemens' friend Andy Pettitte. Clemens waited until long after Pettitte was signed and delivered to even express a slight interest in reconsidering his retirement, and he has sort of happily allowed the conversation to appear as if it were entirely generated by Pettitte -- as if the left-hander were spending all his free time in the winter bugging Clemens to come aboard. Clemens chose wisely, plain and simple. He's going to a good franchise in a winnable division, going to a team that had already improved itself and its playoff chances before he so much as received a semi-official cell-phone call. If the Astros go on to something dramatic like their first-ever World Series appearance, people will be lined up down the street to thank Clemens for pushing them to the top of the mountain, though one suspects Oswalt and Miller and Tim Redding and Richard Hidalgo and Jeff Kent and Jeff Bagwell and Lance Berkman might have something to do with it, too. Michael Jordan may have envisioned a similar bronze-plating for himself in Washington, but he chose poorly. Scratch that: He chose with the poor-choosing intensity of a thousand suns. Jordan signed on to do stuff he hadn't ever done, with complete confidence that he could run a front-office as well as a frontcourt. He was largely wrong -- and his subsequent third incarnation as a player, while thankfully never veering close to an embarrassment, did absolutely nothing for either his legacy or his memory. In time, it'll almost be as if Washington never happened. You'd hate to see the same kind of selective memory apply to Clemens; it's already hard enough recalling that he used Toronto as his pass-through point from Boston to New York (and was very good for the Blue Jays along the way). But, then, Clemens has an advantage going in here that Jordan didn't have in Washington: He's joining a team that only needs Clemens to make it better, not to make it good in the first place. Jordan had it the other way around in Washington. Result: A nice, low bar. Step over easy, Rocket.
I found out about the news when I was on a KLM flight taking off in Saudi to Amsterdam. It was great to read about it in the USA Today. Damn, this season is going to be great. I am so pumped up for this season. The Astros sure have started quite a bit of excitement.
I just got back from a resort in Palawan, Phillippines.....they didnt have TV or papers there. Currently logging online for the first time in over a week from the Bangkok Airways lounge in Bangkok. Great news, when I get home I'll make Drayton happy and grab a mini-pack.
You better hurry cause they are going fast. Clemens brought out over 13,000 fans to the Aeros game tonight to watch him drop the puck.
