I think Oswalt's problems stem from his over-aggressive pitching approach. He is so accurate and throws strike, batters are just free swinging knowing he will throw strikes. I think if he painted the corners more and went away from using the "in your face" approach. Wagner had the same problem except that Oswalt KNOWS the value of a second and third pitch. Wags just pipped it in there and dared you to hit it. Oswalt need to be more selective in where puts the ball through a hitters at-bat. And it does appear that Roy is easing off on the speed , especially early in a game.
No, I don't want to make a bet. I never said I wanted to bet or was willing to bet on it. I simply stated my belief that unless something seriously changes with this club, I think we are heading toward 100 losses. I think, as currently constructed, we ARE one of the worst teams in baseball. You don't have to bet to prove you believe something. I will maintain my belief that we are headed for 100 losses until I see something with this team that tells me different. And that would be............. 1. Consistent solid pitching from our 2-4 starters for a period of over two weeks. (Note: This doesn't mean we are headed for even .500. It would simply indicate to me that we have the possibility of avoiding 100 losses) 2. A major trade bringing us a substantial starting pitcher that could be the definitive #1 or #2 pitcher on this team. The onus to prove that this is not a 100 loss team is on you. We got a great pitching performance from Chacon last night and the bully blew it up in one inning. That was a W that was taken away from us. I know it's still early but all the signs are pointing the wrong direction. IF..............Oswalt loses tonight, he is 0-4. He's gonna be chasing .500 for a couple months at least. This season is just not sitting up right to me. BTW, I am basing my belief on what I've seen in the past. I used to live in another city and I watched a team go very quickly from a playoff contender to a 100 loss team after they basically traded away a bunch of their pitching. And they were in a pitching friendly ballpark. I know......we've started out bad before and somehow have been able to rectify the ship. But........that was with much better starting pitching and middle relief.....and the addition of Roger Clemens to give us a boost. We don't have the starting pitching this year and Roger Clemens ain't walking through that door, not now, not in May, not in July. All you guys that seem to think 100 losses is an impossibility should write down here where we are going to get 63 wins at from this pitching staff. Write down what you project. Here's mine. Roy O. 13-14 wins. (won 14 games in 32 starts a year ago with a better bullpen behind him and an extra 5 mph on his fastball) Wandy 10 wins (9-13 last year in 31 starts with a 4.58 era. I'll give him an extra couple W's here) Backe 10 wins (he's pitched in 13 games total the last two years, coming off major injury) Sampson 10 wins (won 7 games last year, I like him, I think he's got potential to get better, I'll give him 10 wins based on the fact I think he can improve to that level, but the bully is gonna lose some of his good games) Chacon 8 wins? (do you realize this guy hasn't started 20 games in a season since 2003?!?!? he's a relief pitcher!?! Bullpen??? (won 22 games a year ago, including 11 from Qualls and Lidge) Just don't see it. 10 wins??? Can you really see 4 starting pitchers getting double digit wins? See how far you have to stretch everybody's numbers just to hit 70 Ws???? If.............Oswalt were to come up with a shoulder/arm problem, how many of you guys would flip the switch and all of a sudden believe this is a 100 loss team???????? Hate to say it. But at some point for us to build a WS contender, we've got to get quality starting pitching in here. Clemens and Pettitte masked the mistakes made by our previous front office. They are not here to cover up all the mess anymore. We have to deal with the cold, hard reality. That is, we have one quality starting pitcher, who is going on the wrong side of 30, making a ton of dough, on a losing team, and looking like he's lost something besides. I really, really like Oswalt. But I can clearly see the very distinct possibility that we will have to trade him and possibly even Carlos Lee to get a ton of prospects and rebuild. For a betting person, the odds clearly state that you would be best to bet against us being in the playoffs or even being in contention for the playoffs. If........one thing goes wrong on this club, one injury to one of our major pitchers, or one of our paper thin pitchers goes down, then the odds are that we will be cellar dwellers and trying to avoid 100 losses. AT THE VERY LEAST, we are headed for one long, hot, boring summer with a MEDIOCORE AT BEST baseball team that is not a contender.
No, the onus is on you to show how this team is at least 11 games worse than they were a season ago. Yes, the starting pitching is likely to be bad. Guess what? It was even worse last year. Do the names Woody Williams, Jason Jennings and Matt Albers ring a bell? And sorry, projecting the bullpen will have 10 wins combined is just insane. You do realize that Valverde alone has picked up two wins in the first two weeks -- with an ERA of about 600 and the offense not really clicking? Your entire premise is flawed in that whether a pitcher notches a win -- especially a relief pitcher -- is not directly correlated to his ability. It's based on a lot of other factors -- the offense, timing, and in Valverde's case, luck. In fact, in many cases, the better bullpens don't pick up a lot of wins, because their starting pitchers give them leads earlier in games, and if they do their job, they get a save or hold and not a win. In many cases (again, see Valverde), if they don't do their job, they'll get the win, because that's just the ridiculous nature of the stat. You would have to have a ridiculously talented starting pitching staff or one of the worst offenses in the history of the sport to expect the bullpen to have 10 wins or fewer. Obviously, neither is the case with the Astros. I'll also make you a bet -- if none of Backe, Wandy, Sampson or Chacon have more than 10 wins, I'll never post in this forum again. Sorry, that's just ludicrous.
I give up then. Which team are you talking about (Seattle seemed to meet the criteria you mentioned)?
Stop playing games. Why don't you just project how many wins you think those 4 pitchers will combine for? I'll project less than 35. And I'll project Oswalt at 15 or less. That's 50 wins. It'll be up to the bullpen to pull another 13 to avert 100 losses. LOL, funny thing is, it really don't make much difference whether they lose 90 or 100. But if we lose 94 instead of 100, some of you will point to how wrong I was and how right you were. You are acting like you'd be happy if we don't lose 100. LOL You guys are jumping all over me for saying we could very well hit 100. The point is, we are not contenders and have NOCHANCE with the way this team is currently constructed, to contend, NO CHANCE! The point is, we're not even close.
We're not close to a 100 loss team either, which is sort of the point people are making. To lose 100 games you have to be stunningly bad, which we aren't. We aren't great, but we aren't nearly as bad as you make out.
The Kansas City Royals have averaged over 91 losses per season since they won the World Series in 1985. They have had a poor front office, low budget, small market, and because of the poor decisions of their front office, their farm system has sucked. The greatest weakness on the field of this team over the past 22 years has been a consistent lack of quality pitching, and they have been in a very pitcher friendly ballpark all of those years. Their pitching and farm system is just now, after 20 years of futility and bad front office, starting to turn around. We've got all the same elements here. Small market, small budget, poor front office decisions the past few years, nobody on the farm system which has been depleted by poor trades and poor player development, and currently a paper thin pitching staff. It all spells bad news. Granted, it may not take us 20 years to bottom out and realize how to rebuild. I think Ed Wade was a good hire and he obviously has an eye for young talent. That is what this team needs. A plethora of young talent that can be developed by good baseball people. But, in the short term, it could get real ugly.
I'm not playing games; I explained the logical flaw in projecting W/L record for pitchers based on perceived ability. You chose to ignore it. Before yesterday, Jose Valverde was 2-0 (in about two weeks) with an ERA of 7.50. Think about that. If you want to argue this team isn't a contender, that's fine. I'll agree with that. But unless you drop the nonsense about 100 losses, you're going to get challenged on it.
For the Most part.... Offense------------- bueno Starting Pitching---- bueno Closer ------------- Ay ...No bueno.
Umm, what?!? Kansas City is a small market, and has routinely fielded teams with payrolls under $50 million. Even after taking an admittedly overly aggressive, spend approach the past two years, the max they've reached is $58 million. Houston is a medium to large market, and has had a $100 million payroll in recent years. This year, it's at $88 million. That's more than 1.5 times the KC payroll! The Astros payroll and budget has consistently been in the top 10-12 in the game. The Royals payroll and budget has consistently been close to dead last. Can you please elaborate and show some evidence on how Houston and Kansas City have the "all the same elements" and are even in the same universe when it comes to "small market, small budget"?
The offense has scored the 4th fewest runs in the NL. Behind them are the Nationals, Colorado, and the Giants. I'd expect that to improve of course, but same with closer (and SP will probably get worse).
Good points. But we've been winning and Drayton has been overspending because of Clemens, etc. That's about to come to an end, and when this team is losing and the stadium has an average attendance of about 18,000, you will see the payroll cuts. If the team does not correct, this is the front end of the fall, not the tail end of what you are seeing in KC over the last few years. Drayton's not gonna sit on this payroll without it producing a winner. He'll slash and he's got the GM in place to do just such a rebuild job in Ed Wade (see Philly). IN 1989 the Royals had the 7th highest payroll in baseball and were still attempting to compete for the playoffs/WS, in 1990, they were in the top 3. But the owner died, and the team became noncontenders in a short period of time and their small market started to show. Then the payroll slashes started and it's taken them 20 years to rectify the ship by producing some good minor league players in combination with more steady ownership willing to spend more money. Still waiting for your number of wins from our other 4 starting pitchers.
I'm still waiting to hear why W/L record is correlated with ability. When you explain how it is, I'll give you an estimate. Also, you have absolutely no clue about baseball in Houston if you think 18,000 will become the norm for attendance at any point in the next five years, minimum.
Well lets see...assuming Oswalt gets back on track (and so far tonight it looks that way) it's very reasonable for him to get 15-20. In 2006 Backe notched 10 wins in 26 games; If he's stays healthy no reason to assume he can't do that. Chacon got 5 wins out of the bullpen last year; so far he's pitching pretty good, and if given the chance to start a full slate of games I think you could see between 7-10 wins. Wandy has recorded 9-10 wins in each of the last three seasons; he's started well too so I think you could expect about the same this year. And Sampson got 9 wins last year in only 24 starts. So, it's very possible every one of our starters could get to double digits in wins or very close to it. So let's say about 55 wins from our starters. Now let's look at the bullpen... Borkowski notched 5 last season, Brocail had 5, Geary 3, Moehler 1, Valverde 1 (but has 2 already), Villareal 2, and Wright has 1 already. That brings us to 74 wins...now you have to take into consideration that the lineup is improved over last year, so some of the losses or no decisions our starters got could very well turn into wins themselves. So it's possible each one of our starters could improve their win total by a few games from the projections above. That would basically bring us to around a .500 team...far from 100 losses. How much better or worse they do depends on when the offense really starts to crank, how long the starters hold up and if/when Valverde can get back on track.
Didn't the Astros still pull in mid-twenties in attendance during some of the crappy years in the dome in the nineties?
That's what makes this so funny -- the bullpen has pitched terribly, we're only 8.6 percent into the season, and they already have 3 wins. And somehow they'll have 10 wins or under for the entire season?
Like its already been mentioned, he is conscious of his velocity and he has said several times that he takes some speed off now as a compromise for accuracy. Now you are right, he throws 91-93, which is good enough for a SP. There really is no need to be throwing 98mph if you are spotting and your 4-seamer is live. But back to the original point, even when he was throwing harder, he was averaging around 95 mph and occasionally gunning up to 97 or 98, not throwing 96-98 mph on average, that never happened. But its been a long time since he's thrown 95mph on average. Here are his breakdowns from one site that I found for the past 4 seasons. Season FB Velocity FB% ‘05 93.1 69.8 ‘06 92.7 68.4 ‘07 92.7 65.6 ‘08 91.8 59.6 http://www.attheyard.com/MinorLeagueMemories/printer_724.shtml And are you going to tell me that he hasn't been an effective pitcher for the past 4 seasons? I don't think so. So that's why I say he hasn't lost 4-5mph off his 4-seamer, he hasn't thrown like that in a long time. He could still gun it up if he wanted to, but really if he is locating there is no reason to risk injury for the unnecessary extra mph. Plus, with his small frame, he is smart to decrease toll in anyway he can. And uhh, no way we are losing 100 games. That is borderline insanity talk.
