You guys remember this team? In the midsts of rebuilding they fielded a unforgettable 65-97 team. But man look at their young players. (all stats up to this year from baseball-reference.com) 25 year old Craig Biggio: 291/381/436 7x all-star 4x golden glove, 3x top ten mvp voting, border-line hall of famer (will deserve to be in, imo) 23 year old Jeff Bagwell: 303/415/554, 4x all-star, roy 91, mvp 94, gold glove 94, 6x top ten mvp, likely hall of famer 28 year old Ken Caminiti: 272/347/447, 3x all star, 3x gold glove, mvp 96, 239 hrs, 983 rbi 26 year old Steve Finley: 275/332/439, 2x all star, 4x gold glove, top ten mvp 96, 202 hrs, 1000+ runs, 818 rbi, 265 steals 23 year old Luis Gonzales: 286/363/484, 3x all star, top ten mvp 01 24 year old Kenny Loften: 302/377/425, 6x all star, 4x gold glove, top ten mvp 94, 1050 runs, 474 steals, 24 year old Pete Harnisch: 111/103, 3.89 era, all-star 91, 3x top ten era 22 year old Darryl Kile: 128/115, 4.14 era, 3x all-star, 2x top five cy young 24 year old Curt Schilling:150/ 105, 3.37 era, 5x all-star, nlcs mvp 93, world series mvp 01, top ten mvp 01, 2x top five cy young (possible hall-of-famer) Man i wish we kept all those players together and watched them grow up astros. Maybe our playoff record would be a little different.
DANG! I've only watched the Stros for a few years, and knew they had those players, but I didn't know they had them at the same time. WOW!
come on!!! you can do this with almost any team!! hindsight is 20/20, kidrock. did you honestly think Luis Gonzales would become what he has become?? particularly this late in his career? Bagwell, Biggio, and Caminiti all spent the bulk of their playing careers with us...the Lofton trade was the only one that really upset me at the time, but the Astros had a particular need for a catcher that year and acquired Taubansee. This is, in some part, a testament to the strength of the Astros farm system...but other than the Yankees, no team could have afforded to keep this group together given the economics of baseball. by the way kidrock...drayton may very well be on his way to his 5th division title in the last 6 years....just thought you might be interested. that's not exactly shabby...not many other teams can say they've been that consistently competitive over the same span of time.
I think you could have predicted Luis' stardom. He was great in the minors. So good that they moved him from 3b to the OF just so they could get him up to the big leagues.
Well, they had some guy named Caminiti playing 3rd, so they had to move him somewhere. He was never viewed as or expected to be anything other than an average to good ML player. Between '94 and '99 he changed teams 6 times; his first "very good" season was in '99 at the age of 31. The 'Zona coaches tweaked his swing (it hadn't changed since the early 90's) & the rest is history....
i thought gonzalez was pretty darn average...if i remember right, we moved him because we had a guy named alou who took over his position...does that sound right???
