But businesses don't operate based on a single year. Your goal is to make money over the long term. If you make an extra $2 million this year, that gives you more flexibility the next year. Or, at DoItDickau pointed out, that's $2 million this year that you could spend on signing some Latin American prospects, or invest in scouting, or whatever. You still always have the option to release Cusick or Reineke next year - or trade them for other prospects or whatever. But you have $2 million more to rebuild the underlying organization with.
I would also like to point to the Rockets as an example of what happens when star players keep losing. The excitement of Francis and Mobley lasted a very short period. Once people realized the team sucked anyway, people stopped coming out to see the star players.
not if it works out. how would you feel if they dealt oswalt and berkman (likely to contenders, so we'd get to watch arguably the two greatest players in franchise history play on someone else's playoff team) and the prospects they got back fizzled out?..... you're gonna be OK when the 2-3 year rebuilding process stretches to a 5-6 year one? i'm not arguing the current team is good; it's not. but it's better than a team of AAAA never-weres. they have to do SOMETHING while they rebuild the farm and they have a much greater chance for success building around berkman, oswalt and lee than they do scrapping that plan and going in a different direction. if they can piece together something that's at least competitive, hopefully it'll be OK until the next wave is ready.
they signed one-year deals worth $3.75M and $4M, respectively. if the astros are paying half of their remaining salary (unlikely, given we're 20+ games past the actual halfway point of the season), then they're on the hook for less than $4M for both. that risk is infinitely higher when you invest in unproven prospects. the guy was in single A!! this is a stone's throw away from being a FA acquisition. and i won't call your bluff - name just 15 *available* relievers with hawkins' track record. and who among that group would return a decent prospect?
berkman and oswalt are light years times infinity plus 12 better than francis and mobley ever were and they're not playing for a league that, during the francis/mobley era, fell out of favor with the general public and, more importantly, the corporate sector. the astros and MMP will draw fans for many more years, regardless of the results.
At the same time, you see Mobley and Francis for the vast majority of a game, every game. You see Oswalt a lot, but only every fifth game. Unless you like watching Berkman in the field, you see Berkman about 5 times a game, for a total of maybe 1-2 minutes each time. If you're drawn out by stars, you're much more likely to go to a game to watch Francis and Mobley ooh and ahh you than you are Berkman. Oswalt can certainly draw fans, but only to 20% of the game.
I'll let you know what he says. Cusick isn't a great prospect, and you are right that being the "top" prospect in the astros system doesn't mean much, but he did have some value. And, imo, Hawkins brings no value to the team. l His 07 was an era mirage. Look at the peripherals. He's collapsed since 05. He is striking out about 4.5 batter per 9. and his K/BB ratio is a horrid 4/3. And it's not just a fluke but something that has been represented in a steady 3 year decline. He is not going to survive with those kinds of ratios. Also let me clarify. I think the Yankees are picking up a lot of his salary, so it's probably less than 2 million that he is owed. Wolf is the one taking on salary (3.5 million? i think i might have quoted 4.5 million in an earlier post, my bad). The problem with the trade is, imo, he doesn't help the mlb club over alternatives and he costs the astros a marginal prospect. Not that he is owed an exorbitant amount of money or anything. But this argument could go on forever. If Drayton is willing to spend 4 million more next year, then he could spend 8 million more. etc. Bottom line is that there is a finite amount of resources that Drayton and the organization have. 4 million being spent in one area means that 4 million is not being spent somewhere else. It is also especially relevant when the Astros have a recent history of not signing draft picks because of 100k dollars gap in negotiations. It's also relevant when the Astros haven't been competitive in signing high bonus elite latin american talent. Maybe that has changed in the last year. We'll see, but there is always someplace in the system where 4 million per year can go to good use.
LIke I said in my last post, I misquoted the amount they were owed. I believe wolf is owed ~3.5 including bonuses, hawkins is not owed much. Sorry for that. The risk of not improving the farm system right now is that the team will be bad for the next decade. It's not smart just to give away prospects, even single A prospects. Prospects have value, even single A prospects with an eta of years. Well replacement level in baseball is defined as "level of performance an average team can expect when trying to replace a player at minimal cost, also known as "freely available talent." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VORP Hawkins is a below replacement level pitcher (he has a -1.3 vorp this year), meaning by definition, he is worse than what is known as "freely available talent." If you really want me to list dozen of pitchers who are "freely available" i will, but hopefully his performance and that definition will suffice.
Sometime's doing nothing can be a viable option. The average fan won't think Latroy Hawkins and Randy Wolf will do anything. Many will just roll their eyes like some already done here. Signing a big FA like Carlos Lee or trading for a good player does. The problem with this club is that aside from messing the farm, they also messed up their veteran acquisitions during the post-Clemens/Pettitte era and thus we are in the situation we are in. I don't know about the others, but I'm not advocating trading Berkman/Oswalt. My biggest problem is that the Astros don't seem to have any sort of plan or at least one that we can identify. Are they sellers? Are they buyers? Why does a team 14 games back trading for veteran pitchers? I realize Ed Wade's trying to fix the problems that Purpura (as well as Husicker right before he left) created, but I don't see a competitive team in the short-term future unless Drayton really opens the wallet or Wade has a very fantastic draft/off-season.
it IS less than $2M w/o the yankees; if they're picking up some of it, it's even less. it's a base of $4M; so they're paying less than half of that - that's nothing. and yes, he IS better than any alternatives, the best of which, apparently, is runelvys hernandez, who has an 8+ ERA. look, in the simplest terms possible: if his payroll was $100M before and $104M after - next year, it goes back to $100M; not $96M. It is also especially relevant when the Astros have a recent history of not signing draft picks because of 100k dollars gap in negotiations. It's also relevant when the Astros haven't been competitive in signing high bonus elite latin american talent. Maybe that has changed in the last year. We'll see, but there is always someplace in the system where 4 million per year can go to good use.[/QUOTE] they've signed all but 4 picks this year, i believe?.... and he still spent to get wolf and hawkins.
He is a below replacement level player, meaning by definition he is worse than "freely available talent." or it could have been 104 this year and the Astros could have signed some 1Million + latin american bonus babies to improve their farm system with that 4 million. there is always someplace in the system where 4 million could be put to good use.
In '02 and '03 Hawkins was a combined 15-3 with a 1.99 ERA. Too bad it's been five long years since then.
Not only is Hawkins pretty bad these days... but he's also a bad person. He threw at the head of Luke Scott this year just because he had hit a HR earlier. When Luke Scott confronted him about it.. you could see Latroy mouth the words "Shut the F#$# up" repeatedly. The guy is complete garbage. Horrible trade for the Stros.
If you believe Hawkins can replace Sampson, then Sampson was a better alternative than Wolf in the rotation - and he wouldn't cost any prospects or salary, plus you'd have another chance to see if Sampson could be a productive member of the rotation as he was last year until the injuries hit. But that's not how companies budget money. They don't simply look at it in one-year segments. Money spent now has to come from somewhere. Unless you expect Drayton to just take a $4MM loss, chances are it comes out of payroll down the road, farm system investments, etc. So if you have $4MM left, go invest it in better scouts. Or expanding your Venezuelan academy. Or go give ALL of it to the #1 prospect in the Dominican Republic. Any of those is a better use of $4MM than Wolf and Hawkins, especially if you look beyond this year.
assuming there's "freely **available** talent," as if talented middle relievers grow on trees - i've asked you for 15 with hawkins' track record - tell ya what: list 5. you keep assuming this is a rob peter to pay paul operationn - it may be; i don't obviously have access to their accounting practices. but my guess is that it's not; that he has a budget for his major league team; one for his minor league system; one for his draft picks; one for international scouting, etc. i doubt it's just one big set amount.
because you'd then be competing with several other teams. a trade of a worthless prospect ensures you get the guy you want. (and, according to the mlb grapevine, several teams - the tigers, twins - expressed a passing interest in hawkins - http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/latroy_hawkins/index.html)
which its is kinda the definition of free available talent" " Alberto Arias, Reineke (before the trade),kyle middleton, Dave Borkowski, Chad Paronto, jorge sosa, chance douglass, mark mclemore, ray king, Samuel Gervacio, and on and on hundred fold. Hawkins is one of the worst players in mlb baseball at this point in his career.
