Astros...Buyers or Sellers?

The Phillies weren't willing to give up Bourn during the 2007 regular season.

The Astros and Purpura figured Lidge would have more value after the season, and considering Bourn was available then and not during the season, perhaps he did. And yes, I absolutely think Purpura deals for Valverde, if he has the Lidge deal lined up first.

Why do you keep changing the argument? I wasn't saying Purpura was as good of a general manager as Hunsicker. Wasn't saying his players compared. What I was laughing at was your implication that a GM couldn't be considered "aggressive" if the players he signed had a local connection, given that Hunsicker played similar angles and earned your praises.

 

When you're at the top or have a really good team is exactly when you make those sort of moves. Same as the Astros with Randy Johnson and Carlos Beltran. You trade your future to take a team from good to great - not to take a team from mediocre to above-mediocre. The reason the Astros are in the mess they are in now is exactly because of the strategy you propose. Constantly making trades with very short-sighted thinking gets you into a long term mess, and eventually it can't be sustained. That's where the Astros are at now.

 

Tim Purpura. That's my point -- you can't blame Drayton for not being "committed to winning" by not spending. He'll spend. It's just that his baseball people, such as Purpura, chose to spend $100m on Carlos Lee instead of starting pitching. So if you're frustrated about the rotation, the place to put your anger is with Purpura/Wade/Smith, not with McLane.

 

Sorry you're made, but I'm not sure what you expected to happen. Everything they've said publicly and the moves that they made set this team up to finish what it started...good or bad.


Lastly, Tim Purpura was fired nearly 3 years ago. Can we finally stop with the "Poopura"? It wasn't really funny then and it's just childish now.

 

Not to mention that it was a move that fans were screaming for after the Beltran debacle.

 

Yeah, but you don't publicly admit that you're content to be mediocre, if not below it

 

Do you realize how lucky Hunsicker and the Astros were with the Pettitte/Clemens deal? Gerry would tell you the same thing. Here are two all-world pitchers, best friends, who just happened to be free agents in the same offseason, and happened to be from the same hometown. Can you tell me when Purpura had an even remotely close opportunity to the stars aligning like that?

Regardless, it's not about the talent brought back. It's about the weak claim that Purpura was "scared" to make a move. He made plenty of moves -- they just didn't all work out. Happens sometimes.

Anyway, my point in all of this is that it really bugs me when people try to blame the downturn of the Astros on one person, whether it be Drayton, Purpura, or whoever. It's so simplistic, and also ridiculous. Everyone has blame.

It's Drayton's fault for "holding the line" for Selig on draft pick salaries for years, and letting so many slip away. It's Hunsicker's fault for poor drafting in his final few years. It's Purpura's fault for trading in what few trade chips/revenue he had on pitchers that were broken down, and depending on your opinion, the Carlos Lee signing. It's also Ed Wade's fault, depending on your view, for the Tejada deal, as well as letting Wolf/Wigginton walk last winter while signing countless mediocre relievers and veterans.

It's also just bad luck, with the Beltran negotiations, as well as just natural selection -- the Astros were a veteran team for a long time, and when you hold onto players throughout their careers instead of trading them for prospects (Bagwell, Biggio, etc.), you're undoubtedly going to feel a hit for a few years. I apologize for the long rant, but it really bothers me when people put almost all of the blame on one person, when in reality there's a whole lot to go around.

 

Absolutely a part of it - the system wasn't producing your A-level players like Berkman and Oswalt by any stretch. However, it was producing MLB-capable players. But replace Valverde with Qualls. Carlos Lee with Luke Scott. Tejada with Ben Zobrist. You end up with basically the same team, at $30MM less in payroll that could be used to address other issues (starting pitching, for example).

But in an effort to chase mediocrity, we traded for Valverde, Tejada, Wigginton, etc. And overpaid for Lee.

The Astros trade philosophy until we become good again should be simple: only make trades that extend the life of your talent base rather than those that shrink it. In other words, don't trade 5 years of average players under club control for a 1/2 season of potentially better players. Not all these bad moves were obvious at the time. Jennings was supposed to be better than he was. Zobrist wasn't expected to be anything. Scott was a questionmark. But all of them were trades that landed us people we didn't control for any extended period, while giving up people who could have played a role on the team for a low price for several years. And if you keep doing that, you're going to keep eating at whatever talent base you do have.

 

So, after no moves are made by the Astros, whats next? Wade holding a press conference explaining why we are contenders? pshhh

 

i thought you stopped watching!!!

 

I believe I can vent....

 

hard to stop watching a trainwreck.

 

torture?? no...who are you people??

they're not going to do anything

they're not going to trade away talent for younger talent

they're not going to acquire someone you're going to be excited about

they're just not.

if you must stop watching astros baseball henceforth, please exit to your left.

 

i just heard the we haven't acquired a major league player on july 31st since 2001.