yeah, guys, come on. rebuilding means getting rid of your 2 best players, then immediately extending an overachieving pitcher for 3yrs/10mm. thats what drayton does, so you GOTTA agree with it in hindsight, right? i mean, if they jettisoned every player, blah, blah, blah....then you would have just bashed the HELL out of drayton and co., right?? lol. why did you suddenly start posting on here anyway? just to antagonize people?
Certainly. But this was a time when the Astros were skimping on their minor leagues - not signing all their draft picks, closing academies, etc. In that scenario, I'd much rather not spend money on the major league team and let it struggle than to put money into competing now and end up sacrificing elsewhere. Every dollar spent on a zombie major league team is money that can't be spent elsewhere. With the payroll flexibility the team has now, and the commitment they seem to have shown to focusing on other areas, I don't have a big issue with the Myers signing. I think they probably overpaid for a career year, but it's not a debilitating contract (Carlos Lee) and doesn't really hurt their rebuilding. The one exception is if we could have traded him for real value. If that was the case, I'd much rather have traded him, but we don't know what exactly was offered.
right, because this is the main criteria for judging that trade. Not his 0.43 ERA for the Astros in 2008.
yep, pretty much all latroy hawkins. so, if drayton was a buyer at this deadline, to delusion-ally pray for(and fall short of) another miracle run the final 60 games, you'd be in favor of that as well, right? anybody with common sense could see that the team was spiraling down the drain in 2008. and they would have all been right. and drayton (and you, obv) were wrong. period. close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades, kiddo.
i said that the trade was useless for a team out of the pennant race, no matter how good or bad he pitched, and i was right. keep avoiding that small fact and go sift through my 2,000 posts and find a better one that you don't pwn (as somebody like you would say) yourself on.
This is a good post and one I can get behind. However, I think it's worth noting that every front office has a duty to their fans to field as competitive a team as possible under the circumstances, which is why short-term moves that don't cost a lot (i.e. Feliz) or trades for undervalued players (Hawkins, Wolf, Lindstrom, Kepping) involving C- prospects make smart baseball sense. Myers' contract is fair considering his body of work and the payroll flexibility the organization means it's not going to cripple the team in the long-term. Everyone assumes Myers is going to regress significantly, but what if he's the next Cliff Lee?
by the way, will you show us where you think you are in comparison with ed wade on the baseball knowledge scale? lol.
How can a trade be useless if a guy pitches extremely well and contributes value to a team? The Astros gave up nothing to get him and they got a significant return on their investment. But in cardpire's loony world, if the Yankees don't want a guy he's useless.
you're grasping at straws, my boy. everything in that post was so spot on, it's remarkable. the trade showed drayton's mentality. too delusional to realize that his team was toast, and that it was time to rebuild. buying instead of selling. couldn't see it in '07, couldnt see it in '08, couldn't see it in '09. and i'm not even sure he sees in in 2010, but he's getting closer. i am so damn proud of that post. luv ya for bumpin' it!
I sense that you're against a team being a "buyer" at any time unless they are in the playoff race.... period. Screw them trying to be at least somewhat competitive, screw the product on the field and the fans that pay to see them. I don't think there's anything wrong with trying to keep the team competitive, in giving the fans some hope, some sense of excitement...so long as you're not sacrificing the rebuilding process. I don't think this deal will do that, and if by some chance the team starts to put up some more wins in the next year or two, and Myers is still pitching well, he'll be a nice arm in that rotation. If not, 3 million buyout and we're done with him.
For the record, the Hawkins deal was a definite head-scratcher for me at that time because Hawkins looked like he was finished, but I honestly did care enough about Cusick to bother criticizing the move. I thought it was odd but hardly worth wasted breath. Yet the general consensus at the time was that Ed Wade was incredibly stupid for making that deal. I never quite understood that line of attack since, prior to making that trade, Matt Cusick was thought of as just another guy in a crappy farm system.
not at all. in our situation however, absolutely. wolf and hawkins were moves for the present (like final 2 months of the season present). on a team that was in clear (in my correct opinion) need of rebuilding and being sellers. i'm really sick or arguing crap that i was right about 2 years ago just because of a link posted by some antagonistic bozo who decided to come out of the woodworks after 3 years for some unknown reason.
What were you right about!?!?! YOU. WERE. WRONG.!!! The fact that the Astros did not make the playoffs in 2008 or 2009 is not relevant to your assessment of that trade. You bashed the trade solely on the basis of the Astros being out of contention, even though they got themselves right back into the playoff race thereafter. It is undeniable that Hawkins pitched very well for the Astros during those two seasons and was fantastic out of the bullpen in the second half of the 2008 season. Trading for him cost nothing and gave the team productivity at the major league level.
I'm not talking about Hawkings and Wolf... you seem to be rather against this Myers deal, unless as you said they get another solid arm for the rotation to compete. Maybe they do, maybe they don't...I don't think Drayton's thinking playoffs with this move...but I do think the team wants to put an entertaining and competitive product on the field..and Myers helps to achieve that...maybe he's just a stop gap measure until the team finds real success. I'm fine with that because they're not spending 15+ a year on him. Hell maybe they revisit a potential Myers trade in the offseason when a team offers better prospects, who knows.
i'm not completely against the myers signing. seems like jumping the gun, given the player, and the terms, but whatever. "here's 5 million, if you pitch well for 20 starts, there's 30 million more where that came from". i'm interested to see the makeup of the 2011 roster.
Even if we assume Happ is a front of the rotation guy, Lyles will be ready soon and that we can find 2 back of the rotation guys out of Wright, Norris and Paulino...you still have to keep one out of Myers and Wandy. That's assuming no injuries ever. Probably a necessary deal, IMHO.
