I completely forgot about Happ. LOL myself. I agree, he is a MLB pitcher. Just a question of what quality.
Man, Uncle D is out of his mind. If I had the money to buy the Astros I would fill the roster with mostly Japanese players. We would win the world series in 2 years.
WTF is Drayton smoking...you do not tie up this type of $$ on a flash in the pan...if he was soo good, why did he end up here? because he's not that good, he's had a decent year, on a really crappy team...A turd is a turd, no matter how many times you wipe... I'd rather have a veteran like Roy than this scrub...
Well keeping Roy would have prevented us from getting any young prospects ...so obviously that would have been unwise. And paying for a veteran of Roy's caliber would cost about as much or more as he was making. And while we did have to pay parts of his and Berkman's salary, and are paying Myers about 10 a year, the team still saves a bit of money. So we save money, we get prospects, the team gets younger, and we keep a solid arm in rotation for several more years. And if Myer's starts to suck again, we're can buy him out in his third year. Seems pretty good to me.
If it was an either/or, they could have kept Roy and traded Myers instead. On the plus side on the trade market, he's cheaper, didn't have a no-trade clause, and wasn't signed beyond this year. On the downside, he's not nearly as proven. I'm not sure what he would have fetched on the trade market. But from a financial standpoint, we'll be paying something like $15MM for Myers + Oswalt's salary next year. If they had kept Oswalt and traded Myers, they'd be paying $15MM for Oswalt. So it would have been a wash financially, but it's unclear what prospects they would have gotten.
he wouldn't have fetched JA Happ (who's arguably as good as Roy if he can stay healthy) and Brett Wallace that's for sure. maybe one good prospect.
Aren't you contradicting yourself? Myers is not going to make us "competitive" by himself. So if Drayton wants to keep this team competitive while rebuilding, he's going to spend a lot of money this offseason to offset the losses of Berkman and Oswalt. Not sure what you're rooting for here. Either the Astros will continue to make "splashes", good or bad, in the offseason, in which case the Myers signing will complement those moves. Or the Astros will truly rebuild, in which case it's a complete waste. Since I don't believe Ed Wade is a total idiot, I'm going to assume that he'll follow up this move with further signings in the offseason to shore up our roster. I'd be very shocked if Uncle Drayton won't open his pocketbooks in the offseason. So here's hoping those moves actually turn out well, and the Reds/Cards regress tremendously next year.
Not sure what your point is. My thinly veiled sarcasm was about Drayton not having unlimited money. Unless you haven't been an Astros fan for long and haven't lived through the leavings of Beltran, Hampton, Kile, Wagner, etc., nor the fact that the Astros never bid against the Yankees when it comes to free agents, you should know this already. I would rather spending $3-5 mil on another good, under-the-radar pitcher who doesn't cost us anything. But then again, I guess I have my GMs mixed up. I shouldn't hold Wade to Morey's standard in terms of player evaluation.
Seriously, how many GM's go the the Larry Beinfest route--trading all their players for prospects and basically running out a AAAA team for 162 games? As of right now, the astros have somewhere in the range of $40 million with the salaries of $40 million next year with the contracts of Lee, Lyons, & Myers, plus the money they will be paying for not playing Oswalt (and potentially Berkman). That is really low in guaranteed contracts. After that, for all the arbitration players (I counted at least 14 for sure) the total is somewhere in the range of $25, if all of them get about a 20% raise which will not happen as seen by many of their play so far this year. That means about $65 million for 17 of 25 players, and that is not even counting Castro, Johnson, Bourgeous, Lopez, Manzella, Maysonet, Sanchez, or Wallace -- all of whom will probably be getting base rate arbitration salaries next year. In other words, to virtual keep this same current team next year, Drayton would have to pay $70 million at most. If he is trying to sell the team, he won't take on any extra money. How many of those "older service-able" players would really think the Astros have any shot at being in contention? Any player that signs with the Astros would be a player that other teams didn't want, either due to injury, a bad few years, or some thing else. If they over pay for that type of player, then well that is what they get (what happened with Lyons) for bidding against themselves. In other words, I just don't see how the Myers signing could be "a sign of mediocrity". The young players on the team have shown that the Astros won't be bad enough to get a #1 pick, so might as well win a few games and give the fans something to cheer about. It's not that big a deal. Signing Myers now, can allow Drayton to "shut up" anyone is like they aren't signing anyone to help this team now (i.e., the casual fans who have no clue, but are the ones who probably spend more money than the diehards).
@pgammo: Mets asked on B. Myers. 'Stros asked Tejada and Parnell. Mets said no, and they couldn't take on $. Pirates took on $, not Mets Wonder it the Mets would have done it but what money would they have taken on, 3 million?
