At the moment its a moot point though unless we get some arms for our rotation. There won't be any games to save except for Roy's starts.
You know it seems the Astros have thrived in recent years by sticking to the idea of bringing up a closer through the farm system. There was Wagner, then Dotel (for a brief period) usurped him, then he was followed by Lidge. Those of course were no brainer decisions and Qualls hasn't or probably will ever be in the same class as them (well maybe Dotel's league, when he took over as closer)...but I think it would be a better decision by the club to give the closer's role to him or another one of the young arms they have (that would be better suited for a closer's role than a starting spot). That generally seems to be what 85 percent of clubs do anyways. And why? Because I doubt anyone can honestly justfiy spending over 10+ million dollars on a guy that pitches one inning every few games. That's not to downplay the closer's role by any means...but the Astros money and time right now could be better spent elsewhere.
We won 70+ games last year with the same rotation, and needed saves in about half of them. If we have a "perfect" closer last year (a bit unrealistic, yes - but we had virtually that with Lidge a few years ago), we win between 7-10 more games.
Certainly true - but those guys came up at a time when we were developing good-to-great pitchers out of our minor leagues (Hampton, Lima, Kyle, Oswalt, Miller, etc to along with Wagner/Lidge). That doesn't seem to be the case as much recently. I'm not sure what quality of closer prospects we have down there unless you can turn Nieve into one (what happened to him?).
Yeah, but still look where we would have ended up even with those 7-10 wins.. barely scrapping for a playoff spot. And like you said, we aren't going to have a perfect closer. I agree that we can upgrade from Qualls, no doubt. I'd prefer to see him as a setup guy rather than the CL. But at the moment, I just see the team spending money on the more pressing issues - particularly SP. Even if we had a Mariano Rivera in his prime on this team, would you consider us to be contenders? I wouldn't. We need a much better rotation. To me, rotation pitchers are much, much more important that who is closing out games for you.
Tommy John beginning of last season. should be back in like june i think. along with nieve i would look at Paulino if Qualls has trouble. bullpen is most important part of a team. i think the astros could have a solid pen. a lot of question marks though. Qualls - C Sarfate McLemore - lefty Villareal Geary sampson - long relief paulino/albers - cleanup Nieve - if returns to form could be very solid and reliable better have alot of guys who can pitch multiple innings with Woody, wandy, Backe, and Patton slotted for the rotation. if you really wanted to be crazy have Oswalt close on days he is supposed to throw bullpen sessions.
