Not saying to sign anyone to a huge 100 million dollar contract, but if someone like Webb would sign a contract similar to Myers, why not do it?
Teams fluctuate in terms of quality all the time. Let's face it, over the past few years, the Astros really haven't been a good team at all. That's no reason to go ballistic and call for the head of the owner. He made bad investments in Carlos Lee and Tejada, and he didn't make the right investments when it came to signing draft picks and loading up the farm. Fine. These are mistakes that every owner and GM make. The team is at a low point right now, but to think they're going to wallow there like the Royals or the Pirates would be very naive and short-sighted. Now it's clear that the Astros are trying to make amends for their past failures, and are trying to load up on younger players to compensate for the downfall of their older ones--older players that may have been around for the golden years, but are now not producing at an acceptable rate. I guess you want to call this "depreciation," but if you really thought that Oswalt was going to take this team anywhere, or that this team was going to take Oswalt anywhere, then you're a maniac. Same goes for Berkman and Lee.
If you can't see this franchise is headed for another string of losing seasons like the pre-Minute Maid/Enron teams went through, you are blind. Drayton bought the franchise in 1992, got his stadium, took the franchise into a new era, lucked into a good run with Clemens, Pettitte, and just before them Randy Johnson. But all during that time period there was no thought given to the long term viability of this franchise as the farm system was ate up, and we didn't draft pitching, which is what was needed in the worst way in this little park. And I'm sorry, but pitching is the staple of playoff/championship teams. You gotta have three studs at the top of the rotation or you ain't doing anything. We HAD Oswalt, that was it. And there was nothing behind him. The worst part is we haven't developed a top 3 rotation pitcher since we drafted Oswalt. There is no replacement for Oswalt, much less two other studs that have come up through the farm to replace Clemens and Andy. Look at our pitching staff. We got nuthin man, nuthin. Every year I watch this team draft position player after position player after position player, and somewhere down the line around round 10, we chunk in a pitcher. Just plain stupid. We have nothing to develop. We have avoided hiring quality pitching coaches and we have not developed anybody. Our entire farm system is a joke and the pitching side of our farm system is absolutely terrible. $100 million for Carlos Lee! No, don't find a couple pitchers to replace Clemens and Pettitte. Don't spend the money to develop the pitching in the farm system. Don't draft pitchers. Don't sign pitchers. You come off championship contending seasons, you lose your aces, and you come back with a $100 million dough ball?? Oh, we didn't have enough hitting to get us over the top in '05 and '06? So, Clemens and Pettitte walk out the back door and we sign a "hitter". What the ....? We should've traded Oswalt right there. There was no way we were going to compete with one stud at the top of the rotation, in a small ball park where every punch and judy hitter on the opposing team can knock it out of the yard on us. We had NO CHANCE after we lost those two. We could've kept Pettitte and signed another stud pitcher and stayed in the playoff hunt, maybe got a trade for a HITTER during the season when some other stupid team was unloading their hitting because they had no pitching. But Drayton all of a sudden didn't want to "overspend" to keep him. We could've kept him, found, signed another quality top three starter and stayed in the chase. Or we could have traded Oswalt at the height of his value and loaded up the farm. Instead, we let the aces go and dropped $100 million on a hitter. I guess the thought was he could hit 100 home runs for us to make up for the loss of 30+ wins from two studs at the top of our rotation. Don't give me this garbage about Wandy. He's a fifth starter, at best, on a contending team. We have nuthin. The only way we can compete in the forseeable future, the next 3 years, is to sign or trade for three stud pitchers. Is that happening? Nope. Money, all of a sudden is a problem. And we have no assets to trade. We just let Oswalt go for pennies on the dollar and paid his way out of town. Lee is .............untradable. We'd have to pay his way out of town. Zero value. Berkman???? Yeah, he's got some value. But we're gonna wind up selling him for pennies on the dollar talent wise because he's playing on a losing team and his stats are in the garbage can. Before we can compete again, we are going to have to come up with a bunch of young arms. I said a bunch. We need 5-10 guys in our minor league system that have major league stuff and the chance to develop. Why 5-10? Because all of them ain't gonna develop and of the ones that develop a couple of them are gonna have their arm blow out before they make it here. That's the nature of pitching. You have to stock up on pitching, develop it, keep the primo ones, move them to the big club, trade the second tier guys..............for more prospects (hitters and pitchers), and then when your primo studs start getting a little age on them, you have to move them while they have maximum value for more prospects. Because Drayton sure isn't going to be buying big time pitching at this point. It's TOO LATE! And it's too late for Drayton. He's 75 years old. He's had his run. He's fading into his golden years. He bought the team, got his new ball park, took attendance to another level. Now it's time for him to cash in and go. He can get his money and run by selling this mess to somebody else and let them build it. That's what he needs to do. It's over. The trading of Oswalt signifies it is over. Lee and Berkman need to go. I hate it too. That is for Berkman. He deserved better. Oswalt deserved better. Glad Oswalt is getting his chance to shine. Berkman deserves the same chance. Berkman should have got it in Houston. But there was no recognition of what we needed when we lost it. You don't replace Clemens and Pettitte with Carlos Lee.
Anyone remember that Bill Clinton sketch on SNL? I found the script: "Bill Clinton: Sam, you must have watched too many of my opponent's TV spots. I'm tired of the Bush campaign trying to portray my home state as some sort of primitive Third World country. The fact is, Arkansas did have a long way to go, but we've made progress. When I started as governor, we were fiftieth in adult literacy, and last year, I'm proud to say, we shot ahead of Mississippi. We're #49, and we're closing fast on Alabama. Watch out, Alabama - we got your number!" Saying best Astros' owner ever reminds me of this.
I think Drayton's only real fault as owner is his tendency to meddle in the baseball affairs instead of letting those people do their job....and I'm sure that's put this team into the hole they are in now...but losing/rebuilding was unavoidable, whether it came right after the World Series run or now. And thanks to his meddling ways, we got to see Biggio's 3,000th hit in an Astros uniform...remember Hunsicker wanted to get rid of him...and I'm sure if that had happened, it would be shades of Dream all over again. You simply cannot ignore the positive things he's done and only focus on the negative though. His building of MMP and commitment to keep the Astros in Houston really helped to elevate the culture of baseball in this city. He's been willing to open his pocketbook and/or greenlight half-season rentals to help elevate this team to contender. While it's come a few season too late, he's at least willing to acknowledge his failures and is trying to turn the team around now. And perhaps most important of all, he seems to really care about the team and this city. I say be careful what you wish for...you can do a hell of a lot worse than him...would you rather he had sold the franchise to that group of investors from New York...cause I'm sure they would truly care about this team. Now, that's not to say I'd like see better ownership/management take this team over at some point. But until then, I'm fine with him writing the checks.
amen to this. Couple that with the fact that the Astros are 29th in batting average, last in on-base %, 29th in slugging %, 27th in HR and I think there are some reasons to be concerned. The Reds are so set up for the future in the NL Central. A rotation of Cueto, Volquez, Leake, Chapman, Homer Bailey is ridiculous, and cheap for the next 5 years or so. Add on Jay Bruce, Joey Votto, Scott Rolen, and Brandon Phillips, and their offense is legit too. Even a team like the pirates have 2 23 year old studs in Pedro Alvarez and Andrew McCutchen in the majors. They have other young players (Tabata - 21 years old, and Neil Walker - 24) playing well in the majors right now. Its the pirates so they'll screw it up, and their pitching is awful, but even they have better young players than the Astros.
/thread. That is hilarious. I lived through McMullen and the absolute destruction he put my team through, I'll live through McLane. Remember fans were bringing signs to the game calling for his head and he had security remove the signs AND the fans? At least we aren't to that point....yet.
This is the point where I stopped reading your baseless diatribe. In what universe were the Astros not drafting pitchers? Man, you really have no clue. The organization has drafted pitcher after pitcher after pitcher at the top or near the top of the draft every single year. I certainly don't disagree with the criticism of the picks themselves, but to say they've repeatedly made the mistake of drafting position players and not pitchers is just hilariously wrong. The Astros are in the dumps right now because of poor scouting and poor drafting, reaching well into the Hunsicker era. Hunsicker is beloved around these parts because of some of his shrewd trades, but let's not lose sight of his poor track record with the amateur draft.
Your view of McLane depends on your standards. Here's how I see it. - If you compare McLane against the other MLB owners, he might be slightly above average, just based on results alone. But, in a way, that's judging a pitcher by his W-L record. You have to look deeper. - I would say McLane has been opportunistic. He was able to grab Clemens and Pettitte for hometown lure/discount, which led to a very strong run. You can call it what you want, but we got those guys and those runs were fun to watch. - In the same breath, McLane has been misguided in decision making. Penny wise and pound foolish. During that run to the WS, we were a big bat short. He should have gone "all in" and picked up the best hitter on the market. Opportunities to win big like that come once in a lifetime, and the extra 10-15MM you spend is worth it. There were other seasons where we didn't act like we were really going for it -- hence Wagner's comment to the effect that we're not really committed to winning. - I'd be very willing to bet that, McLane, if he had to do it over again, would more aggressively pursue hitters to support those magical runs. For an old, rich man, it would be worth spending 10, 15, 20 MM to get a taste of championship champagne, and the adoration of a city. Les Alexander seems to get that. - In short, McLane has neither been the worst or the best owner during his time here. As to the Astros enjoying a very solid playoff run for 6 of 9 years, I think it's fair to say that it could have been better and it could have been worse. McLane's performance as an owner was strictly middle of the road.
The only FA's the Astros should be signing this offseason are people that can be flipped for prospects at the deadline if they do well. In other words, a bunch of Brett Myers type deals. However, they need to NOT fall in love with those players and then not be willing to trade them (like Brett Myers...)
Good points. McLane is just like McMullen. McMullen bought the team in 1979 and subsequently they won 2 1/2 NL Central penants, 1980, 1981 1/2, 1986. And he is remembered infamously for driving the team into the ground before he took his money and left the scene. Now Drayton has done the same thing. We are headed for another run of several season of non-competitiveness. We have nothing to compete with. Drayton is gonna strip the team down and they are gonna wallow in mediocrity because there is nothing in the farm system and he ain't gonna fork out big bucks now that the gig is up. He should just sell and get it over with already, instead of holding on for another 5 years and muddying up everything even further. Spending money on Carlos Lee was a colossal, COLOSSAL mistake when there was not front line pitching on this team. And no, I didn't miss 1994 - 2006. What happened was we drafted and developed one stud pitcher (Oswalt), and we got Clemens and Pettitte to buy into helping the local ballclub idea. Without Clemens and Pettitte, this team folds up and drains down to nothing even faster. The team moved into the new ballpark, and they put together a few good seasons. Now what? We gonna fund another ninth world wonder out in Sugarland that seats 75,000 fans, and combine that with some free agent signings to get to 4 million in attendance, set a new attendance and gate record, and then the whole thing fall apart again? We have to: 1. Build the farm system with good coaching and proper scouting so we don't just blow through drafts with nothing to show for them. Hire the best pitching scouts and coaches and load up on legit arms. 2. Do not trade a bunch of our farm system for half-season rental players (Johnson and Beltran) that won't sign an extension and stay with us. 3. Do not sign free agents to massive contracts (Lee) or trade for guys that have massive contracts when we don't have the pieces around them to compete (no pitching). Sure I loved the '05 run. But the second I knew that we were going to play the season out with no replacements for Clemens and Pettitte, I knew it was over. Hopefully.........hopefully........Bud Norris turns into a legit stud and Happ gets healthy and brings it. That's our best hope right now if having a top two. And hopefully we play out the string this season, lose as many games as possible and get the top pick in the draft and get a third stud. That's the best we can hope for at this moment. We need to catch up with Baltimore and that is going to take some losing.
Oswalt, Clemens. and Pettitte don't explain 1994-2006. Nor does the new ballpark, given that much of that period was before any of those guys/ballpark. And if you arbitrarily ignore teams' best draft successes and best free agents, you could say the exact same thing about every team in baseball.
jopat, your ignorance of the Astros farm system does not allow you the luxury to make proclamations about the Astros farm system. The Astros prospects in AA and below are much better than you realize. I could give you names of guys Heck has drafted that are doing well right now, but it won't matter. You don't follow them, you only follow the fools in the media who relentlessly bash Ed Wade and Drayton McLane.
He's also ignoring the best team the Astros have ever had, the one that traded for Randy Johnson. That '98 team was incredible. No Clemens or Pettitte. No Oswalt, either. Yeah, that Drayton McLane sure sucks.
