I do not believe the "talent" we traded away would have made a difference. There is farm level talent lower down. And they need to continue to sign draft picks. But I don't think the players we traded away, besides perhaps Patton, were going to be difference-makers for the Houston Astros.
'Difference maker' is kind of a deceptive term. At this point, even if they sign a real #2 starter who doesn't get hurt (and given that all the starters out there are coming off injuries, this is a stretch), and the other starters match their best output (with the exception of Woody, who lets imagine matches last year’s output), there still going to have probably 30 or so starts by someone with a 7+ era, where before they could have had one or two guys get injured and still plugged in MLB average pitchers. And they won't be able to offset that by going to the pen earlier, since it is fairly bare of guys to call up and fill in as well. Assuming regression to the mean they probably are going to need to fill 50-60 starts and 250-300 innings (even after signing a #2), and they will be doing it with guys who aren’t good enough to be regular starters at AAA. And if things go wrong it could be worse. So I would argue that if they didn't have difference makers on the roster before, they certainly do now. The problem is that those difference makers make a difference in the wrong direction. Unless they sign like 5 or 6 starters, you are going to be plugging in guys who aren't good enough to be full time starters at AAA into the MLB rotation. Seriously, at this point when Chan Ho Park signed with the Dodgers from Round Rock, it severely hurt the team. That’s how gaping the hole is now.
"continue to sign draft picks?" more like start to sign draft picks. moreover i don't think the lower levels of the astros system are in much better shape than the upper levels. The top draft picks in the last few years have been busts. they recently dumped Henriquez, a 2005 top draft pick, after he hit 215, 231 and 185 in short-season and low A ball. 05 1st rounder, Bogusevic, hasn't posted a sub 4 era at any stop and had a 7.40 era in his first exposure to AA last year. 2006 top pick Sapp has hit 229, and 241 (with no power) in low A ball. Not to mention the crippling effect of the 2007 debacle. Whatever strength the farm system had was concentrated in their upper level pitching depth. Now that is gone. Likewise, now the astros' rotation not only lacks talent, but it also lacks depth. Currently the candidates for the rotation are filled out with Williams (41 yrs old, coming off of a 5.27 era/83 era+), Sampson (missed ~12 starts due to injury last year), Backe (coming off major arm surgery. only 1 season in his career has he gone over 100 innings), Nieve (coming off major arm surgery), Wandy and Paulino. Forgetting the lack of talent that list possesses, they are also an incredible frail and injury prone group. Even if Wade adds a middle of the rotation starter it won't dismiss the depth concerns created by all of these moves. But the more that i think about it, the more i agree with the plan the astros are taking. They were really in an awkward situation given the state of the team and the farm system. They had an aging, but decent core, but the way the were built they weren't going to contend. However, they would also have a tough time rebuilding given their horrible farm system and the lack of tradable assets on the parent club. Their farm system wasn't good enough to rebuild with so why not mortgage it all to give yourself a 2-3 year window, while your stars are close to their primes, to try and contend. I'm not sure these moves improve a 73 win team enough to be in contention and they'll likely be very very bad when the window closes, but given their contract situations and farm system they would likely be bad during that timeframe anyways. And if everything break right, maybe they'll make the playoff once or twice.
This was a GREAT deal for my diamondbacks. We now have the best 1-2 starting pitching punch in baseball. We got all we could out of Valverde, he had a ton of saves last year, but they were all shaky, and a lot of them, lucky. He's also a hot head, and gets rattled easy like Lidge.
I would feel better about this if I could see any free agent pitchers available that you could count on in any way. Even if budget is not a concern, I don't see much. Do you? Long term deal for Silva or Kyle Lohse? A risk, but I guess something like that might work. But I have to think at this point budget does become a concern, so that may be asking for too much.
The middle of our lineup is downright KILLER: Easily one of the toughest lineups in the NL. I dont know why everyone is nitpicking this and disecting that.... IM PUMPED for the 2008 season!!!
No. he's demanding 12 million cheeseburgers per year to play. We just don't have the restaurants to accommodate that kind of contract.
No, I don't. And yet I still feel this team is already better than the one that took the field in April 2007. We'll see what happens. But I have a hard time understanding why someone wouldn't like this deal, in particular. I think it's a huge upgrade at the closer spot.
Remember...despite the fact he's paid as a closer to convert save opportunities to saves...how many saves he had and/or how efficient he was at converting those opportunities to saves really doesn't matter. Don't be deceived by the fact that 47 times last season his team ended up winning the game when he had a chance to close it out.
We're not going to be able to trade for a good starter since we've pretty much moved all our assets, we have to sign somebody. Yeah, none of them are true number 2s, but if we just get a guy who takes the ball every 5th game and keeps his ERA in the low 4s, we'll be ok. Then hopefully next offseason (seriously, fingers crossed they don't sign extensions) we'll get a chance to sign somebody like Sabathia or Sheets and since Woody's deal will be up, the guy we sign this offseason slides back into Woody's spot.
Well by that standard isn't cubs closer Ryan Dempster even better Valverde since he had a better "save stats" Valverde's a good pitcher, but that's a pretty useless argument as to why.
