Chron: Not trading Lidge, Vote o Confidence for Purp and Gar

That's the thing.. that really is my only point. Bottom line is Lidge would be gone if we got a reasonable offer for him. I'm only speculating on why we haven't gotten good enough offers yet.

 

he totaled 37 and 42 IP at the '05 and '06 ASB. this year? 34.2. he's very nearly on his usual pace even with the DL trip because he was pitching more often earlier in the year when he was in the set-up role.

as for everything else you mentioned, teams aren't stupid. their scouts don't scour message boards and/or read the chronicle. sure, those are all legitimate reasons they could use to try and keep the price down, but it's up to the astros to set his value, not the other teams.

and no one here thinks a team is going to offer their entire farm system for brad lidge.

 

As long as Uncle Drayton owns this team the Astros will always be losers.... I went to a game during the Mets series and it was jam packed !! I told my friend " Hey as long as McClane is making money he could care less if the Stros win or lose. " He is a money making buisness man that knows absoulutely nothing about baseball, I don't think he's ever played the game. He could care less about the fans and how we feel.....You know that feeling you get when the Stros and Rockets lose a game ? That horrible feeling in your stomach that doesn't go away for a few days or until they win again ? McClane does not get that feeling !! He only gets that feeling when he has to spend money or you hurt his pockets so once again he never feels that way. He sits right behind the plate and just counts every seat, beer, popcorn...etc.....as he knows all that money spent goes in his pocket. I have never bashed McClane but I'm tired of the Stros losing ways and all he can do is dream that we are going to turn this team around and make the playoffs ? You guys can bash me all you want but McClane is a prejudice business man with his eyes closed. We will never win with out having more cans on this team thats right !! CANS !!! Puerto RiCANS, D. RepubliCANS....MexiCANS and AfriCAN Americans, we have two on the whole team !!

 

lol... what about just ameriCANS?

 

The Astros have been the consistently best team in the National League since 1994, I believe. They also won the franchise's first postseason series under his watch as well as their first pennant.

Losing ways? It's been barely over one half of one season. That's not bad. Go follow the Rangers, then you can talk about losing ways. As for McLane, first, I think you're a little out of place talking about the inner feelings of someone you've never met. Second, the Astros payroll is perfectly reasonable given market size. The only teams significantly larger, I believe, are the New York teams, Boston, Chicago and the LA teams, and if you expect the Astros to have a similar payroll to those franchises, you don't know much about the economic structure of the game.

 

I don't know how old you are and if you remember when the Astros were bankrupt and operated by a credit union. THAT was bad.

From 1962-1996, and Astros made TWO postseason appearances.

Since Drayton bought the team in, I believe 1993, the Astros have been to the postseason SIX times. 1997, 1998, 1999, 2001, 2004, and 2005.

How many other teams have been to the postseason six times in eight years? Not many.

As bad as Drayton may be sometimes...it isn't like he's running the Kansas City Royals over here. With a few exceptions, the club has been very competitive under Uncle Drayton.

 

You on crack? Only the Braves had a better record in the past 12 yrs or so. We may not have had playoff success, but the team has been competitive since the strike.

Try being a Pirates fan like my wife's Dad.

And your cans things makes you sound like Steve Martin.

 

Way too much credit.

 

Apples to apples comparison. When was the wildcard introduced?

 

Since Drayton bought the team, how many teams have made the playoffs more than the Astros?

 

How many teams have won more World Series rings?

 

Well that goes back to the old argument of whether you'd rather have the Marlins 2 rings + losing seasons + blowing up of winning teams, etc. or the Astros long string of success with a chance or 2 at the ring, but not quite getting it done. I think we've done this on the board, and most have agreed that the success is better in this sport if you're forced to choose because it can be such a crapshoot once you're in the playoffs.

So I think that's a poor argument to make..

 

That's your opinion.

We've only been to the World Series once (and we got swept) so it's not like we have been true contenders year after year. Most of those Astros teams got beaten by much better talent. I would argue we had a better chance at winning the World Series in both 81 and 86.

Winner takes all is a crapshoot. 2 out of 3 could be a crapshoot. Rarely is the winner of a 7 game series, the result of a "crapshoot"

I don't think there is a single fan on this website that would trade the Rockets two championships for anything the Astros have done.

Since Drayton owned the team 1/3 of teams in MLB have won a world championship so it's not like finding the Hope Diamond.

Drayton McLane is a mediocre owner. He is better than John McMullen but that's a pretty low bar.

 

You're judging by basketball standards. In baseball, the winner of a 7-game series is quite frequently the result of a crapshoot. In most cases, it's too small of a sample size to make a true judgment as to the better team. The Cardinals won two consecutive 7-game series last year, the second in five games, when they were quite clearly the lesser team.

Sure, I'd prefer the Rockets success since 1994 to the Astros. However, I don't hold McLane responsible. What you can really control in baseball is your success over 162 games and doing your best to reach the postseason. From there, the biggest factors involve random luck.

 

Random luck?

We could barely score in several postseasons. The Braves completely shut us down. That wasn't luck, they were just better.

The White Sox weren't lucky when they swept us. They beat us because they had a much more dangerous lineup and so did the Cardinals.

Our postseason hitting has always been spotty and we haven't had a truly dominant pitcher since Randy Johnson and Mike Scott.

Bad luck is the trap call against Vern Ruhle or when Bill Buckner let the ball go through his legs.

We've never been that close.

Im not blaming Drayton but I don't see him as a great owner either. He's better than Tom Hicks and some others. However, my personal perspective in life is not to judge success by the worst examples.

Drayton is what he is - a mediocre owner.

 

I don't think random luck was a good word choice, but in baseball the best team doesn't always win 7 game playoff series. I would agree its very different than basketball. In baseball, a team gets hot and that can dictate how a series goes much more than in basketball 7 game series because that is the nature of the game. Of course, not that I'm saying that ALWAYS happens and the team that just clicks in the offseason always wins.

 

Not to mention that some teams go cold in the postseason. See Bags and Bidge postseason averages. Those guys always went cold, and when they were cold, so was the team.

Awfully hard to call it mediocre management to rely on the guys who got you to the postseason, and then they don't perform.

 

Ive always thought Drayton was mediocre but Gerry Hunsicker was superior to get us as far as he did. Drayton's biggest acheivement was hiring Hunsicker.

From Baseball America 2005:

Shortly after the World Series ended, the architect of the Astros’ success resigned. General manager Gerry Hunsicker tired of haggling with owner Drayton McLane over big league payroll and player-development costs. Hunsicker presided over five playoff teams in nine years. Though he never had the biggest budget or the deepest farm system, Hunsicker was able to make trades both large (Carlos Beltran) and small (Brandon Backe) to address the team’s needs.

 

Yes, a 7 game series is mostly luck.

If a little league team and the Cubs play a 7 game series, you might as well flip a coin.

 

If those Braves series went longer than three games, the records in those series probably would've been close to .500. The longer it goes, the more the sample size becomes relevant. But in those incredibly limited samples, the Astros hitters didn't make the plays they needed to make. The Braves were a marginally more talented team, but close enough that the Astros could've easily won those series if they had breaks like the Cardinals a season ago.

The White Sox were incredibly lucky in that sweep. Each of those games had one play which easily could've gone the other way and completely changed the outcome. For example, if Qualls doesn't hang the worst pitch of his career to Konerko... or if Garner does the logical thing and pinch-hits Palmeiro for Taveras with the winning run on third and one out in Game 3... or if Clemens doesn't get a mysterious, random injury in Game 1... that's luck. Now, I'm not saying it to discredit the White Sox. The Astros were lucky themselves to beat the Cardinals in the NLCS; there were several plays that easily could've gone the other way, starting with the ninth inning of Game 4.

You can choose to deny it, but baseball is a sport where judging the better team takes time. That's why the season is 162 games. There's no formula for playoff success vs. regular season success like there is in basketball and football. It's putting the best team together for 162 games, and then hoping they're hot at the right time and have the breaks going for them in the playoffs. The Braves had one of the most remarkable 14-year runs in the history of sports... and they only won one title. I don't hold that against them; they just didn't have the right bounces in the postseason. But in things they could control in terms of management, they did better than anyone... an absolutely fabulous job.