I wonder if a new owner will try to bring back Gerry Hunsicker. Would be nice. I really think Ed Wade will be in the running for executive of the year though which is some silver lining. I mean, have you seen how well the Phillies are doing!?
Aren't you two basically supporting my point? My entire post was about how the Astros #of playoff appearances is overrated. And immediately, you basically cut down the number of Astros "legit" playoff appearnaces from 6 to 3. I didn't say they sucked. I just said their success was inflated. Heck, are you really pissed that I used the Nets as a comparison? The Nets made back-to-back Finals. If anything, the Nets had a superior run with Jason Kidd. Even though those Nets teams would get clobbered by today's Miami/Boston/Chicago/Orlando teams. Instead of just chalking things up to "cyclical" and wait for the rest of the division to suck again, I'd rather my team try to improve instead.
Nope. understood that, but thanks. No, we didn't. Do we really need to defend playoff appearances that resulted in playoff series wins? The Astros *surged* into the playoffs in '04 and '05, tyvm. They kicked ass on their way into the playoffs in '98, '99, and '01. And they were the best in a bad division in '97. None of those is "backing into the playoffs". Not everybody can be the Red Sox or Yankees. You're far more likely to be closer to the Pirates or Royals, which we have been since '06 it seems. Understood, and I think you are incorrect. That's all. Not only did they have more playoff appearances in that stretch than most franchises, but they had a better regular season winning percentage than most franchises. They also had better pitching than most franchises and more often than not (2005, of course, being a "not") better offense than most franchises. Catch the theme there? "better". Not "Yankees", but better than most nonetheless. No. I asked you to support your argument. How does that make me pissed? It's just a discussion. We probably still don't agree, but I'm not threatened or pissed by that. Different points of view is what makes this fun. well, doi. (remember when people used to say, "doi"?) We *all* want our team to improve. The fact that these things are cyclical and the desire that we all have for our team to purposefully improve are not mutually exclusive. The Astros *will* be back. These things are cyclical. If their new ownership and management do well, they will be back sooner than later. I'm sure we both want that to happen.
Somehow I managed to leave this out a minute ago: If your standard for real success is the Yankees or Red Sox, then *everybody's* success will be "inflated". The Astros were never on that level. But they had genuine, real success. And despite the fact that it could certainly have been a lot more fun with a ring or three, it was a lot of fun nonetheless. And it will be fun again. Book it.
msn, I'm curious about your obsession with the Yankees. You keep bringing them up in multiple posts(and I only scanned a bit of the thread). And bringing them up in response to me, who didn't mention the Yankees. Winning percentage, as explained in my original post, came from beating the living crap out of the Pirates, Cubs, Brewers, and Reds gazillion times every year because they sucked basically every year. Just like if the Rockets had played in the East and keep beating the crap out of Leastern conference teams, we wouldn't be making T-Mac 2nd round virgin jokes right now. The problem with the Astros NOW, is that the teams they used to whip with regularity are no long auto-wins. As for playoff success, if you get into enough playoffs, of course you're going to succeed in some. The Astros won 37% of their games in the playoffs. If you play enough times, even at those odds, you'll do some series winning. P.S. The Astros only post-season success came from Pettite giving us the home-town discount and Clemens decided that his juiced self can un-retire and play home-town hero with his buddy. What do you think are the odds that the Astros can get a Cy Young caliber pitcher and an all-star level pitcher in FA for the price of $12 mil any time soon?
If you expect the new owner of the Astros to spend more than Drayton did when we were in contention you're going to be disappointed.
prior to Drayton owning the team there were only two divisions in the nl and only two teams advanced to the playoffs. I wonder how many times the astros would have made the playoffs if it was still the NL West. Doesn't diminish the 04-05 teams, but is a fairer in comparing his success to prior owners.
To whom are you comparing the Astros, then? You're poo-pooing the Astros' success, but to whom are you going to point as more successful during that stretch? You have only a handful of choices, you know. There, fixed that for ya. (You might want to look at the Cubs a little more closely through that time, btw.) And again, I'm grabbing the Yankees simply as an example of a team who was *more* successful than the Astros. The point here is that there are patsies in *every* division. The Yankees had the 'Sox, and the Astros had the Cardinals, Cubs, and Reds who were each good teams in various years, and in some years more than one were good. No, the problem with the Astros NOW is that they freaking SUCK. Do you really think this group of no-names and fat has-beens would have won 102 games in 1998, or even finished above .500 in '97? Do you think Roidger and Andy could have gotten this group into the playoffs without Kent, Bagwell, Biggio, Berkman, et. al.? It didn't work in 2006 (with Berkman and Biggio present!), which Rocket himself referred to as "a waste." Correct! Thing is, you have to generally be pretty darn good in MLB to even get to the playoffs. You keep comparing this to the NBA, where you can be below .500 and still get in. Not the same. You said it yourself--make it there enough times and you're bound to win. Red herring. Regardless of how they assembled their roster, they succeeded. They got to the playoffs, and they beat good teams in the playoffs. Other teams can sign big FAs, too; other teams get "discounts" sometimes, too; none of that should count against this squad. (And when did they get two HoF pitchers for $12M? It was $14M one year, then it was $31M the next year, and something like $21M or $22M that "wasted" year, considering the whole "pro-rated" salary thing for Rocket. But to your point, what the odds before 2004 of doing that? Come on really, now: who thought the Astros would ever make a coup like that? Doubtful it would happen again any time soon, but it will happen again.)
just base it off W-L record, and i'm guessing that drayton's tenure is still the most successful compared to other owners. i don't have the time to check that out right now, but that's my guess.
That's decidedly narrow-minded and factually inaccurate. First of all, Pettitte didn't even pitch in the '04 postseason (or the regular season's second half, for that matter) when the Astros won their first-ever playoff series and came within a game of the World Series. And I seem to recall Beltran - acquired via a robust farm system - and Berkman - a homegrown talent - having monster series while getting contributions from: more homegrown talent (Bagwell, Biggio, Oswalt, Lidge), key free agents (Kent along with Pettitte and Clemens) and important role players (Burke, Bruntlett, etc.) I can't believe anyone would look at the Astros from '97-'05 and label that team anything but overtly successful by any measure.
Getting Beltran had nothing to do with our "robust" farm system. We gave up Octavio Dotel and John Buck. Buck was a good, not great, prospect.
meh; I think the point was the farm system was still in far better shape than today and not far removed from "best in class" days back in '00 and '01. Buck wasn't the top guy in the Astros' system then, but he and Dotel were enough to land Beltran. Win.
This team started dying a slow death when Hunsicker left, and the Tal Smith/Tim Poopura show took over.
This franchise would kill to have a "good, not great, prospect" in its system right now. Why all the nitpicking? So the Beltran trade doesn't count? I mean... I actually rather enjoyed that era - did you? Why are we so hell-bent on retroactively trying to tear it down?
