I really know few facts about the guy and my goal in this thread is for people with knowledge of his background to explain what he's good at, what he's bad at and most importanly, why he's good/bad at those things, ideally with supporting evidence. The general consensus seems to be that he is good at building a farm but not very good in free agency/trades. That may not be an accurate characterization so correct me if I'm wrong. My thing is that if a guy seems to be bad to terrible at evaluating existing talent, why would he be any better at evaluating prospective talent where it requires an even more keen eye for baseball ability. My understanding is that scouting and drafting players successfully requires a good scouting system with a good scouting director above all else. I imagine that those guys typically have a bigger impact on the success of a farm system than the GM. It seems like the ability of a GM is more apparent in free agency and trade - areas where they have a greater and more direct influence on the decision-making process. Has Wade just been fortunate to have good baseball people around him in the past? Was he responsible for hiring those people or did he inherit them? Was he just lucky and getting credit for other people's work? What are the facts? I have read plenty about Wade being considered a dinosaur of a thinker within the sabermetric community. I've seen him pretty much characterized as the anti-Morey. Morey is extremely popular among Rockets fans for his forward thinking and hardcore use of statistical analysis while Wade seems to almost blatantly ignore advanced statistics in a sport that has them more readily available than any other. It's easy to get an unjustified reputation in Wade's line of work, esp. in this day and age with technology allowing everybody and their mother to voice their opinions and so many of those opinions being sensationalist in nature. Sometimes you get credit for things that aren't your doing and sometimes you get blame for things that aren't your fault. Maybe we can collectively get to the bottom of understanding the real Ed Wade, for better or worse. I really don't know what to believe about him but if he's going to be around for a while, I'd feel a lot more comfortable if we can separate some of the fact from fiction.
BB: Awesome, well thought out post. I'm right there with you on trying to gain a better understanding on Wade and the future of the Astros.
First, on Wade's major league acquisitions... he SUCKS. Always has, and probably always will. I don't hold it against Wade if his scouting department are responsible for the Phillies juggernaut. Unless he never hired any of his guys and/or was just lucky. To me Wade's tenure in Houston will be judged quickly in the next two years. I want to see the following 1. Castro becoming a capable catcher, and has the ceiling of at least an average catcher. he seems to have good plate discipline. So good defense, high OBP, and a little pop would do it for me. 2. One or two of our pitchers getting into AAA and looking like the next Oswalt. Or perhaps a few of them looking like Shane Reynolds/Hampton type. 3. A position player, hopefully Myer, on track to stardom or has that potential(thinking near Berkman-type hype). 4. Get prospect(s) that turn into real deals for Oswalt and perhaps Wandy/Myer. Bourn was a good acquisition, for example. If he can do that, then I'll be happy to let him stay until we need some major league acquisitions to put us over the hump. Otherwise, he needs to get canned.
lol Dude that's so far from the truth. Ed Wade isn't the president of the United States. He's not Tal's puppet. They are all Draytons puppets.
Ed Wade sure did rip the Astros off for Billy Wagner for the likes of Brandon Duckworthless, Taylor Buchholz and Zek Astacio. Ironically, we hit a home run off Wagner at the end of the year to clinch the Wild Card in 2005 when we got to the World Series. Sure he has a history of making bad deals, but hes not as bad as everyone makes him out to be. He's actually a sucker through free agency. Luckily, he hasn't had much wiggle room to spend through free agency. LOL Mier turning into a Berkman type? WOW thats hilarious. Berkman lead all of division 1 college players in home runs the year he was drafted. Mier came out of high school and has always been known as a defensive guy rather than a hitter. Please don't compare the two. Your take on Castro is pretty accurate. Some scouts believe he's going to have elite defensive skills, but grade him down because of his lack of power. I think anything Castro does with the bat should be considered a bonus because... He's a catcher. Just handle the staff and I'll be satisfied. Just because Ed Wade's scouting department did the majority of the scouting doesn't mean he should be given less credit for building the Phillies farm. So when we turn our system around, are we just going to bow down to Bobby Heck and forget Wade? Bobby Heck is often overlooked by non die hards, but the guy did turn the Brewers farm from one of the worst to one of the best in a short time span. Something tells me that Bobby Heck will get some sort of GM job offer in the next two years and leave Houston. Hopefully by the time we will have a contender. Bourn was a great acquistion. We also got Costanzo in that deal who was immediately shipped to Baltimore to grab Tejada. The Tejada deal was finalized the day before the Mitchell report came out so that wasn't the greatest deal either. Wade makes some questionable moves, but when you have the most questionable owner in all of sports, its hard to not make these moves. I like Ed Wade, but in two years we can reevaluate his whole body of work. Its too soon to pass complete judgement. He should have signed Kelly Johnson since we all knew Kaz would **** the bed.
agree with others who say you've made an excellent, well-thought post. just wanted to challenge this bit a little--perhaps a GM *can* be better at the latter than the former. the latter involves *only* seeing talent. the former involves judging talent *and* structuring contracts and negotiating trades that make sense. IF I remember correctly, Lieberthal was one of the contracts Wade was hammered for back in Philly. Well, Lieberthal was a pretty damn good catcher. it didn't take a rocket scientist to see the good talent; but it was the other bits of the job on the major league level that i hear Wade being criticized about. not judging talent. of course, that said, didn't Wade go get Matsui? yeah, that worked out for us...
However, Tal Smith is cool because he is known as the terminator of Arbitration cases. Other teams hire the guy to defend their teams in arbitration cases. Tal is as good as they get. Ask Wandy. lol
are you serious? are you not very widely read, biased, or just stupid? now, I'd be fine if you wanted to give McLane a failing grade based on his alleged badgering of his baseball people and having his hands in the pot too much, and based on his ridiculous "don't go over slot" nonsense in past drafts -- but to state that he's worse than Al Davis or that blithering idiot who owns the Clippers is just... well it's either ignorant, biased, or stupid.
Yeah Kaz Matsui is really the worst deal Ed Wade signed as GM of the Astros. The worst move ever. I dont see how you lock a guy who is injury prone down to a three year 16.5 million dollar deal along with paying for his personal trainer and other perks. He hit .345/.392/.504 in 126 plate appearances during 06 in COLORADO and .288/.342/.405 in 458 plate appearances in Colorado. He's obviously not an every day player. The most PAs he had was in his rookie year. A whole 509 of them. Wow. Would have rather had BEN FREAKIN ZOBRIST playing their instead of trading him for 2 months of crappy Aubrey Huff.
Yeah well atleast Al Davis signs his draft picks. Well Elgin Baylor is a **** GM too. In 05 and 06 Drayton didn't want to sign anyone initially until he finally gave in. Drayton won't even let us bring food into his stadium. I have to sneak my freakin flask in there. Sorry. I guess I'll reword myself so I'm not called an idiot by some guy who has to recall everything he attributes to his posts. "One of the most questionable owners in all of sports." TOP 5 for sure. Are you happy? To call me not widely read is pretty funny when you can't even recall if Ed Wade was the one who signed Kaz Matsui. Fail for you.
ouch. yeah, that was a bad, bad year for GM performance. didn't we also give up Wheeler in that deal?
Sure did. Tim Poopura was a dumb ass and still is. We gave up Willy Taveras, Taylor Buchholz and Jason Hirsh for crappy batting practice throwing Jason Jennings. Poopura really set us back as well as drayton for drafting ****ty and not wanting to sign his guys.
So, you're not widely read and you don't visit many stadiums either? Because that is the *norm*, not the exception. What a stupid, stupid take. To each his own. But be certain of this: you don't have to worry about making me "happy" with your post. I asked how you arrived at your stupid take out of genuine curiosity. And now I know: bias. That was a rhetorical question. Read more, and you'll begin to pick up on subtleties like that. At any rate, while I won't take back what I said about your biased, stupid take on Drayton, I do regret the way I worded the first question.
If Morgan Ensberg didnt get hurt and hurt himself more when everyone begged him to play. Our lineup could have looked like this. CF Bourn SS Tejada 1B Berkman LF Lee 3B Ensberg 2B Zobrist RF Pence C Ausmus/Quintero/Towles P Oswalt We almost went after Mark Buehrle but Kenny Williams went Psycho and told us he wanted Pence at the last second or we had no deal. I know this is mostly a pipe dream, but I just wanted to stress how crappy Poopura did and how much of a mess he left for Ed Wade and Co.
Completely agree with this -- not just on the major league level, but perhaps the worst successive drafts in the history of the franchise. Not just Purpura's, but Hunsicker's last one or two. Just horrible.
http://blogs.houstonpress.com/hairballs/2010/04/astros_franchise_value.php If you want to ride Draytons balls so hard, you should probably get your facts right :[
If you really think Drayton McLane isn't worthy of being on the most questionable owners in all of sports, you are crazy. He thinks he can honestly rebuild on the fly likes he's the Yankees. His mid/high market payroll isn't enough to pull the BS he has. The guy calls division titles "championships". Thats how awesome Drayton is.
