The Astros ship may not be sinking, but, clearly, it's listing badly. Her's what I would do to fill some of the holes and build a better foundation for the future, as well as making them more competitive this year. Trade bait: Ensberg, Lane, Bruntlett, Lidge, Springer, Wandy Rodriguez. and maybe even Taveras and Preston Wilson. We ought to get a bat or two (Crawford? Abreu?) for some combination of these. And there has to be a more relaible pitcher or two available from one of the other 28 teams. Morgan and Lidge have been two of my favorite players, but, either their confidence is gone or the talent has dried up. It's business, baby, and their production sucks! Maybe a change of scenery would be good for both of them. Lane is a project whose usefulness is at an end. Bring up Luke Scott again. He couldn't possibly be less effective than Lane or Ensberg. Maybe even give Hunter Pence a shot at the bigs. Play Munson more; his fielding deficiencies we can live with just to get soem hitting from the catcher's position. Burke can handle CF - either bench or trade Taveras; he's an expensive pinch runner and can't seem to hit the ball out of the infield. Bench Wilson, or trade him - his inconsistent bat is killing us in clutch situations. Come on, Tim - do something!
why do i feel like trade speculation police? yeah, you're right - let's see... ensberg is hitting about .150 with 7 RBIs since june 1; lane lost his starting job and is trying his damndest to stay above .200; bruntlett is a career journeyman; lidge has an era fast approaching 6; springer is a 50-year old mediocre middle reliever and wandy is a 27-year old "prospect" with an era over 5... yep, bring on carl crawford. and scott kazmir, too - anything else you'd like? it's one thing to implore purpura to make a move; quite another to expect him to find MLB's version of isiah thomas so he can unload his junk and make the team better. the only players currently on the astros' roster with any trade value (besides berkman and oswalt) are buchholz, nieve and burke. you're going to have to deal top farm prospects - hirsh, pence, patton, zobrist, anderson, boguesevic - to have any reliable shot at a big name.
And even then, only Hirsh (MLB ready) and Patton (still 2 years away) could get you a big name. Pence would fetch something... but he's not the level of prospect that the pitchers are. We do have good talent... but we don't posses the type of prospects that makes all other teams envious. Also, there's the little fact that besides Crawford, most of our "targets" (Carlos Lee, Bobby Abreu, Miguel Cabbrera, Dontrelle Willis) currently play for teams that are either better than... or about the same record as... our beloved houston astros. Also, getting another bat wouldn't be a panacea. The bottom line is that Ensberg HAS to hit better, the bullpen HAS to pitch better, and Pettite has to round into form if this team has any chance of going anywhere in the first place... if those things don't come around full circle, this team won't qualify for the playoffs in the watered down NL.
