I still can't believe it...Ensberg having a "magical" season.

Some of us did, see my sig

 

i'll be enjoying it alot longer than just this year.

when i watch ensberg this season i get the same feeling i did two years ago when he was seemingly hitting a homerun every at bat and blossoming into a great player. if you consider he played most of last year hurt, this season is his actual continuation from his breakout '03.

this may very well be his best statistical year, i don't know, but i can easily see him hitting .290 30+hrs 100+rbis for the next 6 or 7 years. he's looking like a great player.

 

Don't forget the 40+ doubles and 100+ runs!

 

Both Ensberg and the team have already said publicly that he had a very sore/strained elbow last year that severely limited his power. He played through it, and didn't tell anybody, because he was a gamer.

He obviously has one of the best power swings in the league... its so smooth when he makes direct contact... but he also needs the elbow behind it to make it go. Last year, he'd make the same swing and it would look like a HR... but it would be a meaningless pop fly to shallow left-center.

Whatever they did to help his elbow get better ended up being one of the top reasons we're in contention this year. It saved his career, saved this team, and will possibly lead to even greater things in the future from him.

(also, whoever fixed Pettite's elbow earns mucho respect as well... this guy is having his best year EVER... and he's been pitching for 11 years).

 

the power numbers don't shock me. seriously. we saw he was capable as a very young guy hitting homers back in 2003. i'm not shocked there.

the combination of power and good average is surprising to me. i figured he could hit homers and hit around .265. he's hitting closer to .300 with that kind of power. very impressive.

 

And I still can't believe it's not butter.

 

To me, Ensberg is another example of the poor player development plan that the Astros have been suffering from the past few years. He is 30 years old, which is pretty old for a guy to be having such a huge jump in production. If the organization would have given him significant AB's in 2000 or 2001 instead of waiting until 2003, Ensberg may have reached this level 2 or 3 years ago. It looks like the same thing will happen to Burke, and there are other examples up and down the organization - Jason Lane, Luke Scott, Charlton Jimerson, Hunter Pence. All of these guys have had or have the potential to have their developoment seriously stunted by the club's lack of willingness to advance players through the minors and onto the big league club.

 

Yeah, the Astros don't know what the hell they are doing with their farm system! They've just somehow been in contention nearly every year for over a freaking decade!

 

Ensberg was drafted in 1998. He played A ball in 1999, he played AA in 2000 (and a handful of games at the ML level), he played AAA in 2001, he made the majors in 2002.

Giving him significant at bats in 2000 would have meant he made the jump from A to the majors. Not many players have ever done that.

 

A high-round draft pick out of one of the best baseball programs in the country should not still be at AA after 2.5 seasons, which is what happened to Ensberg. He then rotted in AAA for 2 more seasons, which was a complete waste. 2000 would probably have been a stretch, but he should have been in AAA by then, and been promoted in 2001. He had no business spending all of 2000 at AA, where he was 24 and completely dominating the Texas League.

 

So you think that Ensberg should have sat on the bench (for most of the year) in 2001 behind Castilla or should he have gained additional experience and a consistent amount of at bats in AAA?

Is it the least bit possible that the Astros handled Ensberg correctly which allowed him to become the player he is?

You do realize he hit under .240 in A ball in 1999? So are you sure he should have made the jump from A to AAA?

 

Where did I say he should have jumped from A to AAA? What I said was that it was apparent in 2000 that he didn't belong in AA, and should have been promoted to AAA as soon as the club realized it. He could have spent the last half of 2000 and first-half of 2001 in AAA, then been with the big club by the end of the year.

Doesn't it make sense that if you would have gotten him to the big-leagues 2 seasons earlier, then he would have been playing like this 2 seasons earlier? Studies consistently show that big-league players generally peak around age 27 or 28. Some don't peak until age 30, so I'm not saying conclusively that Ensberg would have played better with an earlier debut, but the career arcs of thousands of players are a pretty good indicator that he would have. Good players simply should not spend their 25 and 26 year old seasons at AAA.

 

Yeah, because someone who dominates the Texas League is a proven success story right? Hi, I'd like to introduce you to Luke Scott. Also, where are you getting your math from in the first place? he was drafted in 98, which made his first full year in our system 1999, and he made the majors for four games in 2000, and then came back in 2002. His drought in 2001 can be directed to the fact that for 124 games that season we had Vinny Castilla in the lineup... and in those 124 games Castilla hit 24 homers and drove in 86 runs, far more then Ensberg would have hit in an entire rookie season. Not to mention the fact that Castilla made 7.25 million that year.

Other then Jimy Williams platooning him with Geoff Blum in 2002 his advancement through our system was right on par to what it should have been. Castilla was a better option in 2001, and 2002 was a nice welcoming to the league. Should he have gotten more playing time then Blum, maybe but he only hit .242 in the 49 games he did play in... so he didn't exactly make an amazing case for himself (Blum hit .283 in 2002). We traded Castilla to the D-Rays before the end of the 2001 season because they knew Ensberg was the future.

If Ensberg would have made the league in 2001 he wouldn't be the player he is today... and it didn't make sense with Castilla on the team. As much as I love the guy he wasn't blessed with the natural talent of a Pujols or Cabrerra... and he sure as crap wasn't going to be an amazing hitter right off the bat. He's what you call a "smart player" and the majority of his offensive success is from learning, not God given talent. He has amazing talent, but he also is a player that calculates the intricacies of the game... he's even said he thinks too much.

 

What about the fact he would have languished on the bench of a pennant contending team in 2001 behind Castilla?

In addition, he was essentially handed the 3rd base job in 2002 but had a miserable start and Blum eventually took over and had a very good year.

 

The Castilla signing was a waste of money - he got paid veteran money to provide league-average production (I'm not sure how much the Astros actually paid, so it may not have been that big of a risk). I'm not saying Ensberg would have done better, but he couldn't have been much worse.

And the fact that Jimy Williams jettisoned Ensberg after only 100 AB says more about Williams than it does about Ensberg. This is exactly what I'm talking about - the front office's decision not to advance the players quickly enough and to make boneheaded moves for 'proven vets' like Castilla are bad for the development of the young guys.

 

Ok, now we know you have no freaking clue what you are talking about and are just b****ing for b****ing's sake.

In 122 games with the Astros, we got Vinny off of waivers I believe, he hit .270, banged 23 HRs, and knocked in 82 RBIs. That was in 122 games. If he had been in houston taht whole season, his numbers would have been something like 27 HRs and 98 RBIs. That's based on the total amount of games he played that season. Of course, in Tampa, he wasn't playing much at all and it's therefore concievable he could have had a 30 HR and 100+ RBI year in Houston. His production here in 122 games was way more than the "league average", so even without the possible full season stats, your argument is still totally f'd in the a.

 

The Astros paid next to nothing (relatively speaking) for Castilla. Castilla's offense and defense in 2001 was a major factor in the Astros winning the division.

 

Are you smoking crack? Ensberg would not have hit 24 homeruns and 84 RBIs in 2001 in the majors... As mentioned above the Astros were in playoff contention, and the thought of starting an unproven rookie over a proven vetern is ridiculous. Hunsicker WOULD have brought Ensberg up had he not broken a bone in his hand and missed the final 3rd of the season.

As far as Jimy not playing him in 2002, Morgan didn't prove himself. He hit just .206 in spring training. Feel free to point out ANY of his stats that would have led you to believe he should get more playing time then Blum in 2002? I'm no Jimy Williams fan by any stretch of the immagination, but in 2002 he went by who played better... and throughout the entire season that was Blum. Blum did better in every average based offensive category, and he did it by a landslide.

It is easy for you to sit here 3 seasons later and say Jimy was stupid in 2002 for playing Blum over Ensberg... but that year Blum was the better player and better option. Ensberg wasn't nearly as good of a fielder as Blum was in 2002. Blum only had 8 errors in 824 innings (275 total chances) at 3rd base, and Ensberg had 8 errors in just 328 innings (112 total chances). The bottom line is Blum led Ensberg in EVERY category, offensive and defensive so saying the Astros screwed up not playing him is laughable to say the least.

 

Vinny's OPS+ (OPS corrected for park factor) in his time with the Astros was 102 - so not league average, but just 2% above. Remember, Enron Field was even more of a bandbox then than it is now. Vinny's OBP was a paltry 0.320 and his SLG% was only 0.492. Those numbers tell the story more than '23 HR and 82 RBI'.

 

His slugging was ONLY .492? That would put him in the top 50 this season and 52 overall that year. Where did you find the average ops+ for the league? I had to calculate it quickly and got 97. Either way, you still assert we payed him a lot of money when we clearly didn't. So what we payed vs what we got was a steal. Add that to the other arguments of Ensberg not showing many signs of being the player he is now even after 2001 and I still can't see how you would argue Ensberg should have been playing instead of Vinny. Plus, Dierker said during the game that we wouldn't have made it to the playoffs had they not added Vinny. I'll take the managers word over your stat hunting any day of the week.