you left out a word here... what is it.... - oh yeah: blind. "most *blind* people consider..." scott's not average and the difference is not marginal. i'm sorry; it's just not. imo, of course, but i'd be shocked if a majority of knowledgeable baseball people and/or fans didn't agree with that. or you bat biggio 2nd, as he did last year when they went 37-30. put pence 5th (or 6th, which is where he hit when he was first called up) with, depending on your line-up, lamb/ensberg/loretta/wiggington hitting 6th (or 5th).
I consider Scott a below average defensive outfielder. While his OPS is good, I would rather him hit consistently throughout the whole year instead of struggling in April and then turning it on. Of course, this team has a history of slow starting hitters. Standing pat on the pitching rotation would have been throwing in the towel on this season. Had we stood pat, people would be b****ing about not trading for somebody when Hirsch's ERA approached 6. Jennings was rookie of the year in 2002. He has pitched well the vast majority of his career. I believe that his poor performance this year has to do with needing surgery. I think Colorado dealt damaged goods. Hopefully, post-op he will regain his form. Only time will tell. I think we will sign him (at a bargain price). As for Albers, etc...I think justtxyank makes a great point. Young pitchers often struggle and then round into form after a year or two. We'll have to see where they are a couple of years from now.
ironically, jason jennings is both the best and the worst part of the astros' season: the worst: he pitched for us the best: he's out for the season he shouldn't have come back from the first injury. we might be in the race
this is simply not true. he's pitched five full ML seasons; this year would have been his sixth. and he's posted a below-average era+ in 4 of those 6 years. why would he sign for a bargain price? mark mulder, who hasn't pitched since august '06, signed a 2-yr, $13M deal this past winter that could be worth as much as $45M over 3 years. and that was with people knowing full-well he was going to miss a significant chunk of the 2007 season. given that jennings a) isn't expected to be out as long; b) will likely be the best FA pitcher available, it's certainly not outlandish to think he'll seek (and get) a similar deal.
Why would you use a metric like ERA+ and not include the park adjusted figures? It seems like you've ignored an obvious and important factor, especially in a pitcher who's been pitching for the Rockies, in order to make your point look better. Darryl Kile and Mike Hampton were far worse pitching in the thin air. Park-adjusted, Jennings was better than average in 02 (although only 7 starts), 03, and 06. His lowest adjusted ERA+ before this season was 92, which means he pretty close to league average even at his worst. This season he's been obviously pitching injured, resulting in terrible results.
The bottom line is that this team is commited to building around Berkman, Oswalt, and Lee... its why they're deciding to pay each of them greater than $14 million a year. If you don't attempt to surround these guys, while they're in their primes, with established MLB players (especially pitchers), you're essentially wasting the boat-loads of cash that you signed them for. If you're just going to stand pat with not-yet-ready prospects, or cheap veterans, without even ATTEMPTING to get something better... in a year where the division is entirely winnable (but not without established pitching)... you might as well trade Berkman, Oswalt, AND Lee. Teams that are standing pat, or giving up on the upcoming season in November (when Pettite left), have no business employing big money players. Likewise, people point out how the trade isn't how the "astro have done business" the last 10 years... well the Astros have also never had three players signed to above $14 million dollar value deals at the same time. Once you do that, you no longer have the luxury of letting a young core group of cheap players grow into something... your team is defined by your star players, and everything revolves around the pieces that help them compete.
Why would you think that Hirsh's era would be around 6? Dude was the best pitcher in the Texas League and the best pitcher in the Pacific Coast League his first years there. His rookie year, pitching in the best hitters park of all time, he has a lower ERA than Jason Jenning career mark. Scouting reports predicted he'd be a 2/3 starter and his rookie year has backed those reports up. He also only made 381,000 in salary this year and is under club control for the forseeable future. He would have been the 2nd best starter on the astros this year. There may have been some legitimate reasons for the trade, but I sure hope it wasn't a knee jerk reaction to Hirsh's cup of coffee last year. Not saying his on this level but, Maddux, Glavine, Peavy, and numerous other top starters have struggled worse than Hirsh in their first year in the bigs. Just something to remember as Patton makes his first start today.
I thought ERA+ was park adjusted? At least that's what baseball-reference says. If not, can you point me to a site/link that has a park adjusted era type stats? I'd be interested in looking those over.
First of all, saying MMP is the best hitters park of all time is a huge mistake... you can pitch there. The thing that alarmed the Astros the most about Hirsh was a.) his spring training work ethic (Garner, on more than one occasion, said he was weary about the "ace" expecations being given to Hirsh), and b.) a guy who wasn't allowing HR's AT ALL was suddenly allowing them in boatloads. And nobody was giving up on Hirsh alltogether... it was just that the Astros had a rotation of Oswalt.... and then Woody Williams. Hirsh wasn't going to be a potential frontline starter this year, and maybe not even next year... the Astros need starting pitching NOW, while they have the star-power to make a run. Thus, they shopped a major commodity first for Garland (wasn't enough), and then for the next best available pitcher. Also, you can name all the great HOF pitchers who started out struggling you want... there are FAR more pitchers who dominated the minor leagues but didn't amount to much in the majors for one reason or the other.
Coors Field is the best hitters park of all-time. Hirsh is a rookie this year. MMP, i believe has played very close to a neutral park the past 5-6 year I think the difference between what should have been expected of Hirsh and what was expected of Jenning is not as far apart as you probably thought. As it turns out Hirsh pitched much better than Jenning this year, but of course, that by itself doesn't mean it was a bad trade. More damning would be that in his rookie season Hirsh pitched better than 4 of Jennings' last 5 years. He's also pitched better than Jennings' career averages. As it turns out, what the Astros could have realistically hoped to get in Jennings they already had in Hirsh. I'm sure the Astros had reasons for trading Hirsh. It just looks like now, in hindsight that they were wrong about him. That's not the biggest mistake. The biggest mistake is management's failure to see a bigger picture. Sure the team would have a better record this year with Hirsh instead of Jennings, but the improvement still would not have been enough to put them in contention. The mistake shows up in the trade's cost to the teams future. Even if Jenning wasn't injuried and performed up to a realistic expectation, Hirsh would have given the team roughly the same value for about 1/15 of the price. The team gambled that the core of this year team was good enough to content. They were wrong on that and it cost the astros a cheap middle of the rotation starter for the next ~5 years. For a team in the astros situation (budget, farm system) , they can't afford to make those kinds of misjudgments. In a nutshell the astros made a mistake on a young player. It happens. They, like every other team, make these mistakes from time to time. A bigger worried is how they've apparently also overvalued Jennings and misjudged the strength of their current team.
ERA+ is a rating comparing a player's season ERA to the league average. It is not automatically park adjusted. But baseball-reference uses park adjusted ERA+ (and puts a note on the page saying that it is using the park adjusted numbers).
First of all, if the Astros made a mistake on any young player, it will be the young player that is actually putting up quality numbers... that's Taveras, not Hirsh. Second of all... the Astros were neither in the position to allow Hirsh to get past his growing pains (he's still giving up HR's by the boatload... both home and road). Not when you're paying big-time money to superstars in their primes. He also happens to be a nice trade chip, who's value wasn't going to be any higher than it was last season (currently, if the Astros had kept and tried to trade him, they'd be getting far less for him... but more for Willy). Finally... the market for Jennings was already set. It wasn't the Astros overvaluing... if those three weren't enough to get Garland (who's not an ace, but has the same #2 possibility that Jennings had), and if mediocre pitchers like Marquis, Lilly, and even Woody Williams are going to be making FAR more money than what they're worth thanks to inflation, there were very limited options in acquiring established major league pitching.
Obviously, it's difficult to compare pitchers' production to position players, but I think the evidence points to Hirsh having a comparable if not better year than Taveras. Hirsh has a higher vorp than Willy and is the 3rd best starter on a contending team. Per inning pitched, Hirsh has a higher vorp and winshares than any astros sp other than oswalt and sampson. He didn't tear it up this year, but i think he proved that he could be a quality 3 which is valuable especially at his price tag. I think Hirsh has pitched better this year than you are giving him credit for. I agree with all this. However, if anything i think it just enhances my point. 3 players (oswalt, lee, and berkman) will soon represent about 40-50 of the team's payroll. Assuming Drayton doesn't substantially increase the payroll then if the astros are going to compete now and in the near future they'll going to have to at least be some what cost conscience in filling out the rest of the roster. The primary way to do this is through young players under club control. Unfortunately the astros have one of the worst farm systems in baseball and should expect little help coming up in the next few years. Hirsh represented (and has subsequently pitched like) a quality middle of the rotation pitcher who would be under club control for the forseeable future. Given the market on free agent/tradeable pitchers (as you point out) ,and given the state of the farm system, trading away one of your only (a probably your best) quality young starters for a rent a player who at best would have only given the team a slight increase over Hirsh's production was a huge gamble. If the team was on the cusp of contention then perhaps it would be worth it. In hindsight it looks like management misjudged the how close to contention this team actually was. Now in hindsight it's easy to see how far away the astros are and maybe it's unfair to judge management by that standard. But in reality that's their job and they failed at it. Further, when you morgage the team's future based on that miscalculation it's fair to be held accountable, imo.
Obviously, management wasn't trading for Jennings to put up a 6 ERA. They were expecting him to IMPROVE from his numbers in Colorado, which last year he showcased the first sub 4 ERA ever by a starting pitcher for the Rockies. They were also expecting a 200 inning pitch season from somebody other than Oswalt... something that was getting to the "pulling teeth" point with Pettite and Clemens last year. Those numbers do HELP in more ways than you apparently can realize. Yes, the Astros failed at surrounding the best possible team around Berkman-Oswalt-Lee because of Jennings' downfall. Should that prevent them from going after available established MLB pitchers who can help them NOW, rather than three years from now? Hell no. Hirsh was a commodity that yielded them a quality pitcher (at the time) for the going market rate... and as far as I know, nobody has presented a better solution to solving the still ongoing pitching problem (currently the second worst pitching staff in Astros history). Hirsh wasn't going to help them get much better this year... his 5 something ERA, penchant for the long-ball (both home and road) and his multiple injury problems prove that more than anything. If you want to blame the Astros for not recognizing Jenning's potential injury, that's fine... hell, they mad the same mistake with Pettite when he signed.
Don't get me wrong, I don't think Hirsh is, or likely will be an ace. I think before his injury he was doing fairly well this year. In houston i think he would have put up a low 4 era or close to what jenning was expected to do. I don't think that the astros's downfall is due to jenning's injury. Far from it. Even if Jenning pitched above expecation it woldn't have made a difference. And i think that's the main problem with the trade. The astros weren't a #2 away from contending. They were and are a major overhaul away from being a contending team. Houston is in last the entire national league and 3rd worst in the major with only the devil rays with a significantly worse record. Given tampa bay's SOS an arguement could be made that the astros are the worst team in baseball. jenning pitching 200 innings of his best wouldn't have put this team in the playoffs. The astros problems now stems from draft and player development failures this century. Quite simply, even with their elite core (oswalt, berkman, lee), they can't compete if they don't develop or acquire cheap good players to fill out the roster. Jenning when healthy is a better pitcher than Hirsh (though imo it not as big a difference as many astros fans think/thought) and it was a good bet to think he would be more valuable this year than the combination of Taveras and Hirsh. His subsequent injury/performance this year doesn't change that fact. The problem is that the astros weren't a Jenning/ or any starter any from contending this year. Purpura's error wasn't so much the trade, but rather the context in which the trade was made. The astros gave up a ton in the Randy Johnson trade, and the Beltran trade, but imo those trades were justified because the astros were close to contending and they took a shot. If the astros had terrible teams that weren't in contention, those same trades would have been terrible and unjustifiable. One part of Purpura's job is to analyze the roster and the strength of the team. He miscalculated how good the team was, and that's why, given the state of the astros' budget, farm system it was a bad trade.
First of all, if Oswalt/Berkman duplicate their 2006 seasons this year (which was expected), Lidge doesn't have his first DL stint in his 5 years here (which wasn't expected), Carlos Lee puts up the numbers he has, AND they add a 200 inning pitcher who has a sub 4 ERA (which was expected from Jennings)... in all likelihood, they would be competing in this sorry-ass division. Are they going to be world beaters? No... but in this division, they don't have to be. Again... had they been in any other division, or had the current division not been so winnable, I'm pretty sure they wouldn't have traded cheap prospect-players for a potential #2. I know they have holes... hell, the 2005 NL pennant winning team had more holes than swiss cheese. It was the chance of winning this division easily that got them trying to do everything to compete NOW. Finally, the Astros weren't close to contending when they made the Beltran trade... (giving up a young quality catcher, and a dominant reliever they had a backup option on) and hell, he wasn't even that big of a part of the 36-10 run that miraculously allowed them to make the playoffs (he had a .200-something BA in September). The playoffs, of course, are another story... which is why just MAKING the playoffs in any year (especially this one) is such a big deal no matter what your team looks like during the regular season.
Of course, that ignores that Carlos Lee put up the best numbers of his career, Sampson & Wandy (to a lesser extent) pitched above expectations, Pence & Loretta were above expectations, Lidge actually got his mechanics worked out, etc. There was a lot of underperforming, but there was some overperforming too. A reasonable expectation had them as mediocre. If they were needing a repeat of Berkman's best year ever, Carlos Lee putting up a 0.900 OPS for the first time ever, and Jennings pitching as an ace which he had only done once in his career, all in order to compete in this sorry division, they should have realized it was a bit ridiculous. Not at all true. When they made the trade for Beltran (June 24, 2004), they were 38-34, 5 games out of the division and 2 games out of the wild card. The trade didn't have the immediate impact they had intended, but they certainly were close to contending and had all the pieces to make that "final run" - an aging Biggio & Bagwell, Clemens pitching as an ace in what was assumed to be his last year, etc. They had a great offense, great pitching, and good bullpen all in place. That was the best team on paper they had since 1998.
Write me down on the "The underperforming overwhelms the "overperforming" side of the argument. This team sucks this year. The Astros took a risk on the Jennings trade, at the time it seemed to me certainly defensible and I was actually excited, in hindsight I wish they would have looked to build for 2008 and 2009. It's not like by 2009 Oswalt and Berkman will be 2007Biggioesque past their primes.
Sampson and Wandy have proven to be not much more than #4 or #5 pitchers, Loretta has severely come back down to earth due to incresaed playing time/likely fatigue. Pence did show up in a big way... but it wasn't like it was some remote possibility (we all knew about him since 2004, and his spring training certainly opened enough eyes). Meanwhile, Berkman's worst year before this one was better than any season that Carlos Lee had ever had. The decline with Lance is more than startling. Sure, Lee backed up his solid last year, with another solid one... I don't think he's playing "out of this world" to the level that the Astros should be suprised/fortunate (hell, they're paying him $17 million dollars a season... he better put up these type of numbers). I do, however, feel the Astros were surprised that Berkman didn't benefit from actually having another solid hitter in this lineup. And as far as Lidge is concerned, why shouldn't 2006 be more of an aberration, with 2007 being a return to the norm... not some "fluke, luck of the irish circumstance that the Astros are benefitting from an overacheiving player." There is a ton of underacheiving... enough to keep this team from contending in this weaker-by-the-day divison.
