I agree with you on most of this. But, yes, what we gave up for Johnson is rediculous. Loretta was a good prospect and we let him walk. We let our relief pitching walk. I understand where you are coming from but we are not just talking one or two bad deals but a pattern of ignoring long-term talent for short-term gains that is so entrenched in the thinking of the ballclub, it's disappointing. But in all fairness Hunsicker is batting about .500 on trades which is not miserable. I just think the guy is seriously overrated and should take some heat for assembling a team that can't hold a lead or generate offense in the late innings. A HEARTLESS TEAM. Following stats alone should not be sufficient. These guys are paid to look past the stats and get some idea of where our talent is at and what players' prospects are and how to build on the chemistry of a team. The fact that we allowed our bullpen to be decimated in the offseason has not gone unnoticed by most observers. Pathetic when you look at what we got for one of the strengths of our team - the bullpen. Basically - the answer is we traded all of our bullpen away for one guy - Andy Pettitte. It's not all Hunsicker, but the guy is far from the talent people claim he is. Again, his marquee deal was getting Alou in 97 after letting Luis Gonzalez go. Blah. The Lamb deal may turn out to be a nice steal, but do you really think Brian Cashman was bettered by Hunsicker? We'll see how this one ends up. Bottom line is the guy in charge of putting this mess together ought to get some of the heat at this point.
Loretta was a good prospect? lol He was 31 years old, with 7 mediocre MLB seaons under his belt before he came here.
That deal made us the Word Series favorite. It didn't work out, but you couldn't have known what those 3 prospects were going to do in their careers. Besides, Halama was nothing until this season and he is still mediocre. Roger Cedeno was nothing short of terrible in Houston. Yes, he is hitting .317 in St. Louis. It's also in a mere 120 ab's as the 5th outfielder. Big freakin deal. Ausmus is terrible with the bat. He was a great defensive catcher until this season. He is also part of the reason that Pettitte and Clemens signed with the Astros. Are you serious? Lima was 7-16 (after starting 0-13) in 2000 and 1-2 with a 7.30 era before being traded. What was Gerry supposed to do? Hold on to Lima and pray that he turned it around? Loretta is playing a great 2B for the Padres. However, until last season he was a career utility player. Kent is having a bad year by his standards, but is still one of the most talented offensive 2B ever. There was simply no way to know what he might do 2 years later. Honestly, I would love to still have Villone. Is this the same Billy Wagner that has been on the DL for a majority of the year? Would we still have a better bullpen with him? Most certainly. I am not losing sleep over losing him. Duckworth and Bucholz have not been great this year. Astacio is a very good prospect in AA (pitched 8 innings of shutout ball on Sunday night) He is in the minors. Nice prospect, but we have better (Willy Tavares) Weathers is horrible. Griffiths is still a decent prospect. Hidalgo needed to get away from Jimy. I would have rather they done the opposite (fire Jimy and keep Hidalgo). Dotel has blown numerous saves since being traded and currently has an AL era of 5.54. Buck is hitting all of .186 in the majors. It definetly weakened the pen, but it was time for Lidge to take over and he hasn't disappointed. Alou also played in and won a World Series (1997 Marlins). Basically, what I am trying to say is that I've seen so many people s*^*ing on the moves that the Astros have made over the past 10 years that somehow affected the underperformance of this years team. No one in here has ESP. You cannot predict what these moves meant when they were done. I guarantee that a majority of us were ecstatic when Jeff Kent was signed. I remember how happy I was when we got Randy Johnson. We would not be any better off with Ricky Stone.
I'll ask you this - How did you feel about the Randy Johnson trade the day it was made? People want results NOW. The Astros knew Gullen and Garcia were legitimate MLB players and potential stars. They did not undervalue their abilities. Hunsicker knew exactly what he was doing. He saw an opportunity to put the Astros over the top. Johnson paid huge dividends. The Astros also had an amazingly talented offensive team that year so there was no need to add offense. They had not yet established their "history" of crummy offensive playoff performance so there was no need to expect them to fail again in that regard.
How many journalists working for the Chronicle do we have here? He's shown an obvious bias against Kent all year long while propping up Bagwell. It's gotten old.
Everyone is entitled to their perspective. But it is worth going back and looking (even if revisionist). Aren't the best GM's in the games VISIONARIES. Now as for what we gave up for Johnson - it was a marquee deal. It filled seats and all - but you are talking about 3 players - one of whom is now a marquee player and two starting pitchers that would fit nicely with our other talent (better than Pettitte has been for us and certainly better than the crap we have used in the 5 spot). You cannot argue against the fact that we let our entire bullpen go. It's a fact. Did we really expect the bullpen was not going to be critical - particularly with a manager like Williams? We just took a negative view of the guys we had, punted and grabbed a bunch of players that other team's really didn't want. Nice job. I agree there are some players on the margins. But I would take John Halama, Freddy Garcia and Carlos Guillen. I'd certainly take Luis Gonzalez and no doubt I would take Vinny Castilla over the platoon we have had at 3d. Add Cedeno and Loretta and our bullpen and starting pitching back and you probably have a better team right now than when you started. Seriously, isn't this what being a GM is all about? Getting the edge over the rest of the league. We aren't really improving with all the dealmaking from what I can tell.
For all of you Hunsicker advocates - how do you explain that so many players get better after leaving the Astros? I'm ok with you guys pointing out the bad about a player before they leave - certainly Lima would be an example. But what did we get for Lima? Cedeno? Doggie? How many good players have we let go to FA only to pick up a comparable? My point is that Hunsicker sells Low and buys High more often than not. Not a good deal, but I can see how fans and statisticians can be excited. I wouldn't do a better job. But there are GMs who clearly have.
What players have gotten really good after leaving the Astros? The only one who would count is Luis Gonzales, and made a major overhaul of his stance and swing - and we replaced him with a better player. On the other hand, I can think of a number of players who we gave up who haven't done anything at all(everything we gave up in the Alou deal, Halama!, Hidalgo, Alou - for his pricetag, etc.)
Every team has players it regret it let go. Every team can assemble a list like that. I disagree that he sells low and buys high. He's drafted good young talent. Remember, the Astros were named as the best organization, top to bottom, in all of baseball just a couple of years ago. They've made good moves drafting good talent...and they've been able to develop it. We're one Carlos Hernandez injury away from having 3/5 of our rotation be young studs brought up on our own farm...that's pretty impressive.
Hunsicker does not get enough of the blame. If you're going to say Hunsicker is a very good GM, OK! If you're going to say Drayton is doing what he can, OK! But, results are results. Past performance is past performance. Duck is a duck.... Defend one or the other. Not both! Say both are partially to blame! Not neither. There are too many weaknesses on this team to blame just the players! Caphorn- I'm with you. Not completely but I understand what you are saying.
Cammy, Finley, Santana, Linebrink, Garcia, Schilling, Loretta,... The better question is.... which players have gotten really good after coming over.
Ok..I can't believe I'm going to engage on this. I see the problems they have as a product of injury and a product of players not living up to potential. They signed Bagwell to a deal he frankly had coming to him...no one would have guessed he wouldn't be able to throw the ball across the infield. They signed Pettitte...and he's been injured most of the year. They signed Kent...at the time, I didn't hear ANYONE complain about that deal. It was not a ton of money for a guy who was clearly one of the most productive 2B in the league. The bullpen...you might criticize them for trading for Beltran. But I won't. Yes, they gave up Dotel. But they clearly needed to make a move to get their anemic offense going. Lidge has been even better than expected. Wagner talked his way out of that clubhouse...you're free to say whatever you like, but when you say the kinds of things he said, you know you're writing your own ticket out of town. Beltran....hmmmm....I'd say he's drastically underperformed since he's been here. Batting under .250? I'd say he might even be driving his market value down. Who else? Again...and I've been screaming this for a while....nobody...NOBODY...nobody...thought this team would perform this way. No baseball expert said, "yeah...the Astros are going to struggle to stay around .500." We heard World Series predictions...we certainly heard they'd be battling with the Cubs for the division crown. So when you field a team that creates that kind of expectation from the experts, how can you blame the owner? Or the GM? when those players fail to perform AS EVERYONE EXPECTED THEY WOULD? No one has a crystal ball. You just put the best players out you can...and go from there. The Astros did that this year. It didn't work out.
As for pitcher comparisons, how 'bout this for ya (two Andy Pettitte's were right here): Freddy Garcia 2001 3.05 ERA 2002 4.39 ERA 2003 4.51 ERA 2004 3.37 ERA John Halama 2001 4.73 ERA 2002 3.56 ERA 2003 4.22 ERA 2004 4.40 ERA Andy Pettitte 2001 3.99 ERA 2002 3.27 ERA 2003 4.02 ERA 2004 4.07 ERA Oddly, we had two upcoming pitchers as good as Andy Pettitte before we bought into the theory that you can buy a World Series ring at any cost. Guillen admittedly sucked eggs for awhile but is now hitting like a madman. Someone we did not wait on. Meanwhile who have we chosen to develop: Tim Redding: 2001 5.50 ERA 2002 5.40 ERA 2003 3.68 ERA (finally joins the club) 2004 5.52 ERA (blick!) or how about this we let go of Luis Gonzales 2001 .325 BA 2002 .288 BA 2003 .304 BA 2004 .259 BA (finally runs out of gas for a losing team) and we pay more to play Moises Alou 2001 .331 BA (comparable) 2002 .275 (slipping) 2003 .280 2004 .274 of course we lost Moises before the last two season, but just a point of reference if you do not understand that LUIS G was as good if not a better player than Moises over this time period. I know its nitpicking and if you want I can show you the relievers we let go vs. the ones we kept. Just for grins and whatnot. It's too early to tell on the Doggie deal (the Mets are usually good at sucking at deals). It's frankly too early to tell on the Beltran deal (do we get to keep this guy?). I get the sense that Cashman may have known something more than we think about Lamb, but I'm willing to ride it out. I don't know if I can tolerate more of Hunsicker's mediocre trade results.
Where is that coming from? Steroids? MadMax, Puedlfor, RM95,- We do not need to keep chasing our tails. But, most of the trades that we have been a part of have either been bad deals or ineffective!
Doesn't mean they weren't necessary. If they hadn't have been made, the same people who are b****ing about them would be b****ing that they weren't made. I apologize if I take the view of the experts (who rated us the best organization a couple of years ago) over some BBS experts.
Caminiti admitting to taking steroids during his MVP year. The reason he got better after he left the Astros was easier access to illegal substances. John Halama 2001 4.73 ERA - Not a regular starter 2002 3.56 ERA - not a regular starter 2003 4.22 ERA - not a regular starter 2004 4.40 ERA - not a regular starter Why are you even comparing Halama and Garcia to Pettite - we had to give up at least something good to get Randy Johnson. And why didn't you mention the two bad years he had as a starter, before getting dumped? And why didn't you mention Alou's fantastic seasons for us compared to Gonzales' mediocre ones? That's an interesting cutoff date you picked, considering only one year you mentioned with Alou was when he was actually an Astro. In fact, it seems like we let Alou go at exactly the right time.
