I constantly hear stories about Carl Crawford and how the Stros never even went to scout the kid in high school even though most teams sent their scouts to check him out. Not sure how true that is but it wouldn't suprise me.
This organization seems to be stuck in no man's land. They know there are too many holes to fill with the available budget yet for some odd reason, they insist on making moves as if we are one or two pieces away. By not attacking the rebuilding mode agressively, they are putting us further behind the 8 ball. Instead of ridiculous and pointless signings like Feliz and Lyon, use the cheaper, younger guys (no matter how much they may suck) and spend all available money on the scouting, drafting, signing and development of young players.
well, we probably are one or two (or three) large pieces away...unfortunately, those aren't moves that they plan on making. why does ed wade even bother going to watch chapman throw? just hearing about that aggravates the hell out of me.
Agreed, cardpire. Instead of using the term one or two pieces, I should have just said they aren't willing to bid for and sign the necessary pieces, whether that's one, two, three players or more. The bottom line is that if you aren't a team that can freely spend during and after the season to acquire the necessary pieces to make yourself a contender, you need to have a pipeline of talent in your farm system. There are only a few teams that can spend money as needed and although we aren't a bottom feeder, we aren't the Yankees or Red Sox either. Right now, our farm system is in shambles (even after the last two drafts) and fixing that should more or less be the singular focus of this organization for the next few years. Once they do get a legitimate pipeline of talent, they need to MAKE SURE THEY NEVER ALLOW IT TO DRY UP AGAIN. That doesn't mean you never trade prospects for proven players. It just means you consistently scout, draft and develop players in order to keep the pipeline flowing. When you do that, you regularly have multiple young talents outperforming the values of their contracts and you also have enough prospects to be more of a player in potential trades without giving up the farm. And when you hit the offseason you can legitimately afford to add the missing piece or two to make you a contender as opposed to adding pieces just to add pieces without really being in the mix.
that can't be!!! gerry hunsicker was perfect...he turned water to wine..he never would have missed an opportunity like that.
what? what moves are they making that make you think they believe they're one or two moves away? because they got draft picks out of valverde and signed two younger kids for cheaper? resigning jason michaels as a 4th outfielder? you can't rebuild a farm system overnight...and you have to provide some level of competition on your major league roster to sell some tickets until such time as you're bringing up studs from the farm.
Why do people not understand this? Why are people wringing their hands over cheap signings? You know as well as I do, that if the Astros didn't make these moves the fans would be screaming "cheap" and "this organization doesn't want to win." It's so annoying.
Because it's not fun waiting for a team to rebuild its farm system. Because nothing happens for long stretches of time when you're just trying to rebuild your farm system.
Those same people will still scream cheap. The team certainly has spent more then we expected, but few people including myself are happy about it. The team hasn't made good decisions this off-season. Now they have to cut someone or trade away someone in order to keep any non-roster invitee or sign someone else.
Here is a link to their 40 man roster. I'm sure they could cut or trade a few of these folks and no one would ever know the difference. http://houston.astros.mlb.com/team/roster_40man.jsp?c_id=hou
Saying this...If they were to go out and make a quality(smart) pitching aquisition I would be catiously optimistic.
juice, it's not even Christmas yet. we have no idea how things will play out. sit back and relax, enjoy the holidays, and see what's going to develop. and remember: this team is destined, outside of something miraculous, to pretty much suck big donkey balls in 2010. so let's just see how these beginning moves play into the long-term plan. for me, i refuse to wring my hands as if a middle-of-the-road salary for a 3b-man and a late-innings reliever is going to somehow derail the building up of the system. poppycock. and they've actually *reduced* payroll in the bullpen. __________________________________________________ this offseason is so very strange. normally people are screaming "cheap cheap cheap" like little whiny baby birdies, and this year they're pissed because the Astros signed some mid-range salaries. fans are impossible to please. and as far as the "play the young guys no matter how much they suck" angle goes, i think that would be an immensely foolish thing to do. imagine a team purposefully running garbage onto the field. no one will buy tickets. and if you want to sign your young guys who *do* develop in a few years, and maybe bring in the right FA fit when it's time, you have to have maintained a fan base in order to have any money to do it with! in other words, i think it's silly to wring our hands over a few $5m one-season signings. Lee's fat ass and his fat contract are soon to be out of our hair; let us see what the Astros will do.
I do not know about foolish. I do know that the cupboard is bare. The Astros have next to none MLB near-ready players in AAA or AA. Manzella may be the one and only minor league player to make the jump, at the start of next season. I had hoped for more. Chris Johnson aint no spring chicken. It is almost now or never for him. The odds are leaning to never at this moment. He soon may very well a 40 man roster casualty. The signing of Michaels, a very marginal and not-so-young MLB outfielder, signals that the Astros got nothing on the farm that is near ready to play in MLB outfield.
Pitching? The hitting needs to be addressed first. The Astros desperately need to score more runs next season.
...which is why it would be foolish to: play them against major league talent; pay them major league salaries. they're signing relatively inexpensive one-year guys in an attempt to weather the storm. i can't see how that is so horrible.
I think it's because they aren't really cheap signings. Feliz and Lyon both got above-average MLB salaries. Feliz is below-average. Lyon is probably average. We just signed some Dominican 17-yr old for $350,000. Now, I have no idea how good that guy was, but he was apparently pretty highly regarded (for a 17 yr old). If you take the $10MM that they are spending this year and signed 28 more of those guys, I'd say you have a better than 50% chance of getting an equal or better return than 1 yr of Feliz and 1 yr of Lyon. (you take the other $10MM from Lyon the next two years to then keep whatever prospects you hit on) It's not a matter of looking at a signing in a vacuum and saying "well, that wasn't too expensive so it's no big deal". It's more looking at the opportunity cost of what else could be done in an organization that has significant financial constraints. This team would not be noticably worse off with Blum at 3B than Feliz - might even be better - so why spend that $5MM there, of all places?
These 1 year deals are just bridging the gap until our prospects our major league ready....calm down people. The organization is doing it's best to stay competitive while rebuilding. That's something that is hard to do at the same time. People are bashing Drayton for these signings, but he's just trying to keep the major league club respectable while doing his best to sign younger guns in the minors. Just because you get younger doesn't mean you get better. Case and point Pittsburgh Pirates. They've had high draft picks every season and a team full of young guys for the most part, but have consistently sucked. You always need major league quality players on your roster. Something the Astros are striving to do.
If the Astros signed 28 guys for $350K and ran them onto the field for a year, they would be a laughingstock. Come on, now. And signing the 3B was as much about beefing up the bench as anything else. It's not like they got rid of Blum.
I think they would have been better off waiting and signing a guy like Kelly Johnson after players were non-tendered. I'd rather keep Chacin, and not have Moehler. The team obviously didn't know these players would be available, but there wasn't a rush to sign average to below average players. Chacin could obviously still make the rotation even with Moehler, but I would have taken Paulino and Norris over Moehler as well.
