Paulino and Norris were even more unpredictable than Moehler last year. And Paulino has had injury issues. Moehller makes what, $3M? handwringing. the Astros are *not* sacrificing their future over these bit pieces.
oh, and what "kids"? This argument is a bit disingenuous, though probably not intentionally: On one side, we lament that there are no ML-ready or near-ML-ready prospects in our horrible system; On the other side, we scream that we could save $4.5M or so at several positions if we just "play the kids!" WHAT kids? I'm sorry, but Chris Johnson has show nothing that says he would provide production equal to Feliz or Blum. Neither has Paulino demonstrated he can even be better than or equal to even Brian Moehller. If we seriously want to see the Astros become a "bad news bears" type of freaking joke for two years while they invest *exclusively* in draft picks that may or may not even pan out, let me know.
Consistently bad is not what I want. Its just another place that money didn't need to be spent, and a roster spot I want someone else filling.
someone else that costs money. if the Astros were to run an all-rookie team out there, they'd be a laughingstock. A 38-year-old 4th starter for $3M is not a bad expense of salary. It's just not. And it's for one year! One. Year.
It wouldn't be bad for a quality 4th starter, but quality 4th starters don't post ERAs of 5.47. The average ERA for a NL starter is 4.32. And nobody is advocating for an all rookie team. We are talking about one rookie position player in Manzella, and one two rookie starters in Norris/Paulino, though Paulino technically wouldn't be considered a rookie. And Gervacio in the bullpen. We had the 2nd oldest average age in the majors. We have a veteran team of suckiness, and they were a laughing stock. Thank God for the Mets, and their even worse team at a higher payroll.
actually, it *has* been advocated today. So, what's the average ERA for a 4th starter? By the way, last year was a down year for Moe--though at his age that may be the norm going forward. Hope not, but it's not like they broke the bank on him. as far as their moves: with Valverde and Brocail leaving, they didn't have enough in the pen. they signed two guys for eight million dollars less. their bench was the laughingstock last year. It was *horrible*. They need to shore it up, and one of the best bench guys in the league is playing 3b everyday. And you know what, if they *leave* Blum at 3B there will be those that bemoan how those cheap old Astros don't get a 1.100 OPS 3B, and how "Blum is not a starting ML 3b!!!!!111". There is no pleasing fans.
You know I can't find out the average 4th starter, but Moehler is a 5th starter, and he was lucky to find a job when he ended up back here. He pitched awful in 2006, pitched great in 2007. He pitched like a number 4 guy in 2008, and he pitched like a bad 5th starter last year. I would expect my 5th starter to have an ERA around 5 while my 4th has an ERA around 4.5. We didn't need to do too much for the bullpen. Hawkins and Valverde needed to be replaced, and there was no way we were going to get equal talent, but we had some quality arms already at the major league level. I personally wanted Putz followed by Chad Cordero. It didn't happen. I was disappointed in trading for Lindstrom, but it added a cheap, talented, and prior to last year very effective pitcher. I didn't see the need to go for anyone after that. To be honest I was really hoping Moehler would move to the bullpen(where he was in 2007 when he posted a 4.07ERA) to cover the role of spot starter/long reliever so we could avoid burning through our bullpen like we did last year when our rotation faltered. Essentially Moehler would be a sacrificial lamb. Gervacio would have been my closer and Lindstrom/Arias as my setup guys. I will never understand why the organization played the Hawkins situation like they did and then sign Lyon for 3 years. The one year deals, I would have preferred spent differently, but at least they were one year deals, and they could switch directions next year, or even trade them at the deadline. Lyon could shock me. If he is able to have a sub 3 ERA, and close games then he'll end up being a great value.
Seems interesting to me that Wade was roundly criticized when he acquired Hawkins and Wolf and has since been roundly criticized for letting each of them go.
common denominator: "roundly criticized". there will *always* be an unhappy majority among those who raise their voice. often (though not always), the *same* voices are heard, contradicting themselves, on each side!
For me its all about not offering arbitration, particularly to Hawkins. I at least understand the situation with Wolf, Tejada, & Brocail.
I think that the Brandon Lyon signing is a bad move. However I am very happy with the way this turned out. The reason for this is simple. Wade has a history of overpaying for relievers on long term contracts. In other words, I was fairly sure that he was going to make one deal that I wouldn't like in pursuit of a "closer" or other bullpen help. I'm much happier with Lyon at 3 years/$5mil per, as opposed to getting desperate and signing, say, Valverde for 5 years/$11mil per, or trading all of our prospects to commit to a long term, high dollar contract for Rafael Soriano. There were a number of legitimately possible options that could have been far worse. So my final verdict would be, "bullet dodged". There were a whole bevy of possibilities that could have been much worse. Picking up Lyon the way we did is akin to getting Imelda Marcos to agree to shop for shoes off the "clearance" rack at Marshalls.
Do you know that we traded Qualls to Arizona for Valverde who ended up taking the closer's job from Lyon in Arizona. Weird how that worked out. Edit: Juan Gutierrez who was also included became the closer in Arizona when Qualls got hurt and went 8 for 8 in save chances.
You don't run them out on the field for the Astros - you stick them into your A-level minors. I'm not saying they'll get that return *this* year. I'm saying in the grand scheme of things, if you have $5MM floating around, filling your minors with 28 of those 17-year old guys and hoping 2 or 3 pan out will get you a much larger return on your investment than signing Pedro Feliz to replace Geoff Blum for 1-yr. If you're as financially constrained as the Astros, you have to spend every dollar you have with an eye towards maximizing return. Then you equivalently spent $5MM to add an average bench player - that's an even worse use of money.
This is the 2nd time today I've had to post: You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Ottomaton again.
But who do you run out on the ML field? If you have a 59-103 season, I disagree that there will be a larger return. Those 3,500-attendance games aren't so hot for the bottom line. And, don't twist that into "Feliz gets AIS," but rather a decently competitive team that averages 20K on weeknights and 25K on weekends is infinitely better than a 60-win team that can't even sell 10K tickets.
Lol @ signing 28 minor leaguers at 17 years old. You people do realize we currently have a decent amount of talent in our minor league system. Not to mention the upcoming draft from this year. And the chance of these "28" 17 year olds making the majors is probably incredibly minute.
And Lyon's ERA and WHIP were less than both Gutierrez and Qualls last year, not to mention that Lyon is younger than Qualls. Weird, huh?
If you gave me the option to trade Lyon for Qualls and Gutierrez, I have trouble coming up with a legitimate reason to not do it. Especially since the pair would be about the same price, and Gutierrez, at 25, is considered a future closer/setup guy with several years of team control left on his 96 MPH fastball, and Qualls has better career numbers than Lyon. Maybe Lyon has some more flexibility, with an ability to throw more pitches and the fact that he started at the front end of his career, but beyond that I don't see any clear points in Lyon's favor. More than one bad contract has has been signed paying for "last year's numbers" on a guy with less sterling career numbers. Maybe if you throw in the 2 draft picks that the 'stros will get from Valverde, it might seem a bit more even, but even then, with the normal attrition you need 3 or 4 impressive low-minors prospects to get one major leaguer. I mean, if you really want to start comparing like that.
Geoff Blum, who's no worse than Pedro Feliz. I'm saying that this team with Feliz at 3B and Blum on the bench is not going to win noticably more games than Blum at 3B and some random $1MM free agent on the bench. Feliz doesn't bring wins or AIS. He really doesn't bring anything of note, when you had the exact same player already on the team playing the same position.
