That's just it--those others were separate injuries, all in a line. Here's hoping there's not a new one awaiting us come March, April, or May. Or anytime in 2009! If Hampton can throw 170 innings under 4.25, I'll be absolutely beside myself. I'm not holding my breath.
Oh I'm not terribly worried about the MRI or the elbow issue. The real problem with Hampton is his amazing ability to injure every part of the body with minor things like strained hamstrings or pects that turn into 3 month lingering injuries. He missed basically 1.5 seasons of the last 2 seasons on silly things like that. At least two of those occurred literally 24 hours or less before his first start in months (on separate occasions). I really like Hampton, but his history is not good. He just can't stay on the field.
It's time to rename Minute Maid Park to Why Bother? Field.. When unca drayton bought the team, we all thought we were getting George Steinbrenner, and he thought he was buying the cubs..
Drayton has spent plenty of money on this franchise, and he clearly has tried to put a winner out there, and it has caught up with us. We just saw two teams play in the World Series with star players that weren't signed as free agents, but were prospects either drafted or aquired through trades. I'm a fan of rebuilding.
yeah things were so much better before Drayton. what with our zero playoff series wins and our perennial sucking interrupted by a few bright points.
Just because it sucked before too does not mean that it is acceptable to have an owner whose only real goal is to sell tickets. He can't have it both ways, he either needs to pony up and draft good players and pay them what they are worth so they will sign with us, or pony up and pay free agents or whatever it would cost to trade for established players. He can't not pony up ever, only opening the bank for established 'our guys' like Roy and Lance. I also am in favor of rebuilding through the draft, but not if the only consideration on draft day is whether or not the guy will sign for cheap. Yeah ok Carlos Lee. Big woop, would rather have had Beltran if he was suddenly inexplicably going to spend the money. This whole deal of not even trying to sign Wolf is nauseating.
Umm, he offered Beltran the same deal at a minimum and possibly more, depending on who you believe. He offered more than the Mets, when you take state income taxes into account. Unless you're criticizing Drayton for not holding a gun to Beltran's head and threatening to shoot him unless he signed on the bottom line, I don't know how you can blame him for that.
I didn't say it was *a* goal, I said it was his ONLY goal. 'Put an average-to-below-average product on the field, sell tickets, and if they happen to get good and win some, great.'
Carlos Lee big whooop?? That was a $100 million deal!! For a better hitter than Beltran!! Ponied up $22 million for a year of Roger in 05. Made legit offers to Beltran and Randy J. to keep them around....they wanted to go elsewhere. the whole deal of not trying to sign Wolf is indicative of what's happening right now throughout baseball...guys who we assumed would be offered arbitration were not...because baseball owners are trying to figure out what revenues are going to be like this coming year...and they're thinking that the free agent market is going to be soft for them later. But complaining about an owner who has had this team competing year in and year out after being a laughingstock and an after-thought with an occasional one year bounce is ridiculous to me.
I don't get why people jump to defend drayton. It's like people are happy to be 'occasionally above average'. While people like to talk about having done fairly well since he took over, my contention is that during the Bagwell/Biggio years, this team should have done *much better* than it did. While some people go yay and celebrate the mild success of this franchise over that time, I bemoan the missed opportunities. I don't know, maybe it's just me, but when you are already telling your fans in December 'Don't get your hopes up' for a season that doesn't even start for 4 more months, and will run through almost a year from now, and say 'Hey, you know how we almost did well last year? Well instead of improving on that team, we are going to cut payroll.', how can anyone ever look at this franchise and think that it will EVER be able to win a championship under that kind of leadership?
You are correct, the TEAM should have done better during the Biggio/Bagwell heyday, but it wasn't McLane's fault that some of the best offensive players could not hit in the playoffs. They had arguably the best team in baseball once they added Johnson, but fell victim to Kevin Brown et al. They also suffered offensively through those playoffs against the Braves. They had plenty of firepower, they simply didn't execute.
I don't understand why people who don't understand the job McLane has done can only resort to mischaracterizing the rest of us who actually get it.
I bet if Drayton had given a better pep talk to the team instead of selling tickets, they would have hit.
Funny that people are still talking about 10 years ago, when the issue is what is happening right now, today. So, you guys all think that cutting payroll from last season is reason for optimism for the upcoming year? You think it's a 'good sign'? You think picking up a dried up old pitcher who will be lucky to start 10 games this year is a good job? Look, I get it - we are not ever going to be one of those teams that goes after the high-priced free-agents as long as drayton is the owner. But must we also have to have the worst farm system in all of baseball too? I mean, come on, at least draft guys based on talent and not their price tag.
You were the one that brought up "10 years ago" when you wrote about not winning during the heyday of the Biggio/Bagwell era.
Lee > Beltran. much more consistent hitter which is what the astros needed. drayton isn't the best owner in baseball but he sure as hell aint the worse.
I bet people wouldn't be happy with that. People are happy because the Astros have been more than that under Drayton. Why don't you go check what "average" is in baseball. And define "occasionally" to yourself..
I think the Astros are in a semi-rebuilding mode. I don't expect them to be awesome every year and then claim the owner sucks during the few years they aren't. Except Kent. And Pettitte. And Clemens. And Lee. But I guess since it hasn't happened this offseason, Drayton's a terrible owner who doesn't care!
