Dude, I'm sorry to be rude, but this is completely and totally 100% ignorant and false. Budgets are managed on a year-to-year basis, but they are not determined on year-to-year basis. It *IS* one big pile of money in reality - just not so on paper. The decisions you make one year always impact the following year. ALWAYS. <font size=+1>ALWAYS</font>. <font size=+2>ALWAYS</font>. This is not an artificially imposed salary cap. If you spend money one year, and it doesn't affect your revenue stream, you will have less money to work with the following year. Have you ever run a business before? I can't imagine you have if you actually believe what you're writing.
This argument has been used alot here, and it's one that makes absolutely zero sense to me. Unfortunately I don't have the time to write out a post at the moment.
I cannot begin to fathom why this makes no sense to you. Even the best prospects are hit and miss (See Burke, Chris). The odds are stacked heavily against you to find another Lance Berkman or Roy Oswalt. They are even more so stacked against you to find a replacement for both of them. Will Jason Castro and Ross Seaton be those guys from last year's draft? Probably not, but they should be good. It is much, MUCH easier to find role players to go around your superstars than it is to find new superstars.
Except this assumes you can only draft superstars. Let's say you trade Lee for a couple of prospects. You now have $17MM to go out and sign another Carlos Lee whenever your team is ready to compete (or two good, but not great players for $8MM or $9MM each). Now, you have both a Carlos Lee *and* the potential top prospects. Superstars have unique value when they are club-controlled and thus dirt cheap. After that, their only real difficult-to-replace value is that they are fan favorites or if they sign an under-market-value deal. Oswalt and Berkman are slightly under market value, but not substantially so. They are fan favorites though, which makes them less likely to be traded - but that has no impact on how hard it is to build a team by trading superstars or not.
I fall more towards your's and ric's side on this. However, trading for guys that are close--AAA or near-callup guys--seems to have proven to be a smart thing in recent years. Hanley Ramirez, Carlos Quentin, Carlos Gonzalez, etc. all come to mind. The guys that are further away are harder to project.. but if you can get one of these studs, then you are usually getting as known a quantity as possible. It took Dan Haren to get Gonzalez, Beckett to get Ramirez, etc.. I gotta think guys like Berkman and Oswalt could fetch prospects that are close and the caliber of those guys. IF moves like that were possible, then you'd spend a year or 2 developing around these young, upcoming stars.. and you'd try to bring up young talent around those guys along with signings here and there. Then when you think you're ready, you can go out on the market, and since you have salary available (with the expensive guys gone and these young players making pennies), you go out and sign a Teixeira, a Manny, etc. Now you have a young foundation and some older vets around those guys in a similar salary range to what we have currently. Clearly that's a dream scenario for how it would all work out. But I don't think it's impossible, and maybe that's what thacabbage is getting at. That's probably what I'd aim to do if I was in charge.. but at the same time, I like having Oswalt and Berkman...good guys, lifetime Astros, 100% known quantities. I don't mind building around them either.
If it is more beneficial for player development (as opposed to just financially) to do what the Astros are doing by closing their Venezuelan academy, why are they the only organization apparently doing it? I doubt it's because we have the smartest management. http://blogs.chron.com/gamedayastros/2008/12/reiner_sad_astros_closing_vene.html "I always thought Venezuela would be successful because baseball is so rooted in the country and there are so many youngsters playing the game," said Reiner, who recently helped convince the Rays to open an academy in Brazil. "It was a way of scouting and preparing the players before they came to the States, and the academy was very successful. We produced 22 players that played in the major leagues. The market is still there." Bennett said the Astros will still have a steady presence of scouts in Venezuela, including three full-time scouts and two part-time scouts. The Phillies, Mets, Rays, Mariners, Pirates, Tigers and Cardinals will still operate academies in Venezuela, taking advantage of the doors opened by the Astros and Reiner.
I don't know how the academies and scouting works there. But if multiple teams identify a 16 yr old kid, is he more likely to choose the team that's going to ship him off to another country, or sign with the team that has an academy in his home country? It seems having that presence would be a plus, but I have no idea how these things really work.
I thought this was a pretty funny comment from one of the Chron blogs: ----------------------------------------------- Fly on the wall at the Astros Winter meetings: Bobby Heck: I've never heard of half of these guys and the ones I do know are way past their prime. Ed Wade: Most of these guys never had a prime. Tal Smith: This guy here is dead. Drayton McLane: Cross him off then. Aaron Boone? I think he'll fit right in with our team concept. Ed Wade: That reminds me, I was going to ask you. What exactly *is* our team concept? Posted by: Bill Holmes at December 18, 2008 06:15 PM
How many teams are running academies in both DR *and* Venezuela? Not a rhetorical question; I genuinely don't know.
I'd imagine just about every team has (or should have) an academy in the DR at this point, but who knows.
http://mlbtr.blogs.sportsline.com/mcc/blogs/view/8691437 According to Troy E. Renck of the Denver Post, the Astros signed pitcher Clay Hensley to a minor league deal worth $550K.
Who else can't wait to see that 2009 rotation work its magic? Oswalt - stud Wandy - should be 4th or 5th in an average rotation Hampton - garbage Moehler - garbage Backe - garbage Short of a blockbuster trade (unlikely) or one of those super-talented prospects in our system stepping up (highly unlikely), we are very likely going to have the worst 2-5 in all of baseball. Moehler won't repeat his lucky performance as a starter and Backe may improve a little but not enough to make him a worthy SP. On top of that, we now potentially have league-worst hitting at C, CF and 3B giving us a massive black hole in the 7th, 8th, 9th and 1st spots of our lineup (assuming Bourn leads off and continues to do his best Adam Everett impersonation at the plate). That could make half our lineup a collective black hole. Bring it on, baby! Go Astros!
It looks like he had a good season with Padres a couple of years back. Off topic, have you guys seen the new thebaseballcube.com? I did a search on Hensley on their site, and now it looks like they have a rudimentary score-based scouting report on their site. Pretty neat stuff.
Another classic BrooksBall "the sky is falling" post. We don't know what Hampton will be. If he is healthy, he is not garbage. A 3.72 ERA (like he posted after coming off the DL) would be a welcome addition. Moehler is not garbage. He was a serviceable 4th starter. We will see what Backe looks like. It is entirely possible that his struggles last year were due to coming back too soon from his injury. The arm strength was not there. We'll see. Our rotation will either be average or terrible...we will just have to see.
now that's optimism. i agree that hampton is above garbage, with potential for decency. everything else he said is accurate though. we're screwed. i've already entered into the acceptance stage of grief.
I really like this signing, and not just because he went to Lamar. Hensley was a solid prospect and a very good starter only two years ago, and his FIP (4.47) indicates he was fairly unlucky in 2008. Bill James projects his ERA at 4.38 in 2009. He's a heavy ground ball guy, which is big with MMP. People make a huge deal out of this vaunted "No. 2 starter" that the Astros lack, but what's been equally disasterous the last few seasons (but not talked about) is the complete, utter disasters that some of their starters have been. I'm talking Brandon Backe's 6+ ERA last year, as well as Jason Jennings and Woody Williams in 2007. If the Astros could have their back-end starters in the low-to-mid 4s in ERA instead of what Brandon Backe did a year ago, that could be every bit as big (in the regular season) as adding a guy like Peavy to the front end, assuming that meant you had to keep Backe in the 4 or 5 slot. Here's to Clay having a strong spring training so we can end the Backe cherade.
