I wouldn't want to be Castro behind the plate today having to catch these pitchers. What an awful game.
Erik Bedard is having a solid season in TB. I still don't understand why the team wouldn't just try to keep him if they wanted a veteran presence.
Don't know if true but I heard somewhere that he was a a hole kind of guy and didn't really want to help out the young's and be that veteran presence.
The flip is that Luhnow may have been in a no-win situation. 1) Seems like there was immense pressure from MLB to sign someone after 3 straight worst-in-baseball years + the Wandy deal bringing so much scrutiny to our team salary. 2) I would guess that not many good players would be willing to come in at market value knowing where the team is..the absolute worst team in baseball for 3 straight years, no one notable on the roster, in what seemed to be a tough division coming into the year. Therefore, we are left overpaying someone. Would we rather overpay a decent guy on a 3 year deal, or *really* overpay an above-average guy on a 5-6 year deal (in the vein of a Jayson Werth type deal)? I think either one would be sorely criticized when looked at in a vacuum until the team starts winning. But I'm glad we'll be out of this deal either way by the time Correa/Appel/Aiken are ready
Was an overpay by about 2-4 million dollars per year assuming he averages about 2 WAR a season (what I expected at signing). The way he's going, he's only to get to about 0.6 WAR. The way the deal was worked, I expected it would actually be a good deal the last season.
I wanted this guy bad. Even started a thread on it. He ended up getting more than I thought(I was thinking 5yr/$100mil iirc), but man I thought this would be the type of signing the Astros SHOULD be making instead of veteran mediocrities for a while now. Spoiler
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>As expected, Astros recalled LHP Rudy Owens from Triple A Oklahoma City to pitch out of the bullpen, RHP Paul Clemens to Triple A.</p>— Brian McTaggart (@brianmctaggart) <a href="https://twitter.com/brianmctaggart/statuses/475645424968417280">June 8, 2014</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> Why does Rudy keep getting opportunities? He's not good.
agreed--but I don't think any amount of money was bringing him to this team in the state it was in. Hence, like I said, it seems like it was a no-win situation
Not that I disagree with you're assessment of his talent, but he's pitched in exactly one ML game, it's hardly repeated failures. He's probably on the chopping block given our pitching glut at AAA, if he fails in this opportunity I think outright release might be on the horizon.
