The Astros were a pretty smart team for most of the 1990s and early 2000's. They knew when to trade players like Wagner and Hampton. It allowed them to build a consistently competitive team, only making Beltran/Johnson type moves when they were on the cusp of greatness. It's only been since 2005 that they have made stupid move after stupid move, and we're now seeing the not surprising results - high payroll, crappy team.
Absolutely. If you want to sign another Oswalt, you're going to need payroll flexibility. The only way to get that is to dump the current one. Why is it a longshot? 1. Why is it so unreasonable? Teams get good value all the time. The most recent trade was C.C. Sabathia, for example. They got an A+ level prospect for 1/2 season of Sabathia. What could the Astros get for a few years of Oswalt? 2. Not necessarily. Even if they turn out worthless, you break even. 3. Why is this so difficult? There are top tier pitchers and hitters out there every year. This year, you had Sabathia (and Burnett, Sheets, etc). The previous year, Santana, for example. Wait - so you're OK with sucking, but you'd only trade the guys with little value? What do you think you're going to get for Blum or Matsui? How on earth does that help the team at all? You just end up with fewer MLB caliber players, still have a high payroll so you can't sign anyone, and no new top tier prospects. That just makes you suck now AND in the future.
Some of the problems with that are: 1) If you plan on trading only our 2nd and 3rd tier veterans you named such as Matsui, Tejada, Hampton, etc., those guys wont get you anything except middle of the road prospects/young players unless a team is desperate enough you might get something slightly above that. Out of that group I can only reasonably see Tejada, Matsui, and Hawkins as having decent trade value with our third base platoon following shortly after that, maybe throw Brocail in there. Ortiz and Hampton I view as having little to no trade value at all. Bottom line is: this group MIGHT get you 1 cornerstone type player but basically a bunch of projected average major league players, which there is nothing wrong with but you need to have a handful of guys that can be major players down the road to stay competitive 2) Our core group is OLD and getting OLDER. Lance is 33, Oswalt is about to be 32, Lee is about to be 33, Valverde is 31. In baseball you usually don't get better with age. 3) With the way our system is stocked, there is no one really except a couple of players (Bud Norris) you can promote within that actually can help you within the timeframe of our core group of guys still playing at a high level. The next wave of guys (Castro, Seaton, Lyles, etc..) that may be able to help us are about 3 or 4 years away atleast from being able to contribute. By that time look at how old our core will be. Usually in baseball when guys like Oswalt, Berkman, and Valverde (I leave Lee out of this since he has a no trade clause) on the trade market they demand a certain level in terms of prospects. The team that ships these established all stars out in return want a club's top of the line prospect, extremely young guys (most of the time really high draft picks) that are already in the Double A or Triple A level of the system, basically on the verge or pretty close to major league readiness. When we trade a Roy Oswalt or a Lance Berkman these are the kind of guys our management will be looking to get, can't miss kind of guys. If you look at any really BIG trade this is what usually happens...look at the CC Sabathia trade last year the Indians got back the Brewers arguably best prospect in Matt LaPorta, a 24 year old you can build your ball club around
Trading the win-now veterans opens rosters spots. AAA players will be promoted to fill the MLB open spots. AA players will be promoted the AAA open spots. etc. If only one of these early promotions catches fire, then it would be worth it. The truth is that the AAA Astros farm team have very few cant-miss prospects. I say that we should move these players through the system quickly and make opportunities for the AA and A prospects, who might work harder if they see a faster track to the MLB.
1. Look at the proposed Jake Peavy trade. Padres would not have got reasonable value. And that A+ level prospect in the Sabathia trade is 26 years old and still in AAA, 2. I think that the prospects have to work out. 3. Agree wrt Sabathia, but he signed a mega deal that only a handful of teams could offer. The Astros can not make those deals and are left to chase the near-great FAs like Carlos Lee. BTW Santana was not a FA. He got traded and then signed his mega deal.
I freaking love the Astros.....but why cant all of our sports teams be good at the same time like some of the other major cities....for example... Boston: Celtics Patriots Red Sox Philly: '6ers Eagles Phillies It just makes the Rockets offseason that much more ****tier.....
you had me until right here... i'll grant you sabathia but a.j. burnett is not in roy oswalt's class and ben sheets? the fact you have to reach for burnett and then reach even further for sheets invalidates your point. santana, btw, was traded not signed. it's hard and risky to rebuild. your margin for error is beyond slim. my opinion is that its easier to build around berkman, lee and oswalt than it is to find, develop and then build around ANOTHER berkman, lee and oswalt.
December of 1993 was good times, good times. Rockets were still undefeated...the Oilers went undefeated that month.
How exactly do propose building around them? That's 3 players consuming $50MM of your payroll. We don't have substantial talent in farm system, so promoting from within is not an option. We don't have money, so signing major FA talent is not an option. You've eliminated trading any of our real assets, so getting players through trade isn't an option. You could certainly build through the draft - and for the long term, that's the primary focus. But by the time any of those players come up, Oswalt/Lee/Berkman will either be gone as free agents, or will be consuming boatloads of salary for past production. So that part is not really building around them so much as holding onto them for marketing sake.
That's because the Padres were trading him out of desperation to clear up salary. As for the A+ level prospect in the Sabathia trade, he's actually 24. And he got his first taste of the majors earlier this month. He was a college player, so that delayed him. After that, he spent 1 year at A, one at AA, and 1 month at AAA before his first callup.
Actually Matt LaPorta just turned 24 (born January 8, 1985 in Port Charlotte, Florida), and was drafted in 2007 with the 7th overall pick. The fact that he was drafted two years ago and is at that stage between Triple-A and the Majors shows the talent that he is and what the Brewers had to give up to obtain an established all star. Like Major has said, you simply just can't build around Lee, Oswalt, and Berkman at this point because of how much money is tied up. Our payroll is above 100 million and look at our record and roster. Wade's hands were tied this past offseason because of money and was only able to sign cheap low risk vets (Pudge, Hampton, Ortiz) while letting guys like Wiggington and Wolf walk to save money despite their production last year. Valverde is a free agent coming up and how much money do you think he's going to demand? If we go with the firesale and plan to rebuild not only will we restock our farm system but trim our payroll nearly in half. We can restart with younger players and have the money to go out and fill guys around them to be competitive.
IMO the Astros are stuck between a rock and a hard place. Between Oswalt, Berkman, Tejada and Lee you have $60 million tied up. You might be able to trade off Tejada for something reasonable while he's hitting well. No matter what kind of deal you can make, the said players above can veto any deal. Berkman has already said he wants to finish his career here in Houston. McLane views Berkman as he did Bagwell and Biggio, wanting him to stay in an Astros uni for his entire career. I seriously doubt Berkman would go anywhere, considering at this point he's the face of the franchise. Lee, if you could move his albatross contract, wants to stay here since its close to his ranch. By the way who would take him @ 18 million over the next three years? The Astros would have to eat some of his contract to get a team to take him. Oswalt would definitely net some prospects. Starting pitching is always a desirable commodity and I'm sure teams would line up to put in an offer. The upside to trading Oswalt now is that he is still under contract for two more years at $15 mil/yr. That should be enough to get a good package of prospects. My fear is that Ed Wade does not have a good track record of trading (IMO) and would not get full return for him. I thought the Peavy deal with the White Sox was a bad one because the Padres weren't even getting their top prospect. Oswalt is the first piece you move to begin a full rebuild, because he can net you the most in a trade. Looking at the Astros farm system, they have no legit prospects at third, second, or shortstop. Manzella could bridge the gap, but he is pretty old to be called a prospect. Chris Johnson isn't hitting all too well at Round Rock, how do you think he'll do in the majors? The Astros need to target teams that have prospects at these positions as well as pitching, as you can never have enough of that and look to trade for these players. What killed the farm system was the lack of good scouting, other teams tapping into Venezuela (where the Astros opened one of the first baseball academies), lack of funds for signing and scouting. When you consistently don't have first round picks from signing other teams' free agents, you have to make the most of the rest of your picks. When you do have a first round pick, you need to be pretty damn sure that player can excell at the next level. Not signing draft picks (Dietrich, Eibner, Stubbs, Davidson), prospects not panning out (Sapp, Bogusevic (as a pitcher), large majority of the 2006 draft class), trading several prospects for rentals (Tejada, Jennings, Huff, etc.) these are the type of things that kill your farm system. The only thing that can be done now is to draft well, identify the best players by talent, not signability and develop said prospects. Every team goes through down years and McLane and company mortgaged the future to win now. That can be appreciated because the Astros were contenders for the large majority of 1996-2005. 2006 was the season that management should have taken a step back and surveyed the situation, instead of letting Clemens and Pettitte go (without offering arbitration, dumb move as we got no picks as compensation) and signing Woody Williams, which cost us our second rounder and Carlos Lee (which cost us our first rounder). McLane has had a habit of going cheap on the draft (sans last year) and a couple of isolated incidents. I would gladly see the payroll reduced if the Astros took that money and invested it into player development and the draft. IMO thats the way to win long term.
At least the Rockets and Texans are on the verge of doing big things. The Astros are nowhere close and will have to go through a huge rebuilding to get back. We are going to become the laughingstock of the league firing Cooper after giving him an extension two months ago. I think Drayton has gone off the deep end. Really what is to blame is the overachieving, competitive teams from the last couple of years. While it was fun to watch them make a run, it should have been recognized that guys were having career years and it wasn't long-term. Instead of making significant moves, Drayton and co. bring in and sell the same old overpaid, underachieving guys like Carlos Lee and Tejada (not that we could've gotten much for them) and ignore the fact that we have serious flaws, all in hope of catching lightning in the bottle. The false hope created from the last couple of years is driving this team to the ground...Drayton can point and say "look, we got within three games of the playoffs, we're almost there" ... when in reality, the caliber of players we had could never be expected to get that close again. If we had missed the playoffs by 10 games, maybe there would be changes. I have never had so little hope for the future with any of my favorite teams than I do with the Astros now. We might keep making runs and getting in the race in September, but I think it's going to be a long time before we see a championship contender.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Are you freaking serious? The Texans are on the verge of doing big things? The Astros will be in the playoffs again before the Texans are. And that's saying something, because the Astros suck.
You're an idiot. A Texans troll? I am a Houstonian that wishes this city had a decently run football team. Unlike most of you Texans kool aid drinkers, I do not consider 8-8 a successful season. The Texans are one of the more mismanaged teams in the NFL. From picking up Carr's extension to signing an endless succession of scrubs like Chris Brown. I don't troll. When I make a post about the Texans, I am making valid points. You may not agree with them, but they are valid. Now STFU and crawl back to your hole.
