so, did you satisfactorly answer you own question there? he's an adventure in CF with a weak arm and poor instincts in terms of where to throw the ball, what angle to take, etc. sure, he has room to improve, and likely will. like taveras, he compensates for his lack of refinement with speed. it's interesting: pence's standard is craig biggio; taveras'? apparently a gold glove. hmmmm.... taveras is a leaps and bounds better CF. it's not as close as you claim; in fact, it's not close at all. taveras' arm, alone, makes the gap significant. QUOTE=Nick]but if the Astros lose games, Pence's CF defense is not even close to being a major reason why.[/QUOTE] the next (several) time(s) a runner takes an extra base on pence, or one of his throws home lands near the third base coach, i'll think fondly of you. teams NEVER took extra bases on taveras.
Pettite not being here was more than simply money... and even if it was, the Astros weren't going to commit 36 million over 2 years for him, especially not when he told them that he was thinking about RETIREMENT just shortly before he signed with NY. If you think that was a bad baseball decision (not giving him 18 million a year), fine... but all the moves they made afterwards was because of him not being here. Regardless, arguing over scenarios of this team involving Pettite being here is pointless, and a HUGE waste of time. You're the only one who still brings him up as if the Astros callously decided to not to pick up an option year (like Jeff Kent), while Andy was begging to be an Astro for the rest of his career.
gold glove calibur......... Willy Taveras... Average..Pence............ Well below/adventure. (just a visual scale to illustrate why this doesn't need to be dwelled on as much as it is). You're really sticking it to Pence... and taking a page out of the Willy Taveras-haters school of analyzing every single thing he's doing wrong. Willy is better defensively... never said otherwise. But, Pence is not bad enough to the level where its a LIABILITY to have him out there (as it was routinely with Berkman, Biggio, and other non centerfielders forced to play there), and Willy was not so good to the level where he was a gold glove/run saving god out there. Saying the Astros are losing games because of Pence's lack of defense, or because Willy is not out there, is really pushing it. "And the next time..." Pence throws out two players at the plate (like he did in the last series), or throws out a runner trying to tag up to third (like he did the last series), or keeps Jose Reyes from tagging up at third on an average fly ball (like he did last series)... i'll be thinking of you. Did I use quotes right there? Ease up man... you're really insinuating the personal edge to this argument (that we have every 3 weeks), and its pretty uncalled for.
i love how "roughly $34-36M for 2 years" - a number i pulled out of my ass - becomes a definitive "18 million a year". i don't know what it would have taken to get him to sign here; i'm merely suggesting that even if you DID throw $18M/year at him, it still would have proved cheaper in the long run (assuming at least one of patton and hirsh worked out). i bring pettitte up because he was a viable and cheaper (money and player-wise) alternative to the course they actually took. as you stated, everything that happened this offseason was a result of pettitte signing elsewhere. had they done more (ie paid more) to prevent that, the course of the offseason, and season, would likely be significantly different, and perhaps better. as for the defense, there's no comparison between the two of them right now. none. they're light years apart. that doesn't mean pence won't improve; he will, and has. but they're growing pains they could have avoided had they kept him in RF, which is a much easier position to man. and yes, pence is part of a terrible defensive OF. no one individual can directly impact wins and losses on a consistent basis, but they can certainly contribute.
Much more of one, if I remember correctly. But it doesn't matter. Improvements only apply for Willy... other young players stay the same as they are in their first year. By the way, money isn't and wasn't the issue with Pettitte. It's the excuse he and his agents used to keep heat off him. Andy didn't want to play here regardless of the price. I can't elaborate, but trust me. He was 100% gone when the season ended... having him as the No. 2 starter was never a feasible option.
Kevin Bass said on Opening Day that Pettitte never wanted to come here in the first place. It was his wife that wanted him here. There's no way I give Pettitte a 2 year deal when he claimed he wasn't even sure he wanted to pitch.
He's making 18 million a year now. That is where the number came from. Once again... you're acting like the Astros are the ones that steered away from Pettite, and not vice versa. With his "retirement" talk, and then subsequent 2 year signing, there's much more empircal/insider evidence pointing to Andy leaving, rather than the Astros simply not wanting him. One is above average, one is average/slightly below, neither is a gold glover. Comparing them beyound that is being waaaaay to hypercritical. Its like comparing the Astros records when Eric Bruntlett plays SS vs. when Mark Loretta plays SS... and yes, Bruntlett is much much better defensively, but it really doesn't make a difference in the grand scheme of things (defensively) because neither of them is that great, and neither of them is god-awful.
uhmmm... which series did all this happen? no, he signed a 1-year, $16M deal with a $16M option for a second year. that's $32M. i'm not acting anything; i'm merely stating that signing pettitte would have been my top offseason priority. why, how, etc., he wound up in NY will remain unknown to us, but here's an account of how it went down: no, you're being far too dismissive of the importance of sound defense up the middle; discounting taveras while excusing pence. taveras is a significantly better defensive CF'er, and likely always will be because his arm is significantly better. this isn't some well-kept secret. that you keep batting it away as conjecture or false is really only serving to inflate your ungrounded stance on taveras.
no one has said this. in fact, here's what i've said about pence in previous posts: "that doesn't mean pence won't improve; he will, and has."; "sure, he has room to improve, and likely will."; and "he is well below average currently". so, yeah... other than that...
Pettitte apparently didn't want to be here anymore, you could hear it when he kept talking about how Posada and Jeter were calling him and telling him how much they needed him. Randy Hendricks made the remark that Andy wanted a two year deal so that he "didn't have to agonize over making the decision to play again" and that having an opton year would help make that decision easier. Hendricks also stated that had the Astros ponied up two million more on the 1 year, $12 million deal that Andy would be wearing an Astros uni. I posted it yesterday and will state again today, the Jennings trade is a failure if the Astros don't make the playoffs. It doesn't matter what Hirsh and Taveras do in Colorado. We could sit here all day and second guess moves that were made and weren't made. What if we traded Elarton and Hidalgo for Clemens back in 98/99? What if we kept Randy Johnson? The important question now is what moves are they going to make to try to keep this team contending. As of right now they do not have the talent to contend or make a miracle comeback.
I disagree. If he posts a 3-something ERA for the rest of the year and we resign him, I won't see it as a failure. If Scott starts to play again like he did the second half of last year, it definitely will help.
I can see what you're saying but I'm looking at it from the standpoint that the Astros were shoring up a weakness with the loss of Clemens and Pettitte with the acquistion of Jennings. The plan was to contend again and go for it all, which is most likely not going to happen. If they can resign Jennings to a contract that will not break the bank, then I agree it is not a total failure. Jennings has been injured this season and we haven't been able to see what he can do in a full season as an Astro. Jennings doesn't have a history of injury, but what do you set a new contract at? Obviously Jason and his agent are going to look at the whole body of work (his career) and will dismiss this last season as an abberation. Jennings at 8-10 million is much better than the 12+ that he and his agent will be looking for this offseason. I'd love to have another young arm in the rotation to along with Oswalt, an emerging Wandy, Sampson, Albers and hopefully soon enough Patton.
You just never know. I mean look at the ridiculous pitching contracts given out last year to guys like Ted Lily and Jason Marquis. At some point, we're going to have to come to grips with the fact that pitchers are going to appear to be overpaid. I say appear to be because it's not really overpaying if everyone else is doing it as well. That's why any talk of moving Roy O is absurd.
Yes, it is. It may be defensible and even necessary to overpay a pitcher or two in order to remain competitive, but it is certainly overpaying.
At what point does it become the norm, though? If every offseason, you have multiple power guys getting $100+ contracts or mediocre pitchers with career 4.50 ERAs getting $7-9 million a year, at what point does it stop being called overpaying and called just the market?
i disagree. his lack of a contract beyond this year is what makes the deal a failure, regardless of what happens in october. if they had dealt hirsh and taveras for jennings at the deadline in hopes he'd be what they needed to put them over the top, fine - you live with the risk, even if he walks. but to make that deal in december (or whenever it was) before you've given your roster a chance to shake itself out is irresponsible. how, in december, can you already have your mind made up about taveras/burke and lane/pence/scott? had they worked out an extension with jennings prior to the deal, it lessens its stupidity, but not by much as i don't believe he's a legitimate #2 starter worthy of $12+M/per. if he had 2-4 years left on a deal at a reasonable price, it further lessens the stupidity, but i'd still hesitate to give up hirsh AND taveras for a guy like jennings. but to deal two promising young players for one-year of a guy when you're staking your season on guys like ensberg, burke and scott coming through in a big way is stupid, Stupid, STUPID. that they now likely won't make the playoffs and will (hopefully, if they fall out of it) be in search of ways to replace guys like taveras and hirsh in their system just compounds the stupidity. not knowing the role mcclane played in all of this is the ONLY thing stopping me from labeling the entire chain of events a fireable offense.
I never let the norm determine for me whether something is acceptable. I haven't totally thought this through, but it'd be great to be able to somehow measure the economic impact a player (or at least his team) has on a community--say, if those guys' activity generates better than a comparable return for the area in revenue (not just for the franchise but for media outlets with advertising dollars and stores selling merchandise as well as national or international attention) then it's not overpaid. Gil Meche, for example, is having a decent year, but is he having a ten million dollar impact on the area?
Let's say that happens. It didn't help us win this year, and the free agent signing would be an independent thing - we could have still done that without the trade. We didn't need to trade for him this year to sign him as a free agent next year. How does that make the trade any better?
