It's staring us all right in the face. This offense is one of the worst in the modern era of baseball. I don't know if it'll finish that way but at the quarter pole, that's what it is.
Navarro was a beast for 20 games at RR! He'll slide nicely into the 3-hole. Don't worry about his other 700+ games in the minors. He was just in a little 7-year slump. :grin:
I hope that Lincecum and Jimenez face off at some point this season and that it's a nationally televised game. I cancelled Extra Innings this season to save money.
You probably could have gotten 100-1 odds in Vegas for the Astros to beat Ubaldo Jimenez, let alone score one measley run.
Chris Johnson is 4-for-4 tonight for RR with a HR, a 3B and 4 RBI, bringing his AVG up to .385. I think that Johnson is a fringe major leaguer at best but I hope we waive Feliz and let him hack away for us instead.
I was disappointed from the moment I heard that we signed him. It made no sense on a number of levels. Whether it had anything to do with pressure from Drayton or if Wade made the call independently, it was a pointless move. I felt the same way about Lyon. It made no sense given the state of this organization no matter how well he pitches for us. That's not even a movable asset because of the length and dollars.
Thank God Lindstrom looks to be a huge steal, and Myers has worked out. I'm with you on Lyon and Feliz. Lyon was overpaid, and Feliz wasn't a substantial improvement over Blum, and I think Johnson could give us the occasional HR, with plenty of Ks and few BBs like Feliz does. I wasn't big on the Lindstrom deal, but its worked out great. I was a huge fan of the Myers signing because he is a huge improvement over Moehler/Paulino.
I actually took a nap out of boredom and see that they added 1 more run in my absence while we added 0, lol.
Feliz, Lyon, Matsui, Villarreal were all horrible signings. He's had some good ones like Wolf and Hawkins. I understand that every team has their share of failed moves and that Drayton probably pressured Wade to do some things he wouldn't have done otherwise but I am generally unimpressed with Wade when it comes to free agent acquisitions. A lot of people talk about how good he is at building a farm system but when I say a guy making lousy decisions in one area it makes me wonder about about his abilities in other areas. I'm not saying that he isn't good at scouting, drafting and developing players but I have read a little about how he was just lucky to have the right people around him in the past. Wade is widely considered the anti-Morey in baseball circles. It's believed that he's a dinosaur of a thinker in a sport where Morey-types are becoming the norm.
Villarreal was so horrible, I forgot he was ever a Stro. In general his signing have been poor, and his small trades have been good.
I'm not sure that Feliz is any kind of upgrade over Blum, esp. if you look at Feliz' last few years. Even in a very hitter-friendly park, Feliz' numbers were horrible. Blum actually has a higher OPS+ than Feliz over the last 4 years and as a LHB, has hit RHP better over his career. While Feliz is good defensively, Blum is no slouch either. He's underrated in that regard. I think it's a wash. Blum's numbers would drop if he was playing everyday and he's ideally a bench player/occasional starter but I don't think he would be any worse than Feliz and possibly a little better, even factoring in defense.
And I probably sound like a cynical ass but as good as Lindstrom has been so far, he is a 30-year-old who seems to have a history of command issues, walking a lot of hitters per IP throughout his major and minor league career. I'm not saying it'll happen but I wouldn't be surprised at all if the wheels come off at some point. I have no problem with that signing though either way. Short contract, small dollars and we didn't really have any other reasonable options at closer.
He sounded a lot worse a couple of days ago but yea, I feel for the guy. It's great that he gets his shot to be a manager but it sucks that he walked into this mess. If he gave you an honest opinion prior to the season, he probably didn't expect much but he probably didn't expect this level of suck, either. The worst part is that there really isn't much to be optimistic about in the near future. We are probably going to be pretty bad for a few years and now that he sees everything up close and personal, he knows it.
He looked great to start the year, last season, then Coop came out and said, I want him to be aggressive and pull the ball. He went to hell after that, and hasn't hit a ball with authority to right field since. It all goes back to Cooper...
