Cardinals getting Peavy would've ended our playoff hopes in the near future. Who else is on the list with Cardinals and Braves out? Perhaps their demands lower if they can't find suitors. And I don't understand why they can't take current good MLB players like Wigginton and then trade them off for more prospects. 3-team trade seems ideal so they get multiple prospects from multiple teams.
Because Wiggington won't get you prospects... he may get you a struggling AAA player who has some potential, but nothing on anybody's A-list. Likewise, Valverde's value is overrated.... unless you want another relief pitcher and a possible young guy who may just need a change of scenery (kinda like how we gave up Qualls and Burke for him).
I can't believe that anybody who follows the Astros, or baseball in general, is disappointed to hear this latest news regarding Peavy. It was painfully obvious since the day this rumor broke that this wasn't going to happen so there should be no surprise. The fact that Peavy said he'd like to play with his buddy Roy meant practically nothing in the real scheme of things, even with him having a no-trade clause. He wasn't considering whether the Astros actually had the pieces to make it happen when he made those initial statements. We have the worst farm system in baseball and only one above average young player in the big leagues. I was trying to point this out from day one to anybody who was delusional enough to even discuss hypothetical "Peavy to the Astros" trade scenarios. Going forward, not only will we not have Peavy or Sheets in 2009, we very likely won't make a single big move on any front. Drayton isn't cheap but he isn't going to obliterate his record for opening day payroll either just to add one player when even he knows this team is still several pieces away from contention. He will still field a competitive team because he's Drayton and he does spend a fair amount but he won't go overboard. Roger Clemens and Andy Pettite were special cases. The truth is that we need to build up our farm system and keep every possible draft pick, especially first rounders. We should be happy to even have a chance at winning the Wild Card while we go through this necessary rebuilding phase.
That's great and all... but this team currently has a nucleus of Roy/Lance towards the end of their prime, Carlos Lee with a few good years left, and an aging Tejada. If they're not going all-out to win with this bunch, then they might as well trade Lance/Roy (even though I would be totally against it). Also, good GM's find a way to make these trades work. When a player says he wants to go to the Yankees, the Yankees don't just sit there dumbfounded saying "we don't have the prospects". They find a way to get it done. Peavy saying he wants to come here is a big deal. He can veto any trade he wants if its to a terrible team simply for the prospects. Also, Pence is at least a starting point... one which I'm not sure the Padres have a comparable starting point anywhere else. Also, lost in everything, is the fact that the economy's situation may lead to some holding back in spending this off-season. Not to say that Drayton will be the exception (hell, he's probably leading the "lets don't spend" brigade)... but just to say that instead of the obscene $20 million dollar contracts being handed to unproven pitchers, you'll get the more Oswalt-like $14 million.
That's a stupid statement. When a player of Peavy's caliber says he wants to come to your team as his #1 choice (amongst only 5 or 6 choices or whatever it was)...and esp. when 2 other teams on that list are ruled out.. you're not hoping that they figure it out somehow? People will be disappointed if that hope is busted. It's not like I--or anyone else on this forum--thought we had a GREAT shot at landing Peavy. But I thought we had a decent shot given that he has the ability to reject trades and that he named us as his #1 team. I still think we do have a chance, though much smaller at this point.
What? Are you serious? You do realize that if the Astros had an actual #2 starter, we would have made the playoffs? As long as you are in the playoffs, you are in contention. We were 3.5 games out of the WC.
If I was unclear above, I would have loved to get Peavy. I want to see this team win it all. I just knew we didn't have anything close to the pieces necessary to make a deal, even if a 3rd team got involved. Someone suggested that none of the other teams could center their offers around a Pence-caliber player. Even if that were true, which I doubt, it will take much more than one player to land Peavy and his very favorable contract. The Braves, for instance, have one of the top 10 farm systems. I don't know much about the individual players but from the little I hear, they are far, far better than what we have in ours. In fact, every team vying for Peavy has far better prospects. I guess that should be obvious when you have the worst farm in all of baseball. Maybe if we never got rid of the likes of Lidge, Scott, Patton, Buccholz, Hirsch, etc... over the past few years, then we could swing some kind of 3-team deal. The fact is that we are so dried up in the minors that we are basically stuck for the time being. The only way we become legit contenders now is if Drayton is willing to spend like never before for a couple of top-tier SPs but I just don't see that happening. Even if we were willing to move Tejada, and there was a taker, he won't bring us much that will help us win now. I love the Stros but we need to be patient as an organization, and as fans, for the next few years and hope that we draft well and restock our system with quality prospects. Once that happens, things will look much brighter.
The team really isn't far away from being a contender though. AS bad as they were in stretches, and the lack of a #2 starter, they won 86 games. You are talking as though they had lost 100 games.
I hate to say this but I honest to goodness believe that we seriously over-achieved last season. Our run differential/pythagorean winning percentage both pointed to a team that should have had a losing record. Most of our pitching and hitting statistics were once again in the bottom half of just the NL. It was a fun ride up until Ike but without any serious upgrades to our SP and/or adding a couple more guys not named Kaz Matsui or Lance Berkman that can get on base more often, we are unlikely to repeat this relative success. It's obviously not impossible, just not likely. The only other realistic chance we have of making the playoffs next year, without any upgrades, is if both Bourn and Pence have big seasons as well as at least one of a resigned Wolf or Wandy have a career year, if not both. I wouldn't count on all that happening. We may not even keep Wolf. I expect Moehler to collapse and be unable to reproduce what he did this season. We will quickly regret spending a few million on him. Our SP has the real potential to be atrocious in 2009 outside of Roy O. despite an acceptable 2008.
Except we weren't a losing team. In fact, we were 13 games over .500 before Ike. The run differential stuff is meaningless. All our numbers tell you is we win close games and get blown out in losses. It doesn't mean we were supposed to have a losing record.
Uhh... no its not. I will cease to take you seriously as a baseball fan in this forum if you honestly belive that run differential is not the mark of a team that is either an overacheiver or a team that is right about where they should be. In the end, the Astros overachieved last year... they had marginal starting pitching, inconsistent offense, and a spotty bullpen.
Wins and losses are obviously what matter most but, in my opinion, run differential is far from a meaningless statistic. There is a very high correlation between teams with positive run differentials and winning records and teams with negative run differentials and losing records. These correlations are not absolutes, but they aren't meaningless either and there is plenty of evidence to support that. There are also plenty of other statistics to look at if you don't like run differential for whatever reason. Put it this way: Every single team that made the playoffs this season had a positive run differential and most of those teams had a strong or very strong differential. In other words, not a single team with a negative run differential made the playoffs. All of the playoff teams were also among their league leaders in pitching or hitting statistics, or both. The Astros didn't have a strong run differential and weren't in the top half of the NL in almost any critical pitching or hitting statistic (OPS, OBP, SLG, BB, RBI, R, H, BAA, 8th in ERA so just barely in the top half in that case, etc...). We did break a record for fewest errors ever by an NL team, though! That likely accounted for a few wins. Here are all the playoff teams and the Astros as well as their run differentials: Red Sox: +151 Devil Rays: +103 White Sox: +81 Angels: +68 Cubs: +184 Phillies: +119 Brewers: +61 Dodgers: +52 ..... Astros: -31 I didn't verify this but I am pretty sure that very few teams with negative run differentials have ever made the playoffs. Assuming the above statement to be true, how could that fact be insignficant? Isn't that actually a perfect example of significance, at least statistically? And if that is true, is it a stretch to think that a team with a signficant negative run differential, as well as many other poor hitting and pitching statistics, that finished 11 games over .500 likely got lucky or overachieved despite having less overall talent? I believe that if a team finishes with a negative run differential and makes the playoffs, they likely either got lucky or played in a crappy division. Sure, having a couple of very good relief pitchers that you only use with small leads or coming up with a lot of clutch hits could allow you to win a lot of close games while you also have some really, really crappy SPs/RPs and very poor hitters that cause you to get blown out in other games. But over 162 games, the truly elite, deeper, playoff-caliber teams will generally have enough talent and depth to where either their pitching or hitting, or both, result in them scoring a lot more runs than they give up. Those elite teams generally don't have to rely as heavily upon a small pool of pitchers and hitters to outscore their opponents and win enough games to make the playoffs. They can afford more bad performances by their better players because their second-tier players are better than the second-tier players on most other teams. If I had to bet on what is likely to happen next season if the Astros roll out roughly the same group of players, I would lean toward us finishing sub-.500 given the overall statistics from this season, including run differential. Yea, we lost Carlos Lee and Kaz Matsui for big chunks of games as well as Oswalt, Wandy and Wiggy to a lesser extent but every team faces injuries over the course of a season. Many teams faced as bad a set of injuries as us in 2008, or worse, including several of the playoff teams. The difference is those teams had more depth so they still managed to score a lot more runs than they gave up and make the playoffs. The original point I was making is that I strongly believe the Astros overachieved this season. We also have one of the worst, if not the worst, farm system in baseball and an aging, average to slightly below average major league team. We need to rebuild our farm system over the next few years and realize that we are not going to be able to use prospects to trade for any big name players. We just don't have enough to offer. In the meantime, because we have a good core of players (Berkman, Lee, Tejada, Pence, Oswalt, Valverde) we should be thankful that we even have a slim chance to win the Wild Card. Down the road, if and when we replenish our system with good prospects, we will either be able to bring up cheap, young talent to improve the big league team or make trades the next time a Jake Peavy rolls around.
^ Without looking it up, I thought that the D'backs last year were one of the first to do make the playoffs with a negative run differential. There is no way to look at the 2008 Astros without believeing that they overachieved. It was definitely a fun ride, but only the most homer of fans believed at the beginning of the season that they would win 86 games. It's been said many times...many of us hope this season didn't lull the Astros into thinking they were close. There are significant issues that need to be dealt with...Is Bourne the CF'er-leadoff guy long term? Was it just a sophmore slump for Pence? Is there any way Moehler wasn't a fluke? Will Wandy ever be consistent enough to truly be a 2nd or 3rd starter? Can they find an actual 2nd starter? Who's going to catch? etc., etc., etc.
Bill James' pythagorean theorem to the significance of how run differential can ultimately determine record is one of the most important statistical discoveries out there. Whoever the poster who said that run differential doesn't matter has probably never even heard of Bill James.
I hear ya. I believe that we need to address our need for a #2 starter over the offseason. Wandy is an acceptable #3. Wolf is an acceptable #4. Backe, Moehler, Sampson and Paulino can battle it out for #5 in ST. I believe that the winter ball experience will help Bourn become a more patient hitter. If he becomes more patient, he will get on base more often. This teams hitting stats would have been some better if we had put our best team on the field everyday. Wiggy only played in 111 games last year (some injury...a lot of Coop's decision). He hit .285 and had, IIRC, 22 or 23 bombs. If he had played in 135 games, his numbers would have been better. This team is not hopeless. We need some pitching help. We need a good catcher. If we get those things, I kind of like our chances.
Why can we not deal Carlos Lee and Tejada and Valverde for a 3 team deal? These guys have value, I know we will lose something with the middle man but geez they have to be worth a pretty good amount.
Judging from what we gave up for Tejada and Valverde... and seeing as how neither of them really raised their value (and in Tejada's case, his value has plummeted)... what team would be willing to part with plus prospects for these guys? Now, Carlos Lee has value... especially to an AL team where he can be the best DH west of Big Papi. However, he also has a no-trade clause which I don't see him waiving to leave a place he chose to come to.
It definitely is not meaningless. I agree with Brooks that the team overachieved tremendously last year. Which is great. But it would be a terrible oversight on Wade and co. to put too much stock into our record and not look into how we actually played ballgames. We need a lot more than just a #2 starter, IMO. And we don't have the pieces to get Peavy anyway, so its a moot point to me.
Run differential doesn't mean much to me. Sure it gives you a general idea of how good a team is, but saying a specific team is mediocre because of a run differential is absurd. The best stat to determine how good you are is your win-loss record... go figure! The Cubs had an absurd +184 differential in the regular season, and yet, they didn't reflect that in the playoffs now did they? Why does it matter if the other team blew up our junk relievers like Borkowski in meaningless situations? Give me a break! We were the best 2nd half team in baseball and could have made a run for the playoffs were it not for Ike. On July 11th, we were 42-51 with a run differential of -51. On Sept. 11th (last game played before Ike), we were 80-67 with a run differential of -7. That means our run diff. in that span was +44. Does that mean anything to you? Oh wait, you don't take me seriously. And yeah, I know who stat geek Bill James is, the Adam Everett lover. Lets not act like I'm saying we were a great team, but we could've made the playoffs. If we find a way to get a #2 starter, look for our record to be even better next year, regardless of what the run differential will suggest.
