Not only is Jennings 1) more expensive in terms of salary, but 2) we also had to give up other players (yes I know they were crappy, but still tradeable) to get him and 3) he is either gone next year or much more expensive.
Jennings was a better pitcher than Pettitte last season and available for a cheaper (in terms of salary) price.
That's one year. I wasn't aware careers spanned only 1 year And again, we didn't have to give up players to get Pettitte plus we wouldn't have lost him after 1 year. PLUS, having Pettitte may have helped us get Clemens.
bingo Cat still does not get it Pettitte>Jennings so Pettitte+Hirsh+Buckholtz+Willy T (and maybe Clemens as well) is>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Jennings
They don't. But when one player is on the downside of his career (Pettitte), one player is on the upside of his career (Jennings), and the player on the upside posted a significantly better ERA the season before, odds are he's probably the better pitcher at this point. Not to mention that Jennings' particularly mediocre years were all before the Coors Field factor was neutralized.
I think you'd have a hard time convincing people that Jennings is better than Pettitte just based on the fact that Pettitte is older and had a worse ERA last year. It's not like Pettitte is as old as Woody Williams.
Better? Maybe not... but cheaper, less likely for injury risk? (including this year's tweak), most definitely. Pettite was going to cost this team $14 million+... Jennings market has not been set yet (and if he does approach that value, that means he would have had a helluva year this year... an "ace" type year, so to speak).
I don't know how you could possibly look at their seasons last year and conclude that Pettite is better than Jennings. Andy Pettite was horrible for much of last season. And he's logged alot of innings over his career, and I believe he's serious when he says he'll retire in the next season or 2. Jennings has alot left to his career, and could be a rotation anchor for the next 5+ years. I will stick by my original thought, that the Jennings deal was a good one if he gets re-signed, a bad one if he doesn't.
Cheaper in terms of salary for ONE year, yes. Not cheaper when you consider the players we had to give up and what we will have to pay to keep him for another year. Well the way pitchers' salaries are going, he may not need an ace type year to command that kind of salary and a long- term deal.
Poor Rick White..first he goes to the DL; then his thread gets hijacked. Some of you people need to give it up already. Pettite was injured his first year, horrible for the first half of his second year and horrible for the first half of his third year....so he gave us one good full season out of three....ONE. And you think the organization is stupid enough to overpay for that kind of performance, on a guy that very likely could get injured and whose heart wasn't ever really here in the first place?! And what exactly did the Astros give up again for Jennings...absolutely NOTHING that could make this team any better right now. Last I checked, Wandy, Sampson and Albers were pitching pretty good. Jennings was doing good before his injury and hopefully he'll be back in a week or so. Last time I checked, this team wasn't losing ballgames because of poor starting pitching...they've been losing ballgames because they can't score more than 3 damn runs a game. Show me where Pettite could help us with that. And yeah I see that the Deer Park native is pitching pretty well over there in NY so far. Well maybe it's because he's more comfortable in Yankee pinstripes than he ever was in Astros'. Because based on his first half performances for this team in the past three season, somehow I doubt he'd be doing the same for us.
Actually Hirsh could be helping us now. And do you really think Wandy is going to be good? His ERA is 4.74 by the way.
Wandy has provided 3 quality starts out of his 4. The ERA is 4.50 (after today) due to one poor start. He could easily be 3-1 with a tad bit of offense. It remains to be seen if he can provide this kind of solid pitching beyond April, however. He also did well early last season. The 3 runs he gave up today were all tainted.
So now an ERA of 3.09 is a horrible first half?? Wow. I guess in comparison to his 2nd half 1.69 ERA it is, but wow.
Like I said we're not losing games because of our pitching so much as our hitting. Having Hirsch wouldn't have won any more games than we already have. Wandy has a 4.50 ERA with 3 out of 4 quality starts. He's doing his job; whether he can do it over the course of the season remains to be seen. But apparently he's showing more confidence and maturity on the mound these days. Hirsch is starting off well too, but whether he can keep it up through till September is anyone's guess. We needed a number 2...I'm glad the organization traded for one instead of either handing that job to Wandy or giving it an unproven young arm.
No one is saying to give the number 2 job to an unproven arm. And yeah our hitting sucks. The answer to that is Pence and for Biggio to hurry up and get 3,000.
