I think it would be great if we could get Dunn here on a 1 year deal. Can't wait for the season to get started.
Doesn't make sense to me that they go after Dunn when they let Ty walk. Ty, Tejada, Kaz, Berkman, Lee, Bourn and Pence is better than Blum/Boone, Tejada, Kaz, Berkman, Lee, Pence and Dunn. Plus, if you're gonna spend money on something, then spend it on pitching. And based on Wade's comments on Bourn, they don't seem ready to give up on him just yet, especially when you consider last year was his first full season. Hell they still haven't given up on Backe, and it took them forever to let go of Ensberg and Lane; why all of a sudden develop an itchy trigger finger.
Pence and what? The Padres want young pitching prospects. To trade anything remotely considered a prospect from the Astros system would actually set them back further than they already are. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but Jake Peavy will not be a Houston Astro in 2009.
Ty got no respect what-so-ever. He was such a solid, good character guy who was above average at his position and we just let him go for nothing. Dunn is just flashy option to put butts in the seats. It's a typical Drayton move. It may not give up a much greater chance at winning but it does make us alot more interesting. I forget where I read it, but some article said that the Rays made the world series this year having not scored many more runs than last year. They did however cut the number of runs they allowed by almost 150. Signing Dunn neither helps our pitching staff nor our defense. It actually drastically hurts our defense to swap Bourn for Dunn in the field.
If Drayton didn't buy into the idea of Pence as the next great Astro on and off the field, he would be in San Diego right now. The astros had enough young talent to make a deal work for Peavy if it included Pence.
Ty Wigginton was a victim of circumstances. One, he got really hot the 2nd half of the year and this 3rd base free agent class was very weak(ie his arbitration case improved). Two, the U.S. economy went in the toilet right before free agency began. What all that meant was that the team's budget couldn't afford him if he won his arbitration case. So since they really never intended on signing him for more than one year, they refused arbitration and the right to sign him in the offseason. It's the same thing with Wolf. If the astros payroll wasn't so high and the economy was better, they would have offered him arbitration. But the team is in a budget crisis in a weak economy so his 3 year deal was pulled, and he wasn't offered arbitration.
Yeah, I acknowledged that in my post. Hence high risk/high reward. But watching Astros fans reactions in the past, we get really pissed when people can't put wood on the ball and and can't even advance a runner with a sac fly. He'll get his RBI's but he's going to leave a boatload of men on base too. I guarantee that if we sign him, there will be a ton of b****ing about his strikeouts, especially when there are runners in scoring position. It's easy to overlook it and focus on the power numbers when he plays for somebody else, but it will wear on you when you have to watch it everyday. I'm not saying it would be a bad move. I'm just saying that along with excitement, he also brings frustration.
Agreed. He can be such a star in some parts of his game but can fizzle out in other aspects of his game
Teams can still negotiate with players if they don't offer arbitration. Both of these guys could have been brought back for far less once their price tag came down. Maybe they still don't come back, but why did the Astros not even try....or at least wait a little longer to see what the market was gong to do. http://houston.astros.mlb.com/news/...t_id=3799820&vkey=news_hou&fext=.jsp&c_id=hou And what is the lesson learned here ladies and gentlemen. Patience is a virtue. And I'd imagine if the Astros kept an open dialogue with Ty, it wouldn't be so far fetched for him to return.
I'm sure they did negotiate with wolf up until the arbitration deadline. I guess MLB took out the May 31st rule but in years past if you didn't offer arbitration to your own free agents, you couldn't resign them until May 31. If that's the case, I'm guessing Wolf probably wasn't wishing to re-negotiate after the club pulled its offer. As for Wigginton, they must have felt that negotiations weren't going anywhere and he was likely to accept arbitration.
I'm not saying there isn't enough talent. I'm saying that it would take every bit of what the Astros have. Their minor league system is currently ranked 30th out of 30 teams. There is 1 prospect in the top 100 and he's in A ball and was ranked 98th. The Padres would have probably demanded Bud Norris and Felipe Paulino as well...the only 2 players even remotely considered pitching prospects. Do you really want to guarantee guys like Backe, Hampton, and Moehler have no competition in ST and no one to replace them with when they do exactly what most of us think they're going to do?
