Don't take it personal; just making fun of how you disappeared when their winning percentage was over .550. Well, you're *not* "sticking to what you said". We *all* knew a long, hot summer of mediocre-to-downright-bad baseball was ahead of us. *You*, however, said they would lose 100 games. I'm glad you're now rescinding that. Rooting for 100 losses is like rooting for 2-14 or 1-15. And, you WAAAYYYYY overvalue the "top pick" in the draft. Do you realize how many picks there are in the draft?? It ain't like you're getting Yao versus some stiff. Especially when those stats demonstrate that you were never right about this being a 100 loss team. But, I can understand if you're not interested in all kinds of statistics. I dug through the stats because I just like baseball--even though the Astros suck this year. It's cool. And no one has disagreed about this. A bad team is a bad team--and that is what the Astros are. But a 100-loss team is like the 2005 Texans--and the Astros are not that horrible. They'll win about 80 games. Meh.
There was one at Astrosdaily back in the day (before they moved to that dreadful EZboard thing) that was pretty funny. There was one about Daryle Ward that included the words "rumblin, bumblin, stumblin".
The baseball draft certainly is more of a crapshoot than the other sport leagues but there is a good chance to get a solid or all star type with the no. 1 pick as long as you stay away from the pitchers. Here's a few of the best number 1 overall players selected. Joe Mauer 01 Adrian Gonzalez 00 Josh Hamilton 99 Pat Burrell 98 Darin Erstad 95 Alex Rodriguez 93 Phil Nevin 92 Chipper Jones 90 Ken Griffey jr. 87
The real hard part in the draft is finding a stud catcher taken in the 1st round by any team. Ooops, we did that again!
...the Astros are going to lose 100 games. Book it. Oh: "timbeerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.........................."
It's because the bullpen that he was expecting 10 wins from... "Bullpen??? (won 22 games a year ago, including 11 from Qualls and Lidge) Just don't see it. 10 wins??? " already has 20 wins.
On the day this thread was created, Roy had 5 wins. He now has 10. To be fair, I don't recall if there were any no decisions he got where we ended up winning games. Regardless, if he got injured the day after this thread was started and didn't pitch another game this season, the Astros may have roughly 5 more losses. That is assuming whoever the replacement starter(s) was didn't win any games. A more accurate number would probably be 3 more losses. In either case, we wouldn't finish with anywhere near 100 losses. Plus, Roy is having a bad season. He may have the most wins but, so far, he hasn't even been our best pitcher. We also just lost Lee with more than a quarter of the season remaining. That is a huge blow but it still won't make us anywhere near a 100 loss team.
And I wouldn't be disappointed with that. It's about what I expected with the Opening Day roster. The pitching staff was an issue of concern, but there have been some nice performances. Seriously, who though Brian freaking Moehler would be our #2? Wandy has been up and down...pretty much as expected. I hoped for more out of Backe. Randy Wolf hasn't been terrible since his pick up. The pen is about where I expected them to be. I always hope for better, but I'd be satisfied with 81-81.
I'd be very pleased with that, considering how they started the year and considering the swoon (to grossly understate it) of June and July. For most of the year, they've been about a 74-win team. So I'd be very pleased if they finished right at .500. At any rate, next year they have to win at least 91 games, to get us close to (or at or above) the break-even point since 1962.
Has any seen jopatmc lately? One thing to keep an eye on for the Astros is they currently have the 16th best record in baseball, meaning if they continue to win, they'll lose their first round pick next year if the sign a Class A free agent like Sheets. The top 15 picks are protected, so if we had a pick in the top 15, we'd lose our second rounder.
