Jeff Passan has a preview, kind of, of the 2010 Houston Astros:
Years of skinflint draft-day bonuses – thanks, Drayton McLane, for being the only owner in all of baseball to adhere to Bud Selig’s non-mandated slotting rules – have led to this. It’s not a brutal team; just a bad one. And no matter what sort of attitude new manager Brad Mills brings from the Red Sox, he can’t make chicken salad here. The Astros come with no demonstrable strength and a bevy of weaknesses, chief among them a bullpen that brought in failed Florida closer Matt Lindstrom to upgrade the corps. Even if Roy Oswalt and Lance Berkman are healthy – and right now, neither is a lock for opening day – Houston is a leaning tower of bad contracts and grim prospects. And timber it shall go.
I suppose that, by "timber," that means it's falling over...? And what if I don't like chicken salad? So if Brad Mills can't make it, isn't that good? For me, it is.
We didn't come out here to play tiddlywinks, son.
-Hal Smith
