Assessing 2009's 1st Round Draft Picks

So with today being the first day of the MLB Draft, and all, I thought we might take a gander and see how all 30 1st Round picks are doing so far. Then we'll make some observations. The following stats are career-to-date

Name	Team	High Level	Major Stats	Secondary Stats
Strasburg	WSH	AAA	1.30 ERA/0.80 WHIP	65K:13BB
Ackley	SEA	AA	.251/.408/.359	27K:40BB
Tate	SD	N/A
Sanchez	PIT	A+	.314/.416/.500	36K:27BB
Hobgood	BAL	A	4.50 ERA/1.42 WHIP	39K:26BB
Wheeler	SF	A	5.06 ERA/1.43 WHIP	33K:17BB
Minor	ATL	AA	3.13 ERA/1.09 WHIP	108K:28BB
Leake	CIN	MLB	2.22 ERA/1.23 WHIP	50K:25BB
Turner	DET	A	4.01 ERA/1.17 WHIP	44K:7BB
Storen	WSH	MLB	1.93 ERA/1.18 WHIP	6K:5BB
Matzek	COL	A	2.40 ERA/1.20 WHIP	18K:8BB
Crow	KC	AA	5.68 ERA/1.65 WHIP	40K:30BB
Green	OAK	A+	.309/.351/.417	58K:14BB
Purke	TEX	N/A
White	CLE	AA	2.54 ERA/1.04 WHIP	52K:23BB
Borchering	ARI	A	.252/.307/.417	50K:18BB
Pollock	ARI	A	.271/.319/.376	36K:16BB
James	FLA	A	5.65 ERA/1.64 WHIP	31K:19BB
Miller	StL	A	5.18 ERA/1.54 WHIP	54K:14BB
Jenkins	TOR	A	3.48 ERA/1.22 WHIP	59K:12BB
Mier	HOU	A	.242/.338/.370	84K:53BB
Gibson	MIN	AA	2.27 ERA/1.06 WHIP	67K:20BB
Mitchell	CWS	A	.296/.417/.435	40K:23BB
Grichuk	LAA	A	.293/.329/.513	94K:15BB
Trout	LAA	A	.359/.432/.519	68K:48BB
Arnett	MIL	A	6.01 ERA/1.56 WHIP	73K:39BB
Franklin	SEA	A	.319/.359/.554	55K:18BB
Fuentes	BOS	A	.281/.326/.391	70K:14BB
Heathcott	NYY	A	.258/.343/.290	4K:4BB
Washington	TB	N/A
Jackson	CHC	A+	.297/.406/.441	106K:67BB
Wheeler	COL	A+	.260/.345/.390	111K:56BB

*Four first-round picks have yet to play a game for their team, including the notable Matt Purke, who decided that he'd rather play for TCU than the Rangers.
*Obviously Stephen Strasburg is the marquee name, and when he debuts tomorrow, the Nationals will have two of their '09 picks already on the 25-man roster.
*Jiovanni Mier was the 9th high school player chosen in the first-round. His .708 OPS is the second-worst of all position players taken in the first-round, not counting Zachary Heathcott, the Yankees 1st selection, who has only played in eight games. Total.

Coop's legacy lives in the form of Alberto Arias' jacked-up rotator cuff

Alberto Arias was signed as a 17-year old undrafted free agent by the Colorado Rockies in 2000, and made his debut for Colorado on May 1, 2007. His total IP by year:

2003 (Rookie ball): 73
2004 (Single-A): 135
2005 (High-A): 90 - converted to a reliever
2006 (Double-A): 111.2
2007 (Triple-A): 34 - missed significant time with shoulder inflammation
2008 (Triple-A): 91
2009 (Triple-A/MLB): 62

So from that little exercise, Arias wasn't "overworked" in the traditional sense of IP in 2009 - pitching 29 fewer IP in 2009 from 2008.

But if we look at how Coop used Arias in 2009, we can see a few things:

-Arias threw 30+ pitches in a given outing seven times in 2009. All between June 9 and July 27.

-From May 6 to the All-Star Break, Arias threw in 25 of the Astros' 60 games, average 18.56 pitches per outing and averaging 1.8 days of rest between appearances.

-After the All-Star Break, Arias only appeared in 17 games, due to going on the DL on August 24 and having knee surgery on September 23.

Did Coop screw him up? I don't know about that. Maybe. Probably. But it's hard to fault Coop for continuing to run him out there. Pre-ASG, Arias was throwing 60% of his pitches for strikes and allowing a slash line of .184/.298/.243.

Fact is that Arias is hurt, and it's not looking good. Responding to David Coleman of TCB, Will Carroll basically confirmed AC's quick research that his injury is a precursor to a full-on rotator cuff tear, but that scenario is preventable. Whether it was preventable in 2009 is a larger, harder-to-define question.

Justice v. Berkman

So Richard Justice and Lance Berkman had themselves a good sit-down. He spent a lot of time reassuring that he plays hard, and is a leader. What do we learn?

On the public's view of his work-ethic:
It's easy when the interview is on television for people to see it's said tongue-in-cheek. You say some of these things in the print media, and it comes off as serious. I probably should have been a little more guarded with some of my remarks. But I don't want to be a guy that hides behind cliches.

I would like for people to know I do work hard. I worked the whole off-season. The first thing I did was lose about 12 pounds. I follow Gene Coleman's program. They send us home with an off-season training manual.

On his weight:
I like to play at 220. At the end of the season, I was at 230. I was about 10 pounds heavier than I wanted to be. I'm getting older and it's harder to keep the weight off. I don't feel I've ever been fat or unathletic. I joke about it because that's how people perceive me. People tell me I look like I'm 300 pounds on television. I don't run pretty. I'm not the most fluid on the bases. I feel like I always play hard. I run hard. I do care about what we're doing here.

On "dogging it":
Like A-Rod. Until very recently, everything he said was scripted. I'm not going to tell you something because that's what you guys or the general public want to hear. I would hope the people that are truly fans would pay close enough attention to the way I play. I've never dogged it on the field my entire life. If you hit a ground ball to the second baseman, and he's standing there holding it, you may not run 100 percent through first base all the time. You're out halfway down the line. That kind of thing happens.

All I'm saying is that I feel like I've played hard, I've played hurt, I've been on the field, I want to win. I would hope that people that watch the games would know that just by watching.

On the clubhouse environment:
It was really bad. But I don't want people to blame that all on Coop. It was bad because I played bad. I wasn't as good as I can be. Roy was hurt and down. Nobody really played up to what they were supposed to. We had a lot of guys under-perform. In fact, the only guy to perform consistently well was Wandy. He pitched great. Outside of that, everybody had a down year, and that in and of itself creates a horrendous environment. I think people want to say it was the manager. It wasn't all his fault. Certainly, he has some responsibility in that because he was the manager. It was our fault.

The Astros and RISP

So it seemed like every time we turned around, if there was a runner in scoring position, then the inning ended with that Astro removing their gloves while standing on base, and another Astro flinging his helmet at the ground and making loud, angry noises. How bad was it, compared to the rest of the League? Note, all these stats are with RISP, and are organized by OPS.

Team	PAs	Avg/OBP/SLG	XBH
PHI	1705	.255/.359/.437	140
ATL	1721	.278/.369/.420	118
COL	1717	.258/.347/.436	143
FLA	1740	.272/.367/.411	113
MIL	1729	.262/.357/.421	124
Astros	1546	.267/.343/.427	119
StL	1684	.263/.362/.403	113
NYM	1737	.276/.358/.405	114
WSH	1692	.255/.350/.404	117
LAD	1855	.259/.358/.385	121
ARI	1636	.240/.336/.391	118
CIN	1627	.250/.335/.391	111
PIT	1601	.251/.336/.389	112
CHC	1689	.241/.340/.376	112
SD	1673	.242/.354/.348	88
SF	1611	.245/.323/.373	100

Surprised? The Astros had the 5th-highest OPS with RISP in the National League, and 2nd-highest in the NL Central. How did this translate into getting worked over in the run column? Because the Astros had 55 fewer plate appearances than the next lowest team (Pirates, natch). It doesn't matter that the Astros had a higher OPS w/RISP than the Dodgers, because the Dodgers had over 300 more plate appearances with RISP than the Astros. So obviously, you can get away with a lower OPS if you have that many more opportunities to score runs.

Why even look at this? Because the Astros are doing literally nothing right now. And I feel like I need to do something every day.

And no, I don't know what's up with that last column.

Tejada's GIDPs

Tejada has been much-maligned in the past few days based on the number of times he has grounded into a double play. In an earlier post, it was pointed out that Tejada has led the NL in GIDPs in each of the last two years with 32 in 2008 and 29 in 2009.

Citizen Ryan pointed out, however:
I'm not saying Tejada is worth 8 figures by any means, but I just have to laugh when people say he shouldn't get money because he grounds into double plays. He grounds into double plays because he doesn't strike out much. It's a trade off. I'm sure for every rally-killing double play ball he's had, he's had a simple 6-3 to score a run because he didn't strike out. How hard is this to figure out?

So let's take a gander at Tejada's GIDPs from 2009.
April: 3
May: 3
June: 7
July: 4
August: 6
Sept/Oct: 6

1st-3rd Inn: 13
4th-6th Inn: 10
7th-End Inn: 6

When HOU was losing: 16
When HOU was leading: 5
When game was tied: 8

To end the inning: 16
w/RISP: 9
when GIDP scored a run, anyway: 0

So. What can we gather from this? 23 of his 29 GIDPs came in the 1st-6th innings, and 24 of them occurred when the game was either tied or Houston was losing. I only saw one instance in which Tejada represented the winning run at the plate in the 9th, and GIDPed to end the game. In four instances, Tejada GIDPed 2+ times (2 GIDPs three times, and 3 GIDPs once).

In nine instances, there were runners in scoring position when Tejada GIDPed, and the run didn't score in all nine cases. And looking at this, there was obviously someone on 1st base when Tejada GIDPed, and in nine instances there was at least one runner in scoring position. Once was there someone on 2nd and 3rd. So that's 39 (give or take a baserunner here and there. Screw it, let's call it 40) baserunners that Tejada took off the basepath. Given that he hit in front of Berkman and Lee most of the year, how many of them can reasonably be expected to score? All 40? Probably not. So let's say that Tejada cost the Astros 20 runs (it's arbitrary, I know) with the GIDPs. That would put the Astros at 663 runs scored, to 743 against, which would put the Pythagorean W-L at 76-86, or two games better than their final record.

It should be noted that this is so subjective, it's borderline absurd. It's hard to quantify how many games were lost because of this. Tejada ended the inning 16 times, meaning there were 0 outs when he GIDPed in 13 cases. What happens if he just strikes out? Or if he pops out? Would Berkman drive him in? Would Lee? No way to know.

Obviously, Tejada represented quite a few outs because of his bat, but as Ryan pointed out, he only struck out 48 times in 673 PAs. That's one K per 13.2 ABs, and was the best in the National League (and 3rd-best in the Majors). So did he GIDP? Hell, and yes, he did. Is Ryan correct? I believe so...

Baserunning bloopers and blunders: a 2009 Astros retrospective

The baserunning mistakes of 2009 were well-documented in roundabout terms. Today, we break those down and get into specifics of how bad a baserunning team the Astros were.

Note: This took a ridiculously long time. I went game-by-game through the play-by-play on Baseball Reference. So keep in mind there's a chance that I missed something, some of the numbers might not quite add up, so I'll give this a 90% chance of being 100% accurate.

Lance Berkman - 9 baserunning outs
Doubled off first (1)
Caught stealing second (2)
Caught stealing third (2)
Thrown out at home (3)
Out stretching double into triple (1)

Geoff Blum - 3
Doubled off first (1)
Caught stealing second (1)
Thrown out at home (1)

Aaron Boone - 1
Thrown out at home (1)

Michael Bourn - 19
Caught stealing second (6)
Picked off first (2*)
Picked off second (1)
Picked off third (1)
Out stretching single into double (2)
Out stretching double into triple (1)
Out at third on groundball (1)
Caught stealing third (3)
Doubled off first (3)
(* - safe in one instance on error by pitcher)

Chris Coste - 1
Thrown out at home (1)

Darin Erstad -3
Caught stealing second (2)
Out at third on ground ball (1)

Jeff Keppinger - 3
Picked off second (1)
Caught stealing second (2)

Carlos Lee - 9
Caught stealing second (2)
Thrown out at home (1)
Out going first to third (1)
Out stretching single into double (3)
Out advancing to third on sac fly (1)
Caught stealing third (1)

Kaz Matsui - 4
Doubled off second (1)
Caught stealing second (2)
Picked off first (1)

Edwin Maysonet - 1
Thrown out at home (1)

Jason Michaels - 5
Picked off second (1)
Out stretching double into triple (1)
Doubled off first (1)
Thrown out at home (1)
Caught stealing second (1)

Roy Oswalt - 1
Out stretching single into double (1)

Hunter Pence - 15
Thrown out taking extra base (1)
Out stretching single into double (1)
Out stretching double into triple (1)
Caught stealing second (9)
Caught stealing third (2)
Thrown out at home (1)

Humberto Quintero - 1
Thrown out at home (1)

Ivan Rodriguez - 2
Caught stealing second (2)

Miguel Tejada - 7
Caught stealing 2nd (2)
Out stretching single into double (3)
Thrown out at home (1)
Out advancing to third on groundball (1)

From this list, I counted 74 outs made on the basepaths, 12 of those made at home plate. It makes sense that Bourn and Pence would be the top two players with baserunning outs as they're the fastest, and youngest, on the team. I also noticed that in the second half of the season, they made far fewer baserunning outs than in the first half. And April was just brutal. What happened there? Trying to be aggressive at the outset, pressing to have a good first month of the season? Giving up in the second half? Arguments could be made from all of these...

The Astros and "wasted outs"

Insider-only article on ESPN today discusses "Wasted Outs," in which a team does something stupid like, (a) Sac bunts, (b) GIDPs, (c) Caught Stealing, and (d) making errors.

The article discusses which of the playoff teams waste the most outs in a reaction to Theo Epstein's charge that J.D. Drew's offensive stats don't matter so much, because he doesn't make any outs.

Let's run the numbers the way the article does, and then compare the Astros to the rest of the National League.

GIDP: 153 (Tejada led the team with 29, Pence had 25, and Lee had 21)
Sac Bunts: 66 (Matsui led the team with 16)
Caught Stealing: 44 (Bourn and Pence combined for 23)
Errors: 78

So that's a total of 341 wasted outs by the Astros in 2009.

Let's get a look at the National League in Wasted Outs (playoff teams in bold, worst offenders in italics)

Team	GIDPs	Sac Bunts	CS	Errors	Total
Nationals	133	64	40	143	380
Mets	144	88	44	97	373
Braves	142	95	26	96	359
Dodgers	141	78	48	83	350
Astros	153	66	44	78	341
Cubs	134	65	34	105	338
Reds	103	100	40	89	332
Rockies	111	76	55	87	329
Padres	131	74	29	94	328
Cardinals	127	68	31	96	322
Marlins	110	70	35	106	321
Brewers	128	58	37	98	321
D-Backs	93	54	40	124	311
Giants	115	67	28	88	298
Pirates	124	60	32	73	289
Phillies	90	55	28	76	249

The article is quick to point out that "saving outs" doesn't translate into winning. There are two division cellar-dwellers in the top four among Wasted Outs. But it is worth noting that the more "disappointing" teams are at the top of the list, and of course, the Astros had the League-worst in GIDP.

Has the depression subsided? No.

I thought maybe some sleep would help. I thought that a little bit of rest would change the fact that the Astros Offseason of Change and Hope lasted about 56 hours. But it didn't. The Astros have indeed picked up Moehler's option.

Wade:
“We informed Moehler today that we want to pick up his option,” Ed Wade said. “He has the right to decline. We’re optimistic that Brian is going to be back with us next year.”

Here were Wade's options:
1) Pay Moehler $250,000 to find another job next season and open up the rotation to younger, cheaper pitchers
2) Pick up his option, pay him the $3 million, and go into the offseason with a rotation of Roy, Wandy, Norris, and Moehler.

Oh yes (/drippingsarcasm), this was the best decision.

In 2009, Moehler posted an 8-12 record with a 5.47 ERA. In 154.2IP, Moehler gave up 21 home runs, struck out just 91 batters, and walked 51. Batters hit .300 against Moehler in 2009, when the league average was .263. His 1.54 was higher than the 1.39 league average, though he was unluckier than most as the BABIP for the league was .303, and Moehler's was a stacked .325.

Still, FanGraphs put Moehler's value at $4.1 million this year, approximately $1.6 million higher than his salary.

Yet I remain ridiculously angry about this. Was Moehler dealing with a knee injury all year long? Probably. Was he doing the Astros any favors by continuing to pitch? Not really. He put together the most underwhelming series of quality starts that I can remember, rarely made it out of the 6th (He was pulled before the end of the 6th in 15 of 29 starts). He also had eight Disaster Starts, compared to 11 Quality Starts, and his line in September? 6GS, 0-3, 6.37 ERA/1.65 WHIP, 14K:12BB, .303/.366/.508 against.

Where could that $3 million have gone? Anywhere else. LaHawk. Arbitration raises for Bourn or Pence. Can all this be attributed to a bum knee that was fixed yesterday? Maybe. But in an off-season where Ed and Drayton promised to get younger and cheaper, the first chance they had to hold up their end just went right out the window, and on a team where payroll is expected to be "slashed," giving $3 million to Brian Moehler looks like a poor decision.

The mutual option says that Moehler can decline the option and become a free agent, but why would he?

Final Stats - 2009 June Draft

So let's do a recap of the 2009 draft class with the final stats (this is a lead-in to a series on the Minor Leaguers). In bold are the draft class leaders at each statistical category.

We'll start with the pitchers, organized by round (the record isn't very important, but I still threw it in there):

Name (Rd)	Team	Rec.	IP	ERA/WHIP	K:BB
T. Bushue (2)	GCL	1-0	22.1	2.42/1.03	19:5
BJ Hyatt (4)	GRV	1-2	19.1	8.84/2.17	15:12
D. Keuchel (7)	TRI	2-3	56.2	2.70/1.08	44:9
B. Walker (8)	TRI	1-7	50	7.92/1.90	39:36
D. Berner (14)	TRI	0-1	6	10.50/2.67	4:5
J. Harper (17)	TRI	0-1	6	9.00/2.17	3:8
JB MacDonald (18)	TRI	8sv	32	2.53/1.34	29:10
M. Jones (22)	GCL	1-2	21.2	4.57/1.85	13:13
R. Donovan (23)	TRI	2-5	33.2	3.74/1.52	28:21
M. Modica (24)	TRI	0-3	31	2.61/1.42	19:13
T. Smink (31)	GRV	1-1	29.1	6.14/1.64	14:7
B. Stines (33)	TRI	3-0	38.1	4.93/1.59	23:17
S. Migl (34)	GRV/TRI	0-0	28.1	6.35/1.80	24:21
R. Rivera (37)	GCL	0-2	15	6.60/1.33	9:3
D. Sarisky (40)	GRV/TRI	2-1	35.1	3.82/1.44	41:13
M. Schurz (44)	GCL/TRI	3-0	29.2	1.52/1.08	37:13
S. Hylander (50)	GCL	4-3	39	3.23/1.15	26:9

Now for the position players:

Name (Rd)	Pos	Team	BA/OBP/SLG	XBH-RBI	K:BB	SB/CS
J. Mier (1)	SS	GRV	.276/.380/.484	20-32	45:30	10/5
T. Nash (3)	OF	GCL	.218/.280/.324	12-20	45:12	1/2
J. Meyer (3c)	3B	GRV	.190/.301/.299	15-27	69:36	1/0
B. Wikoff (5)	SS	TRI/LEX	.280/.327/.333	9-19	30:20	5/7
E. Hernandez (6)	2B/SS	GCL	.295/.336/.396	16-27	28:10	8/2
B. Orloff (19)	2B	GRV/TRI	.165/.250/.196	3-13	11:8	6/0
E. Castro (10)	3B/1B	TRI	.266/.351/.453	21-36	38:26	0/1
D. Williams (11)	C	GRV	.202/.239/.341	9-16	42:4	0/0
J. Goebbert (13)	LF	TRI	.238/.332/.333	15-18	39:22	2/3
R. Humphrey (15)	OF	GRV	.219/.301/.281	7-6	48:14	4/2
R. Sanchez (16)	1B	GCL	.210/.327/.246	5-16	33:18	3/1
B. Kemp (19)	CF	TRI	.259/.367/.300	7-11	31:25	16/3
JD Martinez (20)	OF/DH	GRV/TRI	.348/.399/.598	39-56	44:20	1/0
B. Butera (21)	2B/SS	TRI	.267/.351/.322	11-11	52:23	16/3
N. Stanley (25)	1B	TRI	.230/.308/.354	14-21	45:23	2/2
A. Bray (27)	1B	GRV	.278/.388/.323	6-20	35:28	2/3
G. Wright (29)	OF	GCL	.185/.290/.222	3-7	35:15	4/1
G. Hogue (35)	CF	GRV	.284/.365/.392	13-14	32:16	17/5
S. Barksdale (38)	OF	TRI	.175/.234/.301	8-8	34:8	16/3

This leads us to the Astros County Draftees of the Year. Based on the above, we can say that - for this season only...

Offensive Draftee of the Year: J.D. Martinez
Draftee Pitcher of the Year: Dallas Keuchel

Congratulations!

Ed Wade knew this wasn't exactly the best team

Telling quotes from Ed Wade in McTaggart's season-closing story on how maybe they had an idea that 1,194 things would have to go exactly right - consecutively - for this team to be competitive:

Wade:
"We knew a lot of things would have to go right, including Roy winning his normal 15, 17, 20 games and Lance having a big year and Carlos [Lee] having a big year. Those types of things didn't happen for us. It was a combination of a lot of different factors."

It's funny, because even though Roy had a down year, he still had 15 no-decisions, meaning he just might have won 15, 17, 20 games. But the offense was so terrible, namely because Lance was hitting well under .200 for the first two months of the season, that Carlos Lee - despite hitting .300 with 26 HRs (two fewer than his mark at G115 in 2008 when he went down with the pinky injury) - couldn't make up the productivity.

Anyhow, Wade, on the pitching:
"Our pitching was a strong as we could make it, probably not strong enough to stand the test of time, so to speak."

Ed Wade knew that this team wouldn't contend, and it's not his fault.

Astros attendance versus other teams who can't get their crap together

Richard Justice's blog post this morning talked about the vicious cycle of baseball revenue/payroll/attendance (The economy sucks, so fans don't come to the ballpark, which hurts revenue, which hurts payroll, which hurts the standings, which hurts the attendance, because the team sucks, and so on. At least for a team with no real plan in place.) Anyhow, there is a question in the comments field from "justbob" wondering about how the Astros' attendance compares to other teams that sucked in 2009. So let's take a gander:

The Astros are 73-84 and have completed their home schedule for this season. Other NL teams under .500 include: Mets, Nationals, Brewers, Reds, Pirates, Padres, and Diamondbacks. This is organized by drop in per game attendance from 2008 to 2009.

Team	Attendance	Per Game	Diff from 08
Mets	3,055,282	39,170	-10,593
Nationals	1,793,282	22,416	-6,589
Padres	1,816,544	23,591	-6,484
D-Backs	2,509,924	26,281	-4,706
Reds	1,963,107	21,873	-3,957
Astros	2,521,076	31,124	-3,619
Brewers	3,068,908	37,499	-388
Pirates	1,609,076	19,480	-385

It's worth noting that the Reds, Padres, and Mets still have home games remaining.

The fact that the Mets moved into a smaller ballpark almost eliminates them from consideration here, as they have the sixth-best attendance in the Majors.

But note that the Astros have the third-highest total attendance and the third-lowest per game drop for the eight NL teams under .500. It's not particularly surprising that the top five teams for total attendance have already locked up playoff spots. I'm probably most surprised by the Brewers attendance from 2008 to 2009, as they made the playoffs last year, and haven't been within five games of the division lead since August 9.

Astros 2009 Home Attendance

We'll look at this more in the off-season as a companion piece to the post during the All-Star break detailing attendance from 2008 to 2009, but we can at least do a quick glance at how the season ended, attendance-wise.

The Astros drew (or "sold," depending on the faith you put in attendance counts) 2,521,729 fans this season, down from 2,779,487 in 2008 and 3,030,405 in 2007. This represents a drop of 257,758, or 9.2% from last year (or 16.8% drop from 2007).

This works out to 31,132 fans per game.

Highest paid attendance of 2009: Opening Day vs. Cubs - 43,827
Lowest paid attendance of 2009: June 3 vs. Colorado - 22,032

Could be worse: The Marlins failed to draw 1.5 million fans for the fourth consecutive season, averaging 18,770 fans per game.

Or the Blue Jays. They averaged 23,162 fans per game.

Or how about the Diamondbacks, who saw a 15.2% drop in attendance from 2008.

Zacharly Levine's Weird Moments in 2009

I'm not going to poach the blog post, but Zach Levine runs down some of the more weird moments in the Astros 2009 season.

Among them:
-Hampton cuts his hand on a soap dispenser
-Astros sign Armando Benitez
-Jiovanni Mier lets slip that the Astros will trade Tejada
-Coop fills out the wrong lineup card

I'll add a couple:
-Intentionally walking Nick Johnson to get to Hanley Ramirez
-Carlos Lee forgetting what day he was supposed to show up for Spring Training
-The Astros picking up Coop's extension for 2010 on April 19, 2009

On winning streaks

The Astros, as you may well know, have only been able to string four wins together at a time. This is bad, as you well know.

The last time the Astros had a season in which their longest win streak was four or fewer games...? 1982.

What about all of Major League Baseball in 2009? Only one team has put together their longest win streaks of 4 games or fewer: Toronto. That's it. The Astros and Blue Jays have the shortest longest win streaks in all of baseball. And the Blue Jays currently have a three-game win streak going.

Even the Nationals had an eight game win streak. And just because the math is free here at Astros County, that means that the Nationals won 15.3% of their games in an eight-day span.

We could be seeing a celebration tonight

But it won't be the Astros doing the celebrating. St. Louis can clinch the NL Central tonight with a win over a team somewhat resembling the Houston Astros.

Dave Clark:
“You know what, you don't ever want that to happen in your own backyard. It's one of the reasons why I'm playing the guys that I'm playing. We're not going to just make it easy for anyone. Really and truly that would be embarrassing to the game, and we're not going to allow that to happen.”

I can think of a lot of things about this team that are embarrassing, and letting the Cardinals dance on the pitcher's mound might actually send the message to Drayton. That wouldn't be embarrassing, that would be what they call in education a "teachable moment."

Clark continues:
“The biggest thing that I'm impressed with is that the guys aren't quitting, probably one of the easiest things to do. But they're not going to quit. They're going to continue to go out and play hard. And right now that's basically all we could ask for. But a win wouldn't hurt.”

Tejada echoes:
“I'm not quitting. I always say I respect all my fans. I respect everybody who came to see the game and wear the uniform. I've been professional all my career, and the last thing that I would do is quit.”

Breaking Down: The GCL Astros

Part One in a series of Eddie's Farm teams, statistically.

The GCL Astros finished the season 18-38, worst in the GCL, 20.5GB of GCL East Division winner GCL Marlins. They were 11-17 at home, 7-21 on the road. Monthly?

June: 0-5
July: 12-14
August: 6-19

Longest win streak: 3 games (July 22-25)
Longest losing streak: 6 games, twice (June 23-July 1, August 19-25)

Team batting statistics:
.231/.317/.316, 253 RS, 10 HR, 482K:181BB, 46/71 SB/CS (64.7%)

Team pitching:
18-38 (obviously), 4.84 ERA/1.53 WHIP (both league-worsts), 21 HR allowed, 377K:203BB

Soon enough we'll go player by player through the Astros' minor-league organization, with splits and stats. But not today. There's 4th-place to win.

What happens if the Astros finish .500?

That's the question Richard Justice asks.

My money is on Cecil Cooper and most of his coaching staff being Drayton's scapegoat. I think Ed Wade is safe because, well, OK, actually I have no idea why Ed Wade would be safe...

... There's just one problem with firing Coop and the coaches. They may be part of the problem, but they're certainly not the ones that screwed this thing up. It's not like they turned a 100-62 team and coached it down to 75-87. How could Drayton fire him without getting rid of some of the other people that created this mess? Why do they get a pass? Why would be single out Coop and allow everyone else to keep whistling to work...?

... Wouldn't an 82-80 record be a kick in the pants? Suddenly, Coop would have taken Ed's bad team and turned it into a winner.

Fire him? Heck, they might have to extend his contract a couple of years. About the only way Drayton could justify firing Coop after an 82-80 season is to announce he's unhappy with the direction things are going and do a top-to-bottom housecleaning.

I don't see him doing that. If the Astros finish 82-80, maybe Drayton will do nothing. He'll announce he likes the way things are headed and see you in Kissimmee, folks.

Justice's 12-step program

Latest plan to fix the Astros.

1. Fire Coop
2. Hire Bagwell
3. Make Manny Acta bench coach, and make room for Biggio
4. Bench Matsui
5. Make Maysonet starting 2B
6. Bench Blum and Keppinger
7. Move Tejada to 3B
8. Make Manzella starting SS
9. Give Towles one last chance
10. Bench Moehler
11. Put Paulino as SP5
12. Give Bogusevic a roving spot in the outfield

Suddenly, we'd look at 2010 completely differently. There'd suddenly be some hope. Even if they were terrible in 2010, there's the possibility that they're learning on the job and that they'll get better.

Do you like my plan? Sure you do. What do we have to lose except a few more games? If we're going down, let's go down with a manager that loves the Astros with all his heart and soul and cares more about them than any 10 fans. Let's go down with kids that are going fast and playing their hearts out. Let's make this September one to remember instead of one to forget.

If my great experiment doesn't work, so what. At least we tried. At least we didn't sit on our hands, ignore the problems and pretend it would all be OK.

Drayton issues no votes of confidence

Seems that Roy caught Drayton's attention after all.

There's plenty of time when the season is over to address how we finished up. Let's see what the real potential of this team is. We had much greater expectations, so you have to adjust. Part of it you have to look at it. You ever see a team that had as many injuries to key players?”

I think we've already seen it. And injuries to key players? Valverde missed some time. Berkman missed some time. Roy was on the DL once. As far as your key players? That's a stretch.

Is Drayton happy with Coop?
"I don't know that I can have evaluated or considered that. We're going to review every part — from the players to the manager, to the farm system. We haven't picked out any one part of it.

Is Drayton happy with Roy?
"Roy had great frustration, and that's part of a champion. He wants to win as much as anybody else. These are problems you need to solve internally rather than through the media...

...“He didn't name any names. I'm kind of struggling to know who he was referring to. We got some great players. When we put this team together in December and January, we certainly had thought we were going to have better results than we had this year. I think the team has given great effort. Particularly when you get to the big leagues, you play 162 games and you need to play hard, aggressively for the 162 games; No. 1, for the fans. They support you. And for the team, that's how you build your fan base and the fan base for the season. And for the players themselves, they take lots of pride in their careers.”

Is Drayton concerned?
"You're always concerned. I think there is concern because we had great expectations.”

JJO needs you to remember his loyalty

Carrying on the metaphor of death and destruction around the 2009 Astros, JJO wants you to remember something - just in case you ever question him:

In 2005, history will show that I refused to declare the Astros dead in the story that ran alongside the infamous tombstone. In 2009, however, I'm going to call it. I wish I could say you heard it here first, but you've heard it all over the place for a while...

...Bring out the peanut butter and jelly for the Astros, 'cause these boys are toast.

They aren't just dead. They're road kill.

I looked for a pulse in the Astros' clubhouse Wednesday night, and I didn't find one.

What many of you have seen for a while became quite clear: the 2009 season is over for your Houston Astros. Cheering for the Astros now is like continuing to hope the girlfriend who just dumped you and treated you like manure is suddenly going to think you're Brad Pitt. It isn't going to happen.

Metaphor Call-off:
1. Death (check)
2. Breakfast (check)
3. Relationships (check).