Hardball Talk Astros Preview

Craig Calcaterra is running through his preseason team previews over at Hardball Talk and the Astros were the focus this morning.

The Big Question: One hundred losses again, right?Depends on how long the Astros keep their prospects on the farm.

Craig touches on what we all know, that the season is all about how the young guys do, despite the solid additions of Feldman, Fowler, and the bullpen overhaul. He's concerned, though, that if the Astros are more concerned with service time than getting the kids up when they're ready the club could be set for another 100 loss season.

Prediction: No surprises here: Fifth place, AL West. 

Reaction Roundup

Keith Law's summary of the Pence deal (Insider-Only) has a lot of great information, including this quick summary:

I'd call it a reasonable return, but not a great one, given the risk attached to both of those prospects. This deal could easily result in disaster for Houston...if the red flags on these prospects (especially Cosart) prove prophetic.

I do think a player who's more than a rental should return one prospect of a little more certainty than either of these two guys can offer, or that it should have included one more major prospect from Philadelphia.
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SI's Cliff Corcoran:
At the moment, this looks like a good deal for both sides. The Phillies might have overpaid for Pence, but their potential reward (one if not multiple world championships) is worth the risk...Cosart and Singleton are both a long way from the majors in terms of development, and a lot could go wrong with either one, but getting two top prospects, a potential front-of-the-rotation starter and potential middle-of-the-order bat, for essentially a league-average outfielder is a trade any rebuilding organization needs to make.
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Anthony Castrovince:
the best advice at this juncture is to read about Cosart's electric stuff and Singleton's projectable power and hope for the best, but, naturally, be patient with the process. The Astros are smart to be acknowledging not only their place in the standings this season, but their realistic contention hopes in 2012. They were right to dangle Pence at a time when his trade value is at its peak and his production is getting them nowhere.
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Rob Neyer:
the Phillies did not trade -- and the Astros did not trade for -- a truly outstanding, can't-miss prospect. The Phillies traded for a couple of Florida State League players who will probably reach the majors but might not do much more than that. Singleton and Cosart are both too far from the majors to say more than that.
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FanGraphs:
Ed Wade may have made some questionable moves in the past, but it’s hard to argue that he isn’t currently steering the Astros in the right direction.
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Hardball Talk:
My opinion is that the Phillies should have been able to get more if they were parting with Jonathan Singleton and Jarred Cosart in the same deal. Those are two of the top 50 prospects in the game. I think it’s a better return than what the Padres got for Adrian Gonzalez from the Red Sox. It’s far, far better than what the Phillies got when they traded Cliff Lee to the Mariners a year and a half ago, and it’s probably more than what they gave up for Roy Halladay. Even the best players don’t generally net the kind of return Pence just did.

In trying to form a response, I could do no better than Craig Calcaterra

In response to Richard Justice's post on how to fix the Astros (call up Biggio and Bagwell), I could find no better way to do it than Craig Calcaterra did.

The Most Memorable Astros Home Run

Back with more Calcaterra! He has a list of each team's most memorable home runs.

His choice:
Not a game-winner — in fact, they lost the game — but Billy Hatcher hit a homer in the bottom of the 14th inning to tie the score 4-4 in Game 6 of the 1986 NLCS. They went on to lose in the 16th, but boy howdy that was somethin’.

Yes, that was a nice one. But I'm thinking about Chris Burke's 18th-inning homer as the most memorable. Maybe July 27, 2007, when Adam Everett hit his 2nd homer of the day against Edgar Gonzalez. Just because it was so freaking shocking.

Other great moments in Astros homer history:
October 18, 2004 - Jeff Kent's walk-off in NLCS G5
October 9, 2005 - Brad Ausmus' 9th inning, game-tying HR, setting up Chris Burke's blast.

Others?

Craig Calcaterra: Crane's EEOC thing isn't that big of a speedbump

Hardball Talk's Craig Calcaterra responds to Richard Sandomir's report today about MLB getting the jimmy legs over Crane's EEOC issue:

I have no idea about the merits of the actual discrimination claims, but I think this is much ado about nothing as far as Crane’s approval in the ownership group goes. Drayton McLane is a good buddy of Bud Selig’s. If Selig felt like there was going to be any kind of a problem here, he would have let McLane know about it a long time ago so as not to put him in a tough spot.

Excellent point.

Hardball Talk, on the Astros

Hardball Talk's Drew Silva ran down the Astros in 2011:

If the Astros want to get better, they need to start mimicking the ways of smaller market teams. Don’t give long-term contracts to aging players. Commit money to scouting and development. Draft well. Get busy on the international market. Build a top-level presence in Latin America.

It would seem to me that the Astros, for the past two seasons, have done all of these things.

Prediction Time:
This season brings 90 losses for the first time since 2000 and a close-shave fifth place finish over the sixth-place Pirates at the bottom of the National League Central.

Hardball Talk's Astros Depth-Chart

Hardball Talk has their version of what the Astros' Depth-Chart looks like (click the link, I'm not re-posting the entire thing. Tell me what you think. If you're like me, this little nugget caught your eye:

Bogusevic was a disappointment again last season and it no longer seems likely that he’ll turn into even a legitimate fourth outfielder.

I'm just curious as to what about 2010 made Bogusevic a disappointment. Again. His Triple-A OPS rose 71 points. He only played in a handful of Major League games. The Astros have Carlos Lee's Immovable Contract and two outfielders who are - by all accounts - productive. What expectations could anyone possibly have about an outfielder who has only been an outfielder for two seasons (heading into 2010)?

Read this article at your peril. If you are pregnant, or have high blood pressure, or are taking Viagra, you might just want to leave it alone.

Arbitration Dealz!

So, due to some prior commitments today (like, "Work") we're a little late in getting you the news, but here's the big story of the day:

Michael Bourn avoided an arbitration hearing, signing a deal for $4.4 million for 2011.
Jeff Keppinger did the same thing, signing for $2.3 million in 2011 (not bad for a guy who'll be in a cast until May).
Clint Barmes did the same thing, signing for $3.925 million in 2011, plus incentives.

Ed Wade:
"[Assistant GM] David [Gottfried] handled the negotiations and indicated yesterday that we thought we had the opportunity to get at least these three done. The goal is always the same. It's to slot a player at the proper place in the salary structure, and I think the work David did and the cooperation of the players and their agents allowed us to do that with these three guys."

The Astros have exchanged figures with Wandy and Pence, and hope to get a deal done before a hearing, in which the Astros have to tell their players they're not worth what they think they're worth.

As AstroBrit pointed out in a tweet, the WAR figures aren't too shabby.

In signing Bourn, Barmes, and Keppinger, the Astros committed a total of $10.625m today for three players whose WAR totaled 7.0, or $1.52m per win above replacement.

Of course, Keppinger will miss until May, and Barmes is coming off a 0.4 WAR season, but Bourn's deal is quite nice.

Says Aaron Gleeman on Barmes:
He’s a good defender at either middle infield spot and the Astros were in need of a shortstop, but Barmes’ bat is utility man-caliber at best and making a trade for the right to pay him $4 million this season is all kinds of wrong.

Baseball's Morality Police

Craig Calcattera at Hardball Talk has an excellent response to the LA Times' Ross Newhan's view of the role of the Hall of Fame voter:

“Somebody said we are not the morality police, but yet I think we are. If we aren’t, who is? Part of our job is that we are custodians of the game’s history.”

Calcattera:
The Hall of Fame is not heaven, my fellow baseball writers, you are not St. Peter at the gate, and no one — not even Jose Canseco — has written baseball’s book of life. Have a sense of humility about you. Understand that your role is not to be baseball’s moral arbiters, writ-large. You are to look at one player at a time and judge him accordingly. If you have nothing negative to say about him, and if his accomplishments are sufficient, vote him in.

Lovely!

Hardball Talk's Best and Worst Astros uniform

Here's an entertaining read, as Craig Calcaterra continues his Best And Worst Uniforms series with our Astros.

Read it.

(Pause)

Agree, or disagree?

Hardball Talk's Power Rankings

For a long time, I totally ignored the Power Rankings. They didn't mean anything. I didn't care if the Astros were ranked in relation to the Orioles. Today I got curious. So when I checked out Hardball Talk's weekly Power Rankings, I was taken aback:

Dodgers (17)/Astros (19):
The mood among Dodgers fans is impossibly grim right now. The mood among Astros fans is pretty damn good. Easy to forget, then, that the Dodgers are almost certain to play much better than they are right now next year and the Astros to play much worse.

Now I'm just going to set back and let you go. Starting...now.

Alright everyone just calm down for a second

It should be pointed out, as Craig Calcaterra has, that Ted Lilly has a no-trade clause that includes Philadelphia. Furthermore, as Jayson Stark reminds us, the Phillies aren't interested in pitchers who will be free agents in the off-season.

So let's all take a deep breath. And stay on the edge of our seats until Saturday at 3:01pm. By the by. Let's do a live chat, eh? Say...Saturday at 2pm Central?

And now, we listen to our stomach turn with the sound of our Astros forefathers spinning in their graves

Sit down. Just...sit down. Everybody's fine. Don't worry. But there's something you need to know.

The St. Louis Cardinals are reportedly the front-runners for the services of Roy Oswalt.

Calcaterra, who is a reputable deliverer of news:
The Astros have been talking with Cardinals GM John Mozeliak for several days now, and Oswalt is quite amenable to go to St. Louis if the teams can agree on what players will head back to Houston...

...My source tells me, however, that Oswalt would be willing to work with the Cardinals to make the option more palatable, possibly in terms of deferring some money. The sides aren't quite that far yet.

Calcaterra later tweets:
As for player(s) back to HOU: there has been talk of Shelby Miller, but it's fluid. Deal is not imminent, but there has been a lot of talk.

A preview of what will happen in the Astros County Square if this takes place:

Someone put Immodium AD in Justice's coffee this morning

Of course we'll be tracking any and all reactions to the Berry Reassignment/Bagwell Hiring in the next 24 hours (much to The Wife's chagrin), and we already have one from Richard Justice, who predictably isn't overwhelmed by today's news. An excerpt, if you'll allow:

Is Sean Berry to blame for this train wreck? Absolutely not. Drayton McLane is to blame. Tal Smith is to blame. Ed Wade is to blame. But with the Astros, the people who are to blame don't lose their jobs. They roll along, and the franchise continues to slide into irrelevance...

...Here's who should go, Ed. You. And Tal. And Drayton. You're the ones who ran the franchise into the ground...

...In the end, he's the lucky one. He no longer works for Drayton and Tal and Ed. Good for him. Here's hoping Roy Oswalt gets lucky too.

But Roy shouldn't be packing his bags. To trade Roy would make sense, would give Roy a chance to win. That would require someone capable of thinking logically and smartly. The Astros have no one like that.

Is Ed Wade to blame for Carlos Lee's OPS dropping off from .845 (from 1999-2009) to .681 this season? No (and Sean Berry isn't, either - granted).

But I agree, to an extent. Pedro Feliz didn't work out. But neither did Garrett Atkins. Kaz Matsui didn't work out, but neither has Mark DeRosa. Sometimes you just miss. Where Ed Wade has made the most impact can be seen on the Futures Game tonight, in Jordan Lyles. And in Ross Seaton. And in J.D. Martinez, Jason Castro. No player development? Jordan Lyles is 19 and killing Double-A. Jason Castro is on the Major-League roster. Sure, he is talented, but when people thought his - and Lyles' - pick was reaching, the Astros are already starting to reap the benefits.

Koby Clemens was a guy who could kind of hit, but didn't have a position before 2009. He's now in Double-A and could very well factor into the 1B1 scenario in Houston in 2011.

Justice talks about the fans who don't come to games, and we always moan about the minor-league evaluators who can't see past the fact that Ramon Vazquez is actually the starting 2B at Round Rock (pause for weeping). But it's not fair to call this a figurehead move. If the Astros had not pulled this trigger, Justice would likely have had an All-Star Break column about how the Astros don't ever do anything, and that's why Drayton, Tal, and Ed suck. To say that Ed Wade is incapable of thinking logically is childish, and short-sighted reactionism. If that's a word.

Deferring to the experts on the potential sale of the Rangers

Hardball Talk read the judge's decision regarding the sale of the Rangers last night, and decides maybe it's not as bad as it seems.

But while my initial reaction was a bit overheated, it would probably be wrong to swing the pendulum too far back the other way as well. This decision, while not as devastating as initial reports first made it seem, does occasion delay and at least a possibility that more bumps could form in the road ahead. After all, if you give lawyers enough time to talk about something, they're likely to come up with seven problems no one ever considered in the first place. And of course delay and uncertainly was exactly what the team's bankruptcy filing was designed to avoid in the first place.

HBT links to the following within its post, but Baseball Time in Arlington has a breakdown of the media's reaction to the events of yesterday afternoon.

/Bubble. Popped.

Over at Hardball Talk, Aaron Gleeman challenged the idea that bringing up Johnson and Castro was "exciting."

...Not all "top prospects" are created equal. Teams like the Nationals (Stephen Strasburg), Pirates (Pedro Alvarez), Indians (Carlos Santana), and Marlins (Mike Stanton) calling up their best prospect represents an "exciting youth movement" and "watershed moment in the franchise's future," but the Astros doing the same doesn't represent much of anything, really.

And then it busts up Castro ("doesn't project as a star, let alone someone whose arrival is capable of creating 'a watershed moment in the franchise's future.'") and Johnson ("giving him a chance to supplant the washed-up remains of Pedro Feliz at third base makes plenty of sense, but Johnson's upside is somewhere between role player and mediocre starter.").

And now Rob Neyer weighs in:

It must be at least moderately heartening to promote a 2008 draft pick to the majors and get him into the lineup. But I think Gleeman's right, as Castro just doesn't qualify for the pantheon of great young catchers. His .411 career slugging percentage as a professional isn't impressive, but it's actually even less impressive than that; his slugging percentage above Class A is just .370. He's young and he's a catcher and there's probably some development potential there ... but if Jason Castro is the best prospect the Astros unveil this summer, the rebuilding process will be off to a slow start.

I'm now going to bed...

Choose Your Own Adventure! by Jon Daniels

Captip to Craig Calcaterra at Hardball Talk for breaking the Roy-to-Texas rumors - it's caused quite the tizzy. That said, everyone seems to be out to vehemently deny it, which only tells me that there may be something to it.

For instance, with the Fort Worth Star-Telegram debunking the "internet report" of the rumor.

First things first: Hardball Talk, while a site on the internet, is owned by NBC, which hardly condemns the fact that the rumor came from there as "an internet report." Only in the next paragraph did they link HBT to NBC. So, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, easy on the arrogance, just because you waste trees. If it came from Astros County, sure, write it off as an internet report (unless AC actually had a source- then I'd be set ablaze) but take into account the site itself, not whether or not it has an address.

To sum up: Piss off, Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

Back to the rumor, to which Jon Daniels responded:
General manager Jon Daniels didn't respond directly to the report, but said, "You can probably figure this one out."

Maybe not. Be more specific.

Roy and Rangers getting close?

Craig Calcaterra knows a guy who knows a guy who says that the Rangers and Astros are working on a deal to send Roy to Arlington. Hopefully after this weekend.

A major league source is telling me that the Rangers have been talking to the Astros about Roy Oswalt and that the teams are "getting closer" to having a deal in place. It's not yet clear which player(s) would be coming back from Texas to Houston, but my understanding is that the live bodies part of the deal is more or less agreed to.

There are some major sticking points to this. Mainly, will U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Michael Lynn approve the sale of the Rangers to the Ryan-Greenberg group? And this is not a slam dunk decision. If he does, then I would imagine Roy is a Ranger. If not, this could be dragging on until the end of July. If so, it still may drag on, but at least everyone involved will be happy(-ier).

And then Buster Olney (and here) refutes the report:
Highly placed source on the Oswalt-to-Rangers-in-the-works report: "Nothing to it." Given their financial situation, it would be hard for them to think about taking the most expensive starter in what is a flush market of starting pitching.

Week Six Power Rankings!

Hardball Talk:
Astros: 29th
Richard Justice watches this team every day and he says that effort isn't the problem. Just talent. Cold comfort when you're as bad as the Astros are, but I guess it's enough to keep them out of the bottom slot for this week.

Fanhouse:
Astros: 30th
Even with Sunday's win, they've now lost 11 of 13 and Lance Berkman has said he'd accept a trade and if he were GM, he'd consider blowing the club up. Currently, their best offensive player is Michael Bourn, who's hitting .284/.366/.367. This team isn't just bad; they're hard to watch.

ESPN:
Astros: 30th
Astros pitchers could sure use a little help. Houston is last in the majors in hits, runs, doubles, total bases, RBIs, batting average, walks, on-base percentage and slugging. Oh, and 24th in fielding percentage.

Power Rankings!

Apparently five wins last week was worth five spots.

Hardball Talk:
Astros - 25th
Lance Berkman coming back made this team look a lot more respectable.

ESPN:
Astros - 25th
The Astros averaged 2.3 runs per game without Lance Berkman. Since his return from the DL, they are averaging 5.3.

FanHouse:
Astros - 20th
"The Astros are 8-2 after their 0-8 start. Sure, three of those wins came against the scuffling Pirates, but with Lance Berkman back in the lineup the 'Stros are on an undeniable tear. They don't play a team that's currently over .500 until the Padres at the end of next week, so there's no reason to think it can't continue for a least a bit longer."

Sporting News:
Astros - 21st
Houston roared out of last place in this poll by winning seven of eight, against the Cubs, Marlins and Pirates. Lance Berkman's return to the lineup has helped.