Thursday Morning Hot Links

*The Astros are 30-18, 6.0 up on the now-2nd place Seattle Mariners.

*A.J. Hinch was playing matchups by sending lefty Sipp in to face Chris Davis. (subscription)

*A.J. Hinch likes what he sees from Evan Gattis' plate approach lately:
His numbers are going to come back to where they're supposed to be. He's a good hitter and he conducts really good at-bats and it's nice to have him warming up.

*Orioles phenom Manny Machado asks Evan Drellich "What's the worst that can happen?" by promoting Carlos Correa.

*Dallas Keuchel is Jayson Stark's 1st Quarter AL Cy Young winner.

*Rob Neyer takes a look at the Astros' front-office approach.

*Here's the Washington Post on the difference between the Astros and Royals.

*The Philadelphia Daily News on the Astros' patience as a franchise.

*The Quad Cities Times on 2014 37th overall pick Derek Fisher.

Two notable reactions to the Springer send-down

A couple of interesting pieces of which you could possibly, if you want to, give a read...

*Rob Neyer:
It’s the Players Association that has always acquiesced in, and even encouraged, a system that seriously underpays young players and seriously overpays old players. What’s more, while a different system might be more “fair” to the younger players, it’s the current system that allows teams like the Rays to remain competitive. Without an economic structure that doesn’t pay young players what their performance would seem to merit -- and team-friendly deals like Longoria’s and Perez’s -- franchises with low revenues simply wouldn’t be able to compete for more than a few years.

*Grant Brisbee:
Teams that succeed with drafting and development win. Teams that rely solely on free-agent signings don't. You might take exception to the last one, citing the Yankees as a team that used free agents. Except if they don't lose enough to get Derek Jeter, or if they don't draft Andy Pettitte and Jorge Posada in back-to-back rounds in the bowels of the same draft, that strategy doesn't work. Spending helps a lot, but it doesn't help without drafting and development first...The reason drafting and development are key isn't because young players are always better than veteran players; it's because young players are cheaper. Cheaper players allow teams to spend more or stay within a finite budget. It's the only thing that gives small-market or small-checkbook teams a chance. Keeping young players around for six years at below-market costs ... that's the real advantage. And every team has the chance to do it.

Friday Morning Link Dump

Because I have a busy morning, here are the links you should check out this Friday morning...

*Playoffs useful in player development

*Rob Neyer looks at what the Astros' organizational record tells us

*The Astros have a fantasy football league. Before kickoff last night there were 67 transactions and eight trades. Astros gonna Astro.

*Meat Wagon update on Castro, Dominguez, Grossman and Corporan

*Sports Illustrated's very quick overview of the 2013 Astros.

Blowback from Forbes report

So the Forbes piece that came out this morning that said the Astros were the most profitable baseball team ever in the history of ever? That's causing some waves - which is of no surprise. Some of you are pissed. Some of you are willing to give it some time.

But while I decided to formulate some thoughts in the form of Photoshop Wizardry, others decided to pass the time actually coming up with something. A roundup, if you will:

Rob Neyer: ...While the Astros are losing even more games and making even more money than I would have guessed, I'm willing to cut their owner some slack for another year or two, in the absence of new information.

Crawfish Boxes: When the Astros' prospects blossom into a winning core, the money should be there to sustain a long term winning team.   I'll wait for that time in the future before I point any anger at the Astros' owners.

And while both of those come with a self-admitted place of incomplete knowledge of the Astros' finances, this one doesn't - Astros President Reid Ryan says that Forbes is totally wrong:
There is no doubt that the numbers are wrong in the Forbes article. If they were right, I’d look like the guy who had done the best job in three months ever (since taking the job in May). The fact is that the numbers are wrong.

Where are they wrong? We’re going to have expenses that are higher than our revenues, and that doesn’t make (the team) profitable.

So there you have it. Yes, Forbes' numbers are wrong. No, the Astros aren't going to release their financial statements. I'll have more thoughts later tonight, and certainly on tomorrow's Morning Drive.

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.

Rob Neyer, on Lyon

You know when the Astros lose in dramatic fashion, that's when people will start to pay attention. And so Rob Neyer discussed Brandon Lyon:

Brandon Lyon isn't a bad pitcher. He really isn't, no matter what those four blown saves and 7.12 ERA might suggest. He's a perfectly fine major league relief pitcher, with a perfectly fine 2-to-1 strikeout-to-walk ratio in his career. He's just not good enough to be routinely given the chance to blow one- or two-run leads in the ninth inning.

Co-sign.

Rob Neyer had a hard time coming with with one interesting thing about the Astros

It's basically, if Chris Johnson and Brett Wallace can hit...

...there might actually be a couple of reasons to watch the 2010 Astros, even when Wandy Rodriguez isn't pitching.

You, too, can take a shot at Ed Wade!

I'm a fan of Rob Neyer, and was insanely jealous when he spurned writing for Astros County to join SB Nation. But today, he has a post in which he reference Justice's post on the Brandon Lyon signing last December.

Justice:
All heck broke loose when Astros GM Ed Wade gave Brandon Lyon a 3-year, $15-million contract in December 2009. They said Ed got taken to the cleaners. They said Ed would end up looking real bad. Let's just say I'm real glad I was on Ed's side.

Neyer, today:
I don't remember all heck breaking loose, if only because it's real hard to look real bad when you're committing only $15 million over three years...

...We might expect Lyon to wind up giving the Astros around $10 million in value, for their $15 million. Was three years and $15 million an overpay? Absolutely. But Ed Wade has done far, far sillier things since taking over in Houston.

That's interesting. On the day of the signing David Cameron wrote:
Ed Wade is the GM equivalent of a bad SNL sketch. The first time he overpaid a middle reliever, we figured out that he didn’t really know how to build a roster. Now, when he gives Brandon Lyon a 3 year, $15 million deal, we just shrug our shoulders and say, “Yeah, that’s Ed Wade for ya.”...

...They don’t have any money to spend to fix the rest of their bad, old roster, but they can commit $5 million a year to Brandon Lyon through 2012. Moves like this are why the team isn’t good, and won’t be good any time soon. This move is just the latest act in a joke that’s gone on far too long.

Neyer, referencing Cameron, on Dec 10, 2009:
I'm glad Cameron said it instead of me ... but, yeah...

...The No. 1 argument against Ed Wade's competence is not this ridiculous contract. The Astros should be able to blow $5 million per season on freely available talent like Brandon Lyon and still win. The No. 1 argument against Wade's competence is that the Astros have been outscored by 232 over the last four seasons, and there's no reason for optimism about 2010 or beyond.

It's not hell breaking loose, and Neyer was somewhat consistent from December 2009 to today, but at what point is Wade allowed some slack? We're just one year into a three-year deal. Lindstrom was expendable - and traded - because Lyon was solid, more solid than Lindstrom, and brought in two prospects. Was Lyon lucky in 2010? Apparently that's what giving up two home runs in 2010 means. Neyer quotes FanGraphs as saying that Lyon was worth approximately $4m in 2010. If he does as well in 2011 as he did in 2010, the Astros will have gotten out of him almost what they put in.

Neyer responds to Heyman's column

Rob Neyer wrote a counterpoint to Jon Heyman's column (linked earlier) regarding Roy's contract status, and the "difficulty" in trading him:

According to FanGraphs, Oswalt was worth $14 million last season, and is heading toward $18 million this season. That's $16 million per season. Granted, you might not be able to justify those salaries if you're running an American League team, and you might not be able to justify spending that money and giving up two prospects. I'm just saying that Oswalt's contract really isn't outrageous, and that exercising the 2012 option wouldn't be a terrible risk.

/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...

Rob Neyer is not a fan of how Ed Wade is handling this whole Catcher thing

Linking back to Zach Levine's piece on the Battle For C1, Rob Neyer tut-tuts it almost immediately (or as immediately as it takes to get some notice of the Astros):

Yeah, three catchers. The third is Humberto Quintero, who served as the No. 2 catcher last season -- hitting almost exactly as awfully as No. 1 Ivan Rodriguez -- and is slated for the same duties this season.

Leaving Quintero aside, is this really the best way to run a baseball team? Getting three catchers into the lineup whenever possible and hoping that the most talented of them happens to finish March with the highest batting average?

Towles has struggled in the majors. He's not been the healthiest of players. But he's hit well in Class A, he's hit well in Class AA, and he's hit well in Class AAA. If he's healthy, he'll eventually hit well in Class AAAA (a/k/a the National League). Meanwhile, Castro is a wonderful prospect but he's got only 63 games of experience above A-ball and wasn't all that impressive in those 63 games.

If Castro's playing Gold Glove-quality defense and the Astros don't have anybody else, then sure: Pudge Rodriguez skipped Triple-A when he was only 19, and that worked out well enough. But the Astros do have somebody else, in fact a pretty good somebody. There's simply no reason to rush Castro before he's done anything special in Double-A.

Look, I get it. I understand that Towles has struggled, and he broke his nose in a tractor accident, and was a crap-show of a catcher to start 2008. And I do agree that Castro shouldn't be rushed, and should start the season at Round Rock. What I don't care for is the "Is this the way to run a baseball team?" aspect. Castro will - at some point - be the C1. So why not use this opportunity to see some big-league pitching? He will eventually. And it will make the transition to Round Rock that much easier if he's been through a Spring of working with the Big Club. Consider the Towles-ing of Jason Castro, although in a much less stressful situation. It's hardly the image of team run amok.

Rob Neyer has some things to say about Berkman

Regarding Lance Berkman's contract year, Rob Neyer has an interesting take:

...As annoyed as Berkman might be, the Astros have every reason to let things play out, see what the Lance Berkman of 2010 tells them about the Lance Berkman of 2011. Considering the recent market for sluggers in their mid-30s -- Berkman turned 34 two weeks ago -- he'll have a great financial incentive to play well this year...

...But how often is Berkman mentioned in the same breath as those others? First he was overshadowed by the original Killer B's, and then by the Astros' descent into irrelevance.

That doesn't mean Berkman is irrelevant. He's been an outstanding player for a long time, and in addition to five 100-RBI seasons he's also scored 100 runs in five seasons (and yes, those count too, even for power hitters). Thanks to a late professional start, because he went to college, Berkman hasn't piled up the big counting stats yet and probably won't reach 2,500 hits (stupid walks!) or 500 home runs (stupid line-drive doubles!), and thus probably has very little chance of getting into the Hall of Fame. But if he puts together another five or six good seasons, some of us will be making our best cases for him.

Astros interested in Smoltz?

Rob Neyer's new post references an Atlanta Journal-Constitution report that, among other teams, the Astros have expressed interest in John Smoltz this off-season.

Neyer:
Like most of the rest of the unsigned veterans who used to play in All-Star games, Smoltz probably is still good enough to play in the majors. It's just a question of money and pride.

What do you think? Should the Astros take on Smoltz? And in what role?

Dave Cameron / Rob Neyer react to Valverde

From FanGraphs' Dave Cameron:
Seriously, in a market where everyone else is finding bargains, the Tigers pay $7 million a year for a good-but-not-great relief pitcher, and give up a draft pick for the right to do so. Were they not paying attention to the rest of the contracts being handed out? Did they not realize they were bidding against themselves? How do you justify dumping Curtis Granderson to save money, and then use that money (and more!) to sign a flyball reliever with command problems who has never pitched in the AL?...

...For one year and a team that had money to spend, the salary wouldn’t be that bad. But two years and a loss of a draft pick? Really? In this market? On a team that is going cheap at second base and in center field?

Sorry, but this is a bad use of resources.

And reaction to that, and the deal, from Rob Neyer:
But a pitcher like Valverde -- any relief pitcher, really -- should be the final ingredient. You fill all the other holes you can fill, and when you're satisfied with your catchers and your first baseman and your second baseman and your shortstop and your third baseman and your three outfielders and your four best starting pitchers ... When you're satisfied that you've done everything you can possibly do at all those spots, then you start worrying about the guy who's going to pitch 65 or 70 innings.

If you've done all that and you've still got $14 million rattling around in your pocket, sure, by all means, go sign Jose Valverde and fork over a draft pick. But the Tigers haven't done all that. In a year or two, this may be a really, really tough move to justify.

Can I just mention how happy I am that everyone is questioning the wisdom of an organization, and for once it's not the Astros?

This post is Rated R for violence

FanGraphs' Dave Cameron breaks down the Lyon signing. And it's entitled "The Worst Signing of the Winter."

Some hardcore nuggets:
Ed Wade is the GM equivalent of a bad SNL sketch. The first time he overpaid a middle reliever, we figured out that he didn’t really know how to build a roster. Now, when he gives Brandon Lyon a 3 year, $15 million deal, we just shrug our shoulders and say, “Yeah, that’s Ed Wade for ya.”

Seriously, $5 million a year for the next three years for Brandon Lyon. We’re not talking about overpaying for a premium bullpen guy. Lyon is a generic middle reliever, the kind of guy who could be replaced by a minor league free agent or a Rule 5 draftee. His career FIP is 4.23, which is below average for a relief pitcher. He doesn’t even have magical FIP-beating properties – his career ERA is 4.20...

...What year does Wade think this is? The market for relief pitchers absolutely cratered a year ago, as teams stopped paying significant money for setup guys who could be effectively replaced by league-minimum earners. So far this year, we’ve seen a significant pullback from even that level of spending. The average dollar per win for the first crop of free agents signed this winter has been about $3 million per win. The Astros are paying about $10 million – ten million – per win for Lyon.

They don’t have any money to spend to fix the rest of their bad, old roster, but they can commit $5 million a year to Brandon Lyon through 2012. Moves like this are why the team isn’t good, and won’t be good any time soon. This move is just the latest act in a joke that’s gone on far too long.

Rob Neyer references Cameron's post and says the following:

I'm glad Cameron said it instead of me ... but, yeah.

The Astros actually play in a pretty solid market, in the top dozen or so anyway. They've got a relatively new ballpark. Owner Drayton McLane did finance roughly a third of the stadium's construction, for which he deserves credit. But the bottom line is that the Astros play in a bigger market, and are presumably wealthier, than the Cardinals, the Brewers, the Pirates, and the Reds. In fact, the Astros should enjoy huge financial edges over all or most of those clubs.

The No. 1 argument against Ed Wade's competence is not this ridiculous contract. The Astros should be able to blow $5 million per season on freely available talent like Brandon Lyon and still win. The No. 1 argument against Wade's competence is that the Astros have been outscored by 232 over the last four seasons, and there's no reason for optimism about 2010 or beyond.

I haven't chimed in on my thoughts on the Lyon/Lindstrom signing, because right now I can't get my head around it. That post will be coming this afternoon, but I'm leaning towards a take of, "How is Matt Lindstrom different from Casey Daigle?" and, "Isn't Jeff Fulchino about the same as Brandon Lyon?" For now, I'm assembling data and information, and soliciting your opinions...

Revisiting: ADHD among MLB players

Rob Neyer has some comments on a story that MLB has approved 108 therapeutic-use exemptions to Major League players for ADHD.

This is up two exemptions from last season.

Now, back on January 10 we took a brief look at drugs used to treat ADHD, such as Adderall, which is apparently an epidemic on college campuses during Finals Week (I made it through finals on Kamel Reds, which I no longer use, and Red Stripe, which I do.) What do these college pups call Adderall? "Scholastic Steroids." Huh.

Bagwell "richly deserves" enshrinement

(Captip to Street.)

In an article on Edgar Martinez' Hall of Fame candidacy, Rob Neyer closes:

I've been going back and forth on Edgar Martinez for years. Today, though, I'm convinced. He belongs. He wasn't nearly as valuable during his career as Frank Thomas or Jeff Bagwell, both of whom richly deserve enshrinement. But he was valuable enough.

Huzzah!

Bourn wins Gold Glove

Michael Bourn's Radiohead-esque 2009 season continues as Brian McTaggart is telling us that he has won a Gold Glove award. Congratulations to Bourn.

He's the first Astro to win a Gold Glove since Ausmus in 2006, and is the second Astro outfielder to win in franchise history (Cesar Cedeno).

Ed Wade:
"It comes as no surprise. It's a tremendous honor for Michael and well-deserved. He makes center field seem awfully small when he's out there, and I don't think you really appreciate what he does defensively until you see somebody else out there and realize how big our ballpark and other ballparks are. He covers a tremendous amount of ground, is a great athlete and has great instincts and never takes anything for granted. We're fortunate to have him, and I'm happy that his peers have recognized him for what I assume will be many Gold Gloves...

..."Those guys that worked with him on the developmental side deserve a lot of credit, and the work he's done in our organization with [coaches Jose Cruz] and [Dave] Clark and anyone else that did work with him, deserves a lot of credit. It's about the guy, and this guy happens to be an exceptional defensive center fielder.""

And Rob Neyer chimes in:
Everyone doesn't love Michael Bourn, but I rated him as the best center fielder in the National League. He's never won a Gold Glove and it would have been easy for the voters to ignore a weak-hitting kid playing for the Astros. But they didn't. Bravo, again.

Weak hitting?!

And Rob Neyer chimes in on Acta

In Rob Neyer's new blog post today, he talks about the Astros' front-office disconnect between Run-DMc and Eddie:

If you don't trust your baseball people to choose your manager, you should get new baseball people.

If you think it's silly to give a manager a three-year contract but don't mind throwing $100 million of your ill-gotten gains at Carlos Lee, you probably need to have your head examined (though of course something similar might be said of half the owners in the majors).

It's not likely that failing to hire Manny Acta is debilitating, because it's not likely that Manny Acta is a great manager...

...What's debilitating is a sense of the organization, both within and without, that the owner and his top lieutenants aren't on the same page. Whether that characterization is fair or not, often the perception becomes the reality.

Blackout regulations to be addressed

Rob Neyer has a quick post regarding the MLB Owners' decision to revisit the unbelievably ridiculous blackout rules the clubs enforce.

True story: I lived for a significant portion of my life in Abilene, TX. I ordered the MLB Extra Innings package one season. Opening Night I had a party where we invited a bunch of people over to watch G1 of the season. So we get everything ready, people show up. Turn the channel over to the game, and get three hours of black screen. The game had been blacked out.

If you're familiar with your Texas geography, Abilene is a six-hour drive from Houston (though I once made the trip in 4:57. God bless you, Highway 36.) The way Fox Sports Southwest explained it, it was physically possible for me to drive to the game, thus - blackout. I only saw about 40 Astros games that season, even though I had paid the $170, or whatever. And note - you can't cancel the Extra Innings Package. Think of it as a six-month long PPV movie.

Here's Neyer:
If the owners can agree to dispense with their terribly arcane and unfair territorial blackout rules, that would be yet another victory for the fans.
Sure, neither of these things really makes a huge difference to most fans. But that's not really the point. The point is to do the right thing when you can, and seem to care about the happiness of your customers. Most owners don't actually care about their customers, of course ... but as long as the results are good, why worry about motives?


Rob Neyer - I agree with thee.