I apologise about the earlier entry (now removed) in which only a title appeared. I have no idea what on earth I could have done to make the entire entry disappear, but I guess I will just have to re-write it.

Anyway, Mike Hampton got his butt kicked to heck and back today and Wesley Wright had his first bad outing all spring.

Honestly, I don’t understand why they don’t send the guys who aren’t going to be on the ML team to the minors where they can actually get work done. Drew Meyer and Eli Iorg got their first ABs all spring today.

My gawd. Drew Meyer. One of those “can’t miss” prospects who sure nuff missed. Drafted in the second round out of HS, then in the first round of the 02 draft (to the Rangers) he has been in AAA since 05 and has posted OPS (in the PCL) of .655/.583/.576/.674 – he has less power than Michael Bourn. Which goes to show that youneverknow. 

Apparently, when he signed a minor league FA contract with the Astros, he as told he would be given an every day job. Not sure how that is going to work, unless he is willing to go to AA because Tommy Manzella will be playing short and Drew Sutton second base at Round Rock. 

And actually, I feel sorry for the guys who get invited to Spring Training who, from the getgo, have zero chance of making the team in the first place, such as David Newhan, John Gall or Reggie Abercrombie. I suppose they are really there in case one of the already determined roster is injured, but still, it must be hard to march out there and do your best when you know that your best will NOT be good enough.

Sometimes, I look at career minor leaguers like John Gall, guys who put up great numbers year after year after year in AAA, yet didn’t get a chance in the majors, either from their parent team or from any other team who wanted them in a trade. Why figure that if team X didn’t want him nobody else would? Some guys are promoted, given chance after chance, then manage to hang on in some kind of reserve role for at least part of the year while guys like Gall really never get any sort of chance.

Look at Luke Scott – the Astros never wanted him on the ML team at all and weren’t real too happy when he hit himself onto the team in ST. They sent him down as soon as they could. Not only that, they signed a Proven Veteran (Preston “Whiff” Wilson) on the far far downside of his career after the season was over in spite of the fact that Luke had hit like crazy in AAA, yet again and was CLEARLY ready for the majors. Then, after he almost singlehandedly propelled the Astros into the postseason with a 165 OPS+ over 252 PA, they STILL wouldn’t give him a full time job, claiming that he couldn’t hit leftys when his OPS was essentially the same vs both.

They didn’t like him, didn’t want him to succeed.

I don’t get why.

You know, I hear a whole lot of the Keith Law stat geeks talking about how a team could save themselves money by using guys like John Gall, but teams rarely want to give any player past the agreed upon age of “prospect” a chance – except for, perhaps, a few pinch hits here and there, so that they can point to his failures and say – see, he can’t succeed.

WHY???

It’s not that you can say – use what works. You look at a Jason Michaels (to use an example) who has OPS+ of 73, 85, 87 over the past 3 years and as a team, you won’t allow the possibility that someone else is better or might could be significantly better given a chance?

Guess not.

One of these days, I like to ask someone who is out of baseball why on earth these predeterminations of Who Will Be Allowed To Succeed are so set in stone.

I am SOOOO ready for the season to start.

Still no word on whether Jason Smith or Edwin Maysonet will win the utility IF job, although at this point, I would guess it would be more likely to be Maysonet because of his superior glove.

I apologise for no entries for several days now. I’m still grieving over the loss of my dear friend John Brattain. In fact, if any of all yall are fans of his wonderful work, we have set up a memorial fund to assist his widow and teenage daughters after his protracted illness, and if any of you would like to contribute, please go to www.thehardballtimes.com and click on the link in the upper left hand corner.

Astros news: Unlike John, Aaron Boone survived his heart surgery and is doing well; however, he will still not be able to play baseball this year.

The third base platoon position is still not settled and neither is the backup infield slot. Otherwise, in spite of the fact that final moves have not been made, Lance is starting to hit like his usual self, Clank and Bourn are also picking it up and now that Miggy Te-roider has gotten his wrist slapped, maybe he will settle down and at least hit for average, if not power. Pudge Rodriguez appears to have hit it off with Wandy (thank God) as well as the rest of the staff, who, by the way, are still pitching decently.

As far as I can tell, the bullpen won’t be different than it was at the end of last year and most likely, Capellan and Arias will be sent to AAA, at least until someone is hurt or stinks it up ala Villareal last year.

I am writing a piece called “Five Astros Questions” for The Hardball Times this weekend (check it out), and unless something else happens, I am going to take the weekend off and pull myself together. I can’t be at John’s funeral up in the middle of Canada in person, but at least I can be there in spirit.

I’ve gotten 5 emails in the past hour saying that Pedro Martinez has agreed to sign with the Astros. I can’t find any kind of mainstream baseball reporter saying that, although Tim Dierkes is quoting Baseball Prospectus’ John Perotto, saying that the Astros have signed Pedro.

Drayton is holding a presser at 8:45, and it is supposedly NOT about Ivan Rodriguez, so it just might could be.

Question is, who would he knock from the rotation? Or would he just be the #5 guy? Either way, it looks as if Brandon Backe is a goner. Not that he won’t immediately get picked up by some other team.

Guess we’ll have to see in a few hours.

Alyson Footer says that Wade assured here, insisted that it wasn’t about Pedro. OK. Well, he insisted not 3 days previously that the Astros had no, had ZERO interest in Ivan Rodriguez. He pointed out to the Chron reporters that Pudge had been declining over the past 3 years and only hit .212 with the Yankees – he didn’t say that Pettitte refused to throw to him, but he could have. Anyhow, Ed Wade’s assurances that the Astros have had no conversations with Pedro cut no ice with me.

But it is true that the hitters aren’t hitting, even though the pitchers are sucking slightly less, so it might could be that Sean Berry is a goner. It would sure nuff make some news. If Drayton is firing Cecil Cooper, it would be the first time to my knowledge that a manager was fired in Spring Training.

I won’t go over Pedro until I am sure that he has actually signed.

But I do gotta say that it sure is interesting that Drayton has suddenly found money when he was supposed to be totally broke. And that Pedro ain’t Clemens 2004, but he sure will create buzz and sell tickets, even if he pitches as lousy as he did his last few years.

Just 3 days ago, Ed Wade told ALyson Footer in no uncertain terms that Pudge would NOT be an Astro and to stop asking him about Pudge. Who was NOT NOT NOT gonna be an Astro!!!

PERIOD.

He wasn’t exactly honest with her, now, was he? He had to know he had actually talked to Boras more than once – I mean, besides telling him to take a long walk offn a short pier (ehy, this is a family rated site…) I guess Drayton actually WOULD do business with the debbil, just wanted to see him grovel first. Not that Boras exactly did any groveling – that would be done by Pudge himself, who was desperate for a job, hopefully a starting job, at darn near ANY price. The media has been saying for weeks that the Astros were interested in Pudge – most likely someone from Boras’ agency, um, leaked (ahem) that. Drayton wouldn’t sign Pudge until he had a choice of Astros or nobody. I’m surprised he didn’t make him sign for Jason Michaels/Aaron Boone money. Well, I guess he gets twice their salary because he is not gonna be platooned – much.

So now we have another strongly suspected steroid user joining the team and every single fan is delighted (they care about batting average, not much of anything else…)

The sportswriters are dead wrong – fans do NOT give a rat’s patootie if ballplayers used steroids (unless he hit a lot of home runs and is an inner circle Hall of Famer.)

Anyway, let’s take a look at his stats after steroid testing was instituted seriously – namely 2006 – 2008. He hasn’t had an OPS+ over 100 since testing started…And yes, I know very well that 37 year old catchers aren’t going to hit like Piazza 2000.

2006: 136G – 580 PA: 28 2B, 4 3B, 14 HR, 26 BB, 86 K, 16 GIDP: .300/.332/.437/ 97 OPS+

2007: 129G – 515 PA: 31 2B, 3 3B, 11 HR, 9 BB, 96 K, 16 GIDP: .281/.294/.420 85 OPS+

2008: 115G – 429 PA: 20 2B, 3 3B, 7 HR, 23 BB, 67 K, 15 GIDP: .276/.319/.394 87 OPS+

Of course, all he has to do to be worshipped in Houston (by the fans, that is) is to hit over .260 – I was gonna say .250, but Bradley Awesomeness hit .258 in 2005 and still earned the enmity of Astros fans (the male ones, that is – jealous, I say. JEALOUS!!!)

I don’t know whether or not the PITCHERS will like throwing to him, but only the PITCHERS seem to care about that. Fans think that catchers doing well with the PITCHERS is one of those silly things that sportswriters talk about for some bizarre reason, and that what catchers are there for is to hit – like first basemen. After all, that is how it is in fantasy ball, right? And yer granma could catch if that was all that was needed, right?

Pudge supposedly has a bad rep with catchers – calls too many fastballs and won’t attend catchers/pitchers meetings to discuss hitters and strategy. I don’t know what is true and what isn’t, but we’ll see. I KNOW Andy Pettitte didn’t want to throw to him last year when Pudge was with the Yankees and insisted on the backup guy, who couldn’t hit MY weight.

This means that Palmisano is NOT gonna be kept on the 25 man, so either he’ll be returned to the Crew or we’ll make a deal. He hasn’t thrown out a basestealer yet. And he’s not hitting.

The media keep saying that Quintero will be the backup and Towles will go back to AAA; guess they have heard that repeatedly from the Organization – unofficially, of course. Wonder who is gonna get stuck with Quintero? I would guess Moehler. I also wonder if Towles tears it up in AAA and Quintero doesn’t hit for spit, how long it will be before he’s sent down and Quintero is called up.

Berkman was telling Alyson Footer today that he thinks/hopes Russ Ortiz will be in the rotation, which means that Backe is out. Interesting. We’ll have to see how these last 3 weeks shake out…