No Astros news this past week. The Yanks hogged the team-out-of-the-playoffs-spotlight with the Joe Torre drama. So back to checking on the free agents.
Part 1 looked at free agent CF.
Now, let’s take a look at free agent RF and at out own OF on our 40 man:
Right fielders (and 2 guys who could play right)
Bobby Abreu, age 34 -Yanks have a 16 mill club option. As for fielding, well, he has a very bad rep, which he doesn’t totally deserve with a RF of 2.15 (high is 2.68) and a ZR of .858, which, I admit is not quite as good – high is .971 (among guys who played at least 400 innings in right – 11th of 16, and, in fact, Jack Cust had a better rating – yikes!!!) Offensively, he’s definitely on the downslide of his career. He steals between 22-35 bases a year and usually hits 20 homers, but his walk rate and slugging rate dropped considerably this year. He has a career OPS of .908 and he slid to .814 this year. Of course he won’t get any 16 mill on the open market, but I wouldn’t be surprised if SOMEone will give him a multi year deal, which I sure wouldn’t.
Shawn Green, age 35 – Mets have a 10 mill club option. Dude can NOT field and he can’t hit lefties at all and barely hits rightys. Ummmm, no.
Jose Guillen, age 32 – Mariners have 9 mill club option. Good hitter, and I will be absolutely stunned if the Mariners don’t keep him. He has the reputation of, uh, whatever the Latin is for uppity, so much so that his team, the Angels, chose to bench him at the cost of losing the playoffs. As for fielding, he has the reputation of being good, but I was surprised to see that his numbers are below those of Bobby Abreu with a RF of 1.96 and a ZR of .796 – interesting that Bobby has the rep of being a totally lead glove and Guillen of being a totally golden one. Neither one deserves it.
Geoff Jenkins, age 33, who really can’t hit lefties very well any more. Had a VERY good glove most of his career, but had fallen the past few years. He’s still got a good RF – 2.30 (5th of 15†NL fielders with over 500 innings. You DID guess correctly that Carlos Lard was dead last with 1.77) and a decent ZR of .889 (again, 5th of 15 and guess who is last)†
Luis Gonzalez, age 41 should consider himself lucky that he got a contract THIS year. He’s been cooked for several years. He is only a part-timer at best and these days, he can’t even hold a candle to Luke Scott with either bat or glove.
Reggie Sanders, age 40. Has been hurt for almost 2 years straight and it is most DEFINITELY time to retire. I always liked Reggie and he had a very nice career and it’s a shame he never played for us – he hit like Barry Lamar 2001 in the Box.
Shannon Stewart, age 34. Has that nice high average low power sort of stats that Stros fans clamor for. Bats around .295 with a .390 SLG. Few Ks, few BB, 13-15 GIDP a year. Thing is, he’s been playing left for the past 6 years and at his age, I doubt he could move to center and do well – he’s about a league average fielder in left. Needless to say, with an 88, 88 and 96 OPS+ over the past 3 years, yes I know, in the AL, he certainly isn’t better than Luke Scott, who hits for power.
Brad Wilkerson, age 31 – only had 320 AB this year and 358 last because of injuries. He’s lifetime .250/354/451/804, but since the Expos left Montreal, he’s declined. This year, he’s walked 43 times and K’d 107. That, my friends, is a higher rate than the King of K Preston Wilson. He only played 275 innings in left, which is really not the best sample size, but he had a ZR of .880. However, last year, he played 664 innings in left and had a ZR of .814, which is seeping dangerously down to Carlos territory. He has spent very little of his career playing right, and the sample size over the past 6 years is only 356 innings.
Our OF (not including Carlos Lee, who is cemented – hahahaha – in left)
Luke Scott, age 29 – not sure exactly what he did to earn the enmity of the Organization, but here is a guy who hits a homer every 20 AB. His seasonal average in the ML is 36 doubles, 9 triples, 20 homers, 65 BB, 112 K and 74 RBIs. And as I’ve said before, Luke’s glove in right is excellent – 4th best among regular RF in the NL. AND he’ll earn a salary barely above league minimum.
Hunter Pence, age 25. Will of course be paid barely above minimum. In 484 PA, he hit 30 doubles, 9 triples, 17 HR, 26 BB (kept em low, didn’t he) 95 K, 10 GIDP, 11 SB, 5 CS. Hit hitting line .322/.360/.539/.899. VERY good for a CF, in fact, first among CF with at least 400 AB. His glove wasn’t bad either – RF of 2.83 (believe it or not, Jason Lane was better at 2.85, but Ryan Church was best among fielders with >300 innings at 3.02) and a ZR of .866 (and again, Jason Lane was better with .876 and Hunter was 15th among CF with >300 innings.) And Willy Taveras, so terribly missed by so many Stros fans, had a RF of 2.76 and a ZR of .823 – so much for Willy’s “incredible” defense.
Reggie Abercrombie, age 27. Claimed off waivers from the Marlins in spite of the fact that he, uh, well, um, got some, uh, flava to him and he hits worse than Jason Lane. In 2006 in 225 AB, he hit .211/.271/.333/.604. He was even worse this year – in 76 AB, he hit .197/.238/.316/.554. His minor league numbers aren’t exactly outstanding – in almost 3000 AB, he hit .266/.310/.438/.748. I don’t have minor league fielding stats such as zone rating and range factor, but in 716 innings in the majors (104 games) he has a 2.90 RF and a .909 ZR, both good, but VERY small sample size. Of course, he’d get the ML minimum, but unlike Josh Anderson, he’s a righty. Not sure exactly why we bothered to get him except to show that the Astros aren’t opposed to having brothas on the team.
Josh Anderson, age 25. Would earn ML minimum, of course. Had only 67 AB in the majors – 21 singles, 3 doubles, 5 BB, 2 HBP, 6 K, no GIDP – hit .358/.413/.403/.816. He’s essentially a singles hitter who doesn’t walk much, just like Willy T. His line is .290/.342/.373/.715 over his minor league career.
And there you have it.
Unless we TRADE for someone, and let’s be honest here, we really have almost nobody to trade, best to stick with who we have.
Tags: hou, Houston Astros
Well, just like the FACF’s, I don’t see anyone on the list who is worth spending the kind of money that it would take to get them. A couple, like Gonzo and Sanders, really should retire. If the Astros were a player or two away from winning it all, I could see spending big money on FA’s to fill those couple of holes, but the Astros have a lot of holes.
There are always guys who have been injured or gone through a down year that wind up being bargains on the FA market. The Astros should wait and look for those kind of guys, and if they don’t come up, save money and play the kids. They’re at least a year or two away from contending anyway.
well we most definitely are NOT a guy or 2 away from winning. to be real nice about it.
i don’t see that ed wade ever picked up any bargain.
we all miss gerry hunsicker. i wish that mclane hadn’t thrown him out on his ear.
ah well
I don’t see the Astros having a big “problem” outfield, and they definitely shouldn’t go out and try to buy one of those expensive free agents. (I guess I’m speaking only about offense.) Lee, Pence and Scott/Anderson seems pretty good, and since both Burke and Berkman can also play OF in a pinch, they should work on improving in other areas – Lord knows there are other areas.
That’s my 2 cents.
PS: Lisa – I’m kind of surprised that you would be against a team giving Abreu a mult-year deal. He’s only 34, and except for a slow April & May, he was lights out the rest of the season for the Yanks. He’s not Holliday or anything like that, but he’s definitely a very very good player still. No?
the last thing the astros need to do is start messing around with the outfield. Thats the least of our problems. If anything they could trade Lee for some major prospects and a proven ML caliber pitcher but that aint happening. Luke is solid and a bargain.. They need to focus on other areas. Many other areas.. One day we are going to find out what Scott did to get put in the stros doghouse and I bet its something really trivial and stupid. I know Garner didnt like his praying in the dugout (or something like that) but I just dont understand them not talking about what a great player he can become and a real asset to the team. His age and salary are positives and his hitting for power and x-tra basehits are a plus. Its just mind boggling what they are doing. Lee, Pence, Scott should already be set and established. They should figure out next years problems with pitching, Catcher, SS and Wiggys play at 3B which is umm not very good. Oh but his a gamer and brings his lunch pail to work, yawn..
jdollas -
it is not that abreu is bad or washed up, it’s that he’s declined since 04. i know that most likely he WILL get a multi year deal, i just hope it isn’t us
i also would luuuvvvv to trade lee for great pitching. yes i know all about his RBIs but i ALSO know about all his GIDP and his lead glove and 5 more years at 86 mill is not exactly a great deal. but i know mclane luuuuvvvvs him.
sigh
you pretty much HAVE to leave adam everett. wiggy can’t catch anything that is not right to him. to be nice about it and unless wade works an effing A trade, honestly, what other option and please PLEASE do not say loretta
and i bet money that catcher is gonna be towles and ausmus
Lee for a decent starter and one top pitching prospect would be ideal, but who is going to be that stupid? I expect he’ll be here until his big, fat contract is up.
It’s weird how pitiful the offense was at times last season, considering who we have. The Rangers, for instance, don’t have anyone even close to the caliber of Berkman or Lee or even Pence when it comes to hitting for average and power, yet their “no-name” group hit pretty well during the 2nd half.
I figured the Stros’d be scoring 8 runs a game at Minute Maid with that lineup. Jeesh…
But anyway, some pitching help is what this team needs most, IMHO.
agree we need to fix the pitching. i’ll do a column on it later. we have a lot of league average/below league average guys – that’s the real problem.
what’s got me worried is wade’s track record of signing middle relievers to expensive long contracts that don’t work out
I was wondering what you thought about our 2nd/3rd base situation. Surely, the Astros can and/or should try to improve on either of those positions.
As is stands now, we have Burke who has shown pretty good (sometimes) defense, but not very much offense manning 2nd and Wigginton who can’t catch much that isn’t coming right up his way, but can hit somewhat well – but not particularly well though.
In Abercrombie’s defense he did have an incredible season in AAA this year. He was of course playing in one of the biggest hitters parks in the minors (ABQ).
In regards to the second base situation I was wondering if you knew anything about Tadahito Iguchi’s contract and whether the Astros would even think about signing Iguchi?
Don’tcha kind of have to give Burke a full season to prove himself? He got jerked out of the lineup after like 2 weeks last season – even demoted to AAA when Pence got called up – so you gotta think he deserves a “real” shot at showing what he can do. At least that’s my take.
chris, brooks and jdollas,
i’m working on a couple entries on the second and third basemen.
should be up in a day or 2.
will write more once the season is over and attention wanders back to team specific blogs…