You know, what with all the absence of fuss about the Astros signing known steroid user Miguel Tejada – as Unca Drayton explained, never seen anything that no one had any idea of anything that was there which is the best explanation I’ve heard so far, Ed Wade can NOW concentrate on this team’s REAL need, acquiring mediocre middle relievers. He just signed 6 year minor league free agent Jack Cassel to a $400,000 ML contract and placed him on the 40 man.
Not sure why Cassel is getting paid more than the ML minimum, but what can I say. Anyway, he was drafted by the Padres out of Loyola Marymount in 2000 in the 25th round. He’s now 27, will be 28 in July. He’s thrown exactly 22 innings in the bigs (lasat year) since he was drafted at 19. He appeared in 6 games, started 4 and lasted more than 5 innings in 2 of them.
In the minors, he was used as a reliever from 02-05, as his ERA was considerable (2.5 points) lower as a reliever. He was changed to a starter at AA in 06, where he posted a 2.29 ERA over 68 innings, then promoted to AAA, where his ERA rose to 6.91. He repeated AAA last year, posting a line of 3.91 ERA, 1.54 WHIP – 13 HR, 42 BB, 117 K over 156 IP, 6.31 K/9, 2.67 BB/9 and 0.57 HR/9 IP.
Ed Wade calls him a “sinkerballer” – I have no stats on % of GB, so I don’t know, but he is a righty, so I feel sorry for the guy with our sorry left side of the infield if he really is a sinkerballer. I would guess he is going to take Dave Borkowski or Brian Moehler’s spot, or even have a few spot starts now and then, seeing as how we have only 1 young pitcher, Felipe Paulino, left after all the dealing so far.
Oh, and before I forget, Ed is not just checking out Jon Lieber (yecccccch) he is checking out Kris Benson, whose 5.7 mill contract was bought out by the Orioles. I wonder if Anna and her giant fake boobs are working their magic on ol Eddie Wade. And oh, I would just LUUUUVVVVV to be a fly on the wall when Anna joins the Astros wives club. But hey, she sure nuff should liven up Astros Fan Fair when she struts in in her Astros bikini and stripper heels. Sigh. I always miss out on all the fun…
Oh yeah – and before I forget
in honor of Miguel Te-roider, here are a few interesting roids articles
first – this one by David Jones in Florida Today, talking about how a long time baseball trainer tried talking to management about the steroid problem in 1988!!!!
yeh, back then. And this was before Jose Canseco started spreading roids around the Oakland clubhouse, too. Yeah, back then. Interesting that Mitchell, “impartial observer” chose to exclude his four conversations he had with the trainer from his report. Gee, wonder why…
And then there is this commentary about why, after Balco, it just might could be that the players didn’t trust Mr. Red Sox owner/ESPN honcho Mitchell… “I’ve
Tags: Houston Astros, MLB
I read that they’ve gone and offered a contract to Mark Prior. Wonder if he’ll ever be healthy enough to pitch 200 innings again?
prior?
who knows? but what the heck, he won’t be able to pitch until at least june, so it is not like he’ll be a big factor. but i’d rather take a chance on him than benson or lieber
Heard about the Prior deal. Evidently they’ve offered him a incentive-laden one-year deal. To me, depending if they can get him for a reasonable price, he’s worth the risk. I’ll have no real expectations for him, and he has a world of talent. He’ll only be back in late May at the earliest, but he’s worth a flier. It will be great if he does good, but then we’ll probably lose him at the end of the year. Best part, this deal won’t cost us a draft pick (I think) cause he didn’t pitch last year, and we need to stockpile draft picks at this point. He could be great, he could be what he’s been since ’05, an injury-riddled pitcher. He definetely is worth more than the junk heap that is Kris Benson.
If there’s one team that can really afford to take a gamble on Prior, it’s Houston – after Oswalt, this rotation gets kinda ugly.
chron.com 12/17
“The Astros would also love to get Prior, 27, in Houston, which is why they made an initial offer to him on Monday.
Hey Joey!
I don’t have a problem with a cheap, incentive-laden deal for Prior (if that’s what they actually offered). I’m scared it’ll be something like $6 mil PLUS incentives. And that would potentially be a significant rip-off.
But, I don’t understand them looking at Benson. Really? You need scouts to tell you he stinks and he’ll bring about two tons of baggage more than he’s worth? Holy crap. They sign Tejada who they should have known was doing steroids, they get Valverde, whom the players don’t like, and now they’re looking at Benson. So much for the front office giving a crap about quality men representing the team and city with pride, let alone quality ballplayers WINNING.
After reading Lance’s comments yesterday, I figure they will need to hit the ground running next season. If they go into one of those trademark Astros funks, or if they reel off a brutal losing streak to start the season, I think we’ll have all the ingredients for some very unhappy ballplayers.
On paper, they look pretty good offensively. Their defense looks mediocre, and their pitching staff is a big question mark. But as we all know, sometimes what’s on “paper” doesn’t translate to success on the field.
amazing how many fans are now demanding lance get traded. unfreakingbelieveable
amazing that i hear about all the people criticizing andy and roger, but blowing off the fact that tejada wrote checks to his drug dealer for several YEARS
and definitely this team is NOT the “good guys”
The criticisms of Berkman are Ludicrous. He spends six-plus months a year day in and day out with the same guys, and then he sees in the matter of a couple of week three of his best friends move. If that happened to me I wouldn’t react that well either. His concern about Valverde is a little strange, but I’m sure they’ll settle things. The fact that Berkman is sad that he lost a couple of friends is nothing to be concerned about. He is a quality bat, one of the “good guys” and the last Killer B left. You’ll always have a place in Houston, or at least you should.
“and their pitching staff is a big question mark.”
I might be overly pessimistic here, but I think that calling their staff a big question mark is generous. Their pitching staff, outside of Oswalt, looks pathetic to me. I love Sampson, but he’ll only be good with a solid defense behind him, and even with that, he shouldn’t be a potential number two on a staff (which he was last year until he got hurt). Wandy’s a number four starter at best, and is often only good enough to be number five. Woody shouldn’t be playing pro ball anymore, and we have no idea what, if anything, we’ll get out of Backe. Their bullpen, outside of Valverde (who might totally blow this year, if past trends continue), looks horrific. They only have a bunch of mediocre long relievers and no setup man. I am mortified of this pitching staff. This has the makings of another year of one of the worst staffs in the league.
It’s amazing how they went from an all batting, only two good starter team in ’04 (remember Pete Munro pitching game 6 NLCS), to an average batting team. great pitching team in ’05, to an average team overall in ’06, to bad team overall in ’07. The Astros have been basically every sort of team the last five years, but the ’08 team is looking to be a little like the ’04 team without Clemens (not pretty).
daniel
i think this team looks a LOT more like the 2000 team than the 04 team which would have been a LOT better if pettitte hadn’t gone down
pete munro. shudder.
and dan effing miceli
double shudder
I got the impression that Cassel would compete for a starter’s job. You don’t think so?
incentive laden deal
i hate that term. its used more than illegals on a farm.
ok, i’ll join you guys. its the end of the world. the astros suck. they are crappy. they can’t out pitch a AA team.
its over i’m moving to boston. wade is a bubbling over paid full controled by a fat on the hog, penny pinching tyrant. they should have given me the gm job i would have traded for santana, bedard and signed a-rod and hunter. those fools.
alright then so what do you guys say if our 2-5 guys (wandy, backe, sampson, williams) put up ERAs in the mid 4s?
http://home.comcast.net/~briankaat/chone_08p_v2.csv
http://home.comcast.net/~briankaat/statsite.html
The bats averaging 5-6 runs per game….
Playoffs anyone?
“i think this team looks a LOT more like the 2000 team than the 04 team which would have been a LOT better if pettitte hadn
Dan Micelli …
oh no … it’s all coming back to me now …
oh the horror
[...] at Astros Dugout rejoices in the signing of right-hander Jack [...]
well thank goodness this team is not the ole good guys because the good guys of the last two years have been a bunch of losers; an as for as berkman is concerned too me he has become a big cry baby . I have always been a big fan of lance and believe he is an especially super ball player, but i do not recognize the berkman of the past year. he has not displayed any true leadership that this team needs him to be. he is overly critical of most what mr. wade is doing to make this a much better team that its fans can be proud of any criticizing the new players instead of making them fill welcome. lance needs to look in a mirror. he claims of lost chemistry of the past two years he and his buddies had in the clubhouse. thank goodness for that because we need a new chemistry that of winners not losers. he talks of how he is afraid that it might take sometime for the new players to jell; well i sure hope for one it does not take near as long as it took him to jell last season. i realize that even very good players sometimes go into prolong slumps.but it was more than that i saw with berkman last year.i saw a player that did not always hustle like he should , a player that did not have the drive or commitment that a player that gets the bucks that he does should have had.i have never so many base running blunders that he commited in the first half of the season and too have only one double in the first two plus months of the season from a guy who has hit more than 50 in season was truly unbelieveable.well this is a new season and i believe berkman will come out of the chute fast and become the player and leader on and off the field that his team need him to be . go berkman go stros!
michael,
yeah, it DID sound like wade is talking about him competing for a starter’s job. just what we need – another #5 guy.
joel,
no boy NOOOOOOOOOO
you supposed to be the “up” guy around here. since WHEN do guys actually listen to grrrrls???????????
charles
i would hardly call berkman a “cry-baby”
all he said to the reporter was that he was going to miss the guys he worked well with. and ballplayers live work eat together and are VERY close. so i understand.
i have been told that it is VERY tough for teams to gel when 18 or 19 of 25 guys are new. lance just spoke the truth. it WILL be tough.
and he is manfully keeping back his criticisms of tejada the roider. and it is tough for him too because he has been a VERY vocal anti-roids guy. so i KNOW he was NOT happy about tejada being obtained – especially for everett, who was not only clean, but the clubhouse “leader” that all yall males believe is so important.
and he is dead right about valverde.
lance is not been and never will be a drill sergeant personality like kent and he never will be one of those business guys like baggy/biggio. a good-natured clown can keep the clubhouse loose and comfortable. being good-natured does not mean he doesn’t work his ass off to keep in shape and to try to break out of a hitting slump – and it was the first time in his CAREER that he’d ever had a slump.
and he wasn’t the most egregious non-hustler, neither – that title belongs to carlos lee
lisa
i believe it was berkmans second such slump, year 2005 i believe. but it can be argued it was not as bad and was partly brought about because of off season injury. it is sort of funny that some reporter ask craig biggio this past season who he thought would become the next leader of the astros. craig said he thought it was probably going to be hunter pence. i wonder what lance thought of his buddies comment on this one. i wonder if you read what one of your contemporary!s jose de jesus ortiz of the chronical had too comment about berkman on one of his blogs. i sort of have to agree with him for the most part on this.
no, berkman was coming off knee surgery in the beginning of 05 – that was hardly a slump.
the Hated Mo Ensberg carried the team for the first 2 months. everyone has long since forgotten that.
sure i read what jose ortiz said.
and i am NOT happy that he has chosen to ignore the fact that tejada is a steroid cheat, too. coming from a guy who has been more than outspoken about what terrible human beings mcgwire and bonds are for supposedly doing roids.
biggio was not exactly mr perfect. he had his faults. lance thought that burke should have been given the 2base job instead of having last year be all about the biggio – and he was right. of COURSE he took pence’s “side” – you know what i’m sayin…
Hey if our rotation is an ace, a number three starter (Backe), and three number 5 starters — well then, we better at least have some extra #5 starters if needed.
lisa
i do agree very much with you about the astros seeming to care about biggio getting his 3000 hits more than the team winning. i also understood or thought that when biggio did get his 3000 he was to step aside so that burke his heir apparent could take over at second; but apparently he was not satisfied any wanted to see how many players he could pass on the hit list and purpua and garner saw fit to accomadate him rather than putting the team first. i am so glad garner is gone because another thing i believe he messed with luke scott alot and help messed him up. luke should have never been platooned last year especially with a .180 hitter.
charles,
the amount of ads directed to biggio and urging fans to come see biggio AFTER he got his 3000th hit was all you need to know if you were wondering if the season was about winning.
blaming lance berkman for that is not right and jose had no business suggesting that
we ALL know it was drayton’s decision to let biggio do what he wanted. no wonder there was, um, a little unhappiness.
there was absolutely ZERO excuse for not giving luke scott the RF job last year except for personal animus.
berkman is SUPPOSED to stand up for his teammates. i am tired of him getting heck from the reporters every time he does
and garner was a seriously lousy manager.
joel
sorry about your post going into spam – i revived it
anyhow, if guys 2-5 put up ERAs in the mid 4s, which, by the way is better than league average, i assure you i will be dancing in the streets.
playoffs, maybe
WS?
not a chance. you need more than 1 ace to win
Joel, if everyone on our staff averages ERAs in the mid-4s, and everyone in our bullpen has ERAs in the mid-4s, we’ll have a heck of a lot of games where we give up more than four runs. This is the same mentality the Rangers adopted – get a bunch of hitters and some mediocre pitchers and then outscore your opponents. It didn’t work for them, and it won’t work for us. And even if we made the playoffs, we wouldn’t get far without a bonafide number two. I seriously don’t know what you’re looking at to make you so optimistic about this season.
Okay…I get that. What I DON’T get is how you look at a staff loaded with pitchers who will have ERAs in the mid-4s as a good thing.
which one of the astros starters does not have the potential to pitch in the mid 4s?
that’s what optimism is.
a pessimist says
which astro is likely to have an era above 5.
well if the 2-5 starters era is in the mid 4′s and you have a great pen plus your ace your team era would be in the low 4s to low-mid 4′s.
Add that to an above average offense producing 5 runs per game and you have a winning team.
If by chance they get to the playoffs (which too many things would have to be perfect, i know), Backe pitchs great in pressure situations like the playoffs. There’s your 1-2 punch to help push you through the playoffs.
Okay, but here’s my point. Last year, TEN teams in the NL alone had ERAs in the mid-4s, including your Houston Astros. Having an ERA in the mid-4s is easy. We did it even with a pathetic staff last year. What’s not easy is averaging 5 runs or more per game. Only four teams in the NL did it last year, and one of them still missed the playoffs. The Braves were third in runs scored last year, averaging 5 per game. They were sixth in team ERA, with a 4.11. And they still missed the playoffs.
The Astros would have to improve their team ERA slightly (with doesn’t look very likely with no real pitching improvements) and improve team offense drastically (averaged less than 4.5 runs per game) in order for your scenario to work. Just because the numbers SAY they should win enough games to make the playoffs doesn’t mean they will. After all, the Braves finished third in their own division even with the scenario you’re putting forward.
ofcourse its tough, unlikely and uncertain. you’re right i can’t argue that. they’re current pitching situation makes it highly unlikey they make the playoffs.
i think it is possible.
i remember a particular bloger posting right as the season ended that there was no hope for this team. they would be a losing team for the next 5,000 years. the blogger wished there was some hope so the blogger could be excited.
i know what reality is, but baseball is not my life so it dosen’t have to be real. i rather hope and imagine there is a chance they will win the WS next year.
i don’t think the rotation has become worse and could be an improvement over last years as it stands.
jennings wont be jacking games up.
i’d bet wandy will have a better year.
oswalt and williams will be at least the same but both could be better.
sampson is an uncertainty. he could do well or be luke warm.
backe who knows.
is it enough? we don’t have a choice about it so it has to be enough.
i’m not an analyst, i’m a fan.
so what do you say, do the astros have a chance at making the playoffs next year? or are you marking them dead in the water?
Well, anything is possible. 2004 and 2005 taught us that. But, I don’t see the same spark from this team. Those teams had late surges for a reason, and a big part of the spark came from GREAT pitching. Unless someone pitches like Clemens and Pettitte did in 2005, then yes, I’m marking this team dead in the water. I won’t say it’s not possible, but the likelihood of a team with so little depth, such bad defense, such bad pitching and so little proven talent in the top two spots of the lineup winning the division is so thin that I give them just a shade above a snowball’s chance in hell of finishing better than third in the NL Central.
one point i would like to make about this years team is that we really have to wait and see how they play. being the all out optimist i am i feel good for the most part this team.maybe if they play better and more consistently from the get go they may not need to have one of thoes miraculos late season surges, i realize that the starting pitching is very shaky now but it could improve as the season progresses. and i don!think that the defense is all that bad. and the offense looks like it sould be a lot better than those team teams that really did not show me all that much offense to begin with. i can wish and hope for best any way can!t. at least it makes me feel much better to feel positive rather than negative going onto a new season. come on lisa i know you are going to blow me away, but thats ok! i am a big boy and a can take it. thanks AND GO STROS!
you know every time i write when austin and joel are discussing the future of the team, i feel like sylvester the cat with the angel cat on one shoulder and the devil cat on the other – only this time it is the optimist and the pessimist.
i just LUUUUUUVVVVV that joel – listening to him i think we Could Go All The Way to the WS
and then along comes austin and sez – cmon gf, get a grip. we’re going all the way to 4th place.
but you know, there are a LOT more joels out there than you’d think – season ticket sales are stronger than last year so far, in spite of the increased prices. and honestly, i have a hard time believing people would buy season tickets just for redsox/yanks tickets for re-sale…
so far, we’re only going to have 8 guys from the entire team that started last year -
pence, lee, lance, loretta, roy, wandy, sampson and woody. (not sure if we are gonna keep borkowski or not) – hope this works out. lance he had a point…
that is a WHOLE lot of new guys
i thought thats what everyone wanted. i remember hearing, “why don’t the just bring up the minor leaguers at least we can watch new faces lose.”
well we got the new faces.
maybe you (speaking generally) don’t like what wade has done but what was the other option. watch the same team lose again? i think you either had to go his route or blow the whole thing up.
it will at least be fun for the first month.
“
that last comment wasn’t directed specifically at you.