Here we go again. Sorry, but that was the only line that posted from an entire entry don’t ask me why, but I’m too angry to rewrite the entire thing again, so here goes.

The Yanks threw 161 mill at Sabathia and in spite of his talk about wanting to hit, wanting to stay in Milwaukee/go home to California, in the end, either he and/or the Union took the most money and there you are.

shrug

However, the Brewers, possibly in a total state of sulk, decided to gift the Yankees, after they took their star pitcher, with their outstanding CF, Mike Cameron, in exchange for the Yankees lousy CF Melky Cabrera, so he can stink up their lineup cheaply for the next 3 years. Hey, they should just hand them Ryan Braun for Andy Phillips or Brett Gardner or something while they’re at it.

And the Mets got a setup guy/backup closer to augment Frankie Rodriguez – JJ Putz from the Mariners for suckulous middle reliever Aaron Heilman (and change.) No wonder these guys think the rest of baseball should kiss their butts – the rest of baseball DOES.

Now Gerry Hunsicker pulled off a decent trade – starter Edwin Jackson, a guy with all this “potential” and “stuff” with not much to show for it, to the Tigers for highly regarded AAA infielder Matt Joyce.

While Fast Eddie has done his best to trade Tejada and Wiggy and gotten nothing to show for it (toldja that Drayton McCheap was cutting payroll, not increasing it) he did pick up some slag off the waiver wire/Rule V heap:

Jeff Fulchino, RH SP, age 29, off waivers from the Royals. He was picked by the Marlins in the 9th round of the 01 draft, then signed as a 6 year minor league FA by the Royals last year. He has spent the last 4 years (mostly) in AAA, which doesn’t say much for their AAA staffs, I’ll say that. Here are his ERA/WHIP over those years: 5.06/1.61; 4.50/1.43; 5.83/1.67; 4.84/1.60. About the only good thing I can say about him is that he has always had a very low HR rate – 0.7/9 IP. And yeah, he has thrown 14.1 dreadful innings in the majors, just in case you were curious.

Lou Palmisano, C, age 26, picked in the Rule V from the Orioles, in spite of the fact that he was with the Brewers. Don’t ask me to explain that one. Lou hasn’t hit higher than AA, had a .787 OPS in 07, and was hurt last year and spent it split between Rookie and A ball. He did hit .407 over 13 games in the AFL, which means so much to Fast Eddie that he is talking about Palmisano competing with Quintero. And Quintero is a worse hitter than Ausmus, which tells you that Towles is finished as far as the Astros are concerned. Naturally, they won’t trade the guy and try to get something of value, they’ll just let him rot in AAA as a punishment for failing last year.

Andrew Locke, 1B/OF, age 26, picked in the Rule V from the Dodgers, who selected him in the 19th round of the 05 draft. He hasn’t exceeded high A, and his OPS last year was .843. Can’t see the guy sticking on the ML roster all year. 

Gilbert De La Vara, LH RP, age 24, picked in the Rule V from the Royals (WHAT is the obsession with the Royals castoffs????!!!!) Anyway, he was picked in the 15th round of the 04 draft. Unlike the others, this guy looks as if he might could possibly stick – he’s thrown 259 innings over 4 years with a 3.40 ERA and a 1.16 WHIP. He split last year between high A and AA and pitched quite well – 77 IP with only 1 HR, 56 H, 17 BB, 52 K. He must be a contact pitcher, probably a GB pitcher, seing as how he gave up so few homers, and in fact, has only give up 13 homers over the past 4 years. He’s Wesley Wright sized and all yall KNOW I rootrootroot for the little guy…

With all the owners except Yankees and Mets pretending they are poor, guess they are waiting out the players, hoping they will get desperate and sign for peanuts toward Spring Training.

Roy Oswalt has apparently offered to re-do his contract if Drayton will sign a good starting pitcher. But that might could mean that Drayton would have to actually spend money, so I’m not holding my breath.

sigh

Tags: Houston Astros

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 11th, 2008 at 6:41 pm and is filed under Astros baseball. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.