Well, here I am freezing to death – we’re supposed to get our THIRD snowfall of the freaking YEAR in Houston TEXAS. You’d think we were in Alaska or something. Where is all this global warming we are supposed to be having and why is it so late getting here to Houston????!!!!

Anyway, sorry, but freezing weather is not my thing and here I am supposed to be thinking about Spring Training in Sunny Florida. I’m just incredibly delighted that the baseball season is starting up again. I love Spring Training – it seems like a new beginning, even if it really is a continuation of sorts.

For a week now, I have been watching the figure skating and ice dancing (so I like hot guys who can move it, what can I say) and I notice that with very VERY few exceptions, the skaters are scheduled to go in the order of expected worse to best and apparently, the judges actually take into consideration a skater’s position in the order when grading him/them/her. Hard to believe, but true. So anyway, unless someone has a bad night or falls, the names of the top 4 in a competition is a foregone conclusion. It is not much of a competition and after you get into the top 4, it is almost a crapshoot.

Sound familiar?

Also, NBC refuses to show ALL the skaters who compete, just Americans and/or the top 7 or 8. I guess they figure that pretty much everybody wants to watch the Yankees, Mets, Cubs and

uh, oopsies, there. Well, you get my drift. Actually, I wonder if they even bother to tape the first 10 skaters at all. But, as I was gonna say, Husband is finally freed from having to watch, as ice dancing ended yesterday night. It is something to watch all those Wandy and Wesley Wright sized males lift 100+ lb females and twirl them around while balancing on 1 leg, leaning backwards, or sideways. And Husband even came over to watch American skaters Emily Samuelson and Evan Bates – Emily is a 20 year old saucy redhead. He LIKEY saucy redheads, even if he ain’t dumb enough to say so… They were around the 7th couple to go, so you KNOW that no matter WHAT they did, they had no chance whatsoever to win, as the commenter snidely informed us. Not sure WHY, as she couldn’t ever bother to explain anything about what is being graded or how it is graded or WHY what any pair does is a higher grade or better technique. But she sniffed that Emily and Evan, of course, Were Just Happy To Be There, and were getting experience for the future. I guess they only get a chance to start later as the other American pairs retire, or something.

I noticed, by the way, that every skater/pairs interviewed were asked dumb questions and they gave almost the same answers. They are more thoroughly coached in what to say and how to say it than Alex Rodriguez. Part of the price for being allowed to skate in the Olympics. But I digress….

They sure nuff DID look as if they were enjoying themselves, even knowing that they weren’t going to win anything anyway, and I liked watching them, so I am gonna think of the 2010 Astros as the Emily and Evan year – I know they really have no chance to win, and the networks don’t want to show them because they aren’t hyped to death and have no chance to win anyway. But hopefully, they are Just Happy To He here and hope to do their best and God willing – um, I forget the rest of that there cliche. I should know it by now, I’ve heard if so often…

Me, I hope that Drayton has or will put a moratorium on his disallowing managers to play young players or give them more than a 3 week chance before discarding them in favor of some worn out re-tread. And I hope that the Astros fans will give rooks a lil more time to establish themselves – not everyone comes up and hits .300 and I am sorry that fans these days seem to demand it as a matter of course.

sigh

Here are the position players, including the NRIs:

Infielders:

Lance Berkman, age 34, SH, 1B: oh my GAWD can Lance really be that old??? In spite of what Astros fans think, he was the best hitter on the team last year – 139 OPS+ .274/.399/.509/.907. He’s in the last year of his contract and will either be playing for a new contract, playing to get the Astros to pick up his option for next year, or hoping to get traded to a contendah at the deadline. He was hurt some of last year, and had a terrible start to last year – didn’t hit for spit until mid May, which earned him the undying enmity of many Astros fans who felt that maybe if he had thrown things of kicked some rookies, he would have done better. Hopefully, with a better manager and coaches, he’ll have a great year.
Geoff Blum, age 37, LH 3B (can play some 2B and supposedly SS – although I bet he’d make Loretta look like Adam Everett). I’ve discussed him several times these past few months, and remind everyone that although he hits mostly lefty, he has essentially the wsame offensive numbers as Pedro Feliz over the past 4 years, in spite of the fact that the Astros Organization is portraying Feliz as the second coming of Scott Rolen 04. Blum did a better than average job with the glove, too. This year, he is ostensibly the LH PH off the bench, backup 3B and (PLEEEZE Lord, NOOOOOOO) backup 2B and SS as well. Last year, over 467 PA, he hit .247/.314/.367/.681
Pedro Feliz, age 35, RHB, 3B: came up with the Giants in 2001 and signed a FA contract with the Phils, and has played with them for the past 2 years. His career line is .254/.298/.422/.715 and last year, he hit .266/.308/.386/.694. He used to have a little bit of power, but his ISO (isolated slugging percentage) over the past 5 years has gone – .209/.184/.165/.153/.121. while his OPS+ have stayed a nice steady 85/79/80/80/81/81 (Geoff Blum territory, just to translate.)
Chris Johnson, age 25, RHB, 3B: the guy the Astros fans are already rejecting before he has even gotten to ST: the Astros 4th round pick in the 06 draft: In 07, his first full year, he split the year between A and A+ and had around a .700 OPS. In 08, after 220 AB at A+ with a .685 OPS, he was promoted to AA, where he suddenly hit like a man possessed – posted an .870 OPS, seemingly because he learned to hit for both average and power, and was promoted to AAA, where he had 100 lousy ABs. Last year, he was hurt for around 2 months, and when he returned to AAA, posted a .784 OPS over 324 AB. Like a good little Astros prospect, he doesn’t walk, and that should please Astros fans with fond memories of Miggy Tejada. Actually, his fielding should do even more to please Astros fans as he racks up as many errors as Miggy did. All this and for only 400K/year!!! All the boy needs to do is hit .300, not walk or strike out much – unfortunately, he’s got about twice as many as Miggy, and jump around out there. Not that he’ll get much of a chance THIS year with both Feliz and Blum…
Jeff Keppinger, age 30, RHB, utility IF, glove of lead: .801 OPSA LHP, .661 OPSA RHP. He’s another guy who doesn’t walk or strike out much. Astros have a THANG for this kind of guy. No base clogging allowed. Hopefully, he won’t take away ABs from Manzella. Or Maysonet…
Tommy Manzella, age 27, RHB: supposed to be the duplicate of Adam Everett, but a slightly better hitter. Which makes Astros fans unhappy because they don’t think it matters if fielders are horrible as long as they hit .300. But I am happy, as I LIKEY seeing baseballs caught, fielded and thrown well. Manzella was drafted by the Astros in the 3rd round of the 05 draft. He repeated AAA last year and hit .289/.339/.417/.756. In 530 AB, he had 40 BB and 99 K with 12 SB and 3 CS. I hope HOPE that Astros fans (and Drayton) will give the boy a little more than the usual 3 weeks to prove himself. Not that we really have any other SS ready and waiting except for (shudder) Keppinger…
Kaz Matsui, age 34, RHB: Mr. Fragile managed 533 PA over 132 games (career highs) but dropped his OPS+ from 106 to 74, although he continued to field well. I hope that the manager is going to be allowed to rest Kaz and will have the sense to do so if allowed to. He could play
Edwin Maysonet, age 28, RHB, 2B/SS: Did great when called up to fill in for Kaz Matsui on one of his DL stints, but Cooper still managed to find excuses not to play him and play luminaries such as Jason Smith and other assorted failures. In 79 PA, he hit .290/.333/.362/.694. He’s yet another low walk, lowish strikeout guy who doeasn’t hit for power. The Astros grow these guys like weeds. He has a good glove, from what I’ve seen, too.
NRI – Drew Meyer, age 28, LHB, 2B: don’t ask me why he was even invited to ST, because he is teh sukc. To be nice about it. He was the Rangers’ 1st round draft pick in 02, spent 05, 06, 07 and 08 at AAA and posted a .655, .583, .576 and .674 OPS in those years. He spent last year at Corpus Christi AA and posted a .711 OPS.
NRI – Oswaldo Navarro, age 25, RHB, 2B/SS: signed as a FA out of Venezuela by the Mariners in 01. Spent 07, 08 and half of 09 at AAA and posted OPS of .632, .659 and .594. Whatever. Doesn’t steal, and is the usual no walk, low K guy.
NRI- Chris Shelton, age 30, RHB, 1B/DH: picked in the 33rd round of the 01 draft by the Pirates. Man do I remember THIS guy. He was picked by the Tigers in the 03 Rule V draft – it was a year that the Pirates had a lot of great young prospects and left a lot of them unprotected, preferring to keep crappy veterans on the roster. But anyway, guess Detroit must have worked out some trade I’ve forgotten because Shelton only got a couple of ML ABs instead of spending the year on the roster, but he had a, shall we say, dramatic debut in 05 after hitting .986 OPS at AAA: in June 05, he had a .931 OPS, bested it in July with a .951 OPS, slid to .755 in August, but rebounded a bit to .860 in Spetember. He had a glove like a DH, but he was the talk of the town. He started off 06 with an explosive 1.186 OPS in April (with 10 HR) then he fell off the proverbial cliff and was finally sent down in August, after 3 months of no power at all. He spent 07 at AAA, hitting .801 OPS, then was traded to Texas at the end of the year for PR/DR Freddy Guzman. He had a .979 OPS at AAA Oklahoma and had 97 ML AB with a .661 OPS (he’s reminding me of Todd Self). He signed a FA contract with Seattle last year, had a .905 OPS at AAA and a .546 OPS in the ML over 26 AB. He appears to be a guy who can’t hit ML breaking stuff. Guess we need a AAA 1B this year who can, you know, like hit.
Wladimir Sutil, age 25, RHB, SS/2B: FA from Venezuela signed by the Astros in 03. He is supposed to be 5-10, 135. I gots to admire the guy for admitting to weighing less than David Eckstein. As yall might could have guessed, he has no power, in his second year at AA, had a .672 OPS. In 472 AB, had 44 BB and 40 K, 19 SB and 13 CS. No idea what the glove is like, but the bat isn’t much…
Jose Vallejo, age 23, RHB 2B/SS: signed with the Rangers out of the DR in 05, was one of the players traded to the Astros for Ivan Rodriguez last August. Appears to be a good base stealer – 42 SB/4 CS in 08, didn’t run much last year. Had a .589 OPS in 309 AB at AAA Oklahoma last year. Low walks, medium high Ks. Silly fool sliced tendons in his pitching hand while cutting meat and didn’t tell the team for a week until it got worse, so he’ll miss the year.

Tags: Houston Astros, MLB

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