As all yall have probably already heard, Berkman is needing minor surgery on the knee (not the one he had an operation on back in 05) he hurt last week, and will be out 2-4 weeks.
This means that someone else will be playing first base, and there really isn’t another 1B available, like Mike Lamb, a couple years back, so Blum and Shelton will be trying to field that position.
And speaking of approaching thunderclouds and raining on parades, I hear tell that Ed Wade and his own managerial hire are, uh, not exactly agreeing on who should be on the 25 man roster.
For instance, Fast Eddie has told everyone that Quintero WILL be the backup catcher (regaardless of how well Towles and Castro do – and if Castro does well, and if the Astros are going to forfeit an extra year of Castro by not waiting until the Super 2 deadline, Towles will be wasted in AAA – and you KNOW they won’t trade him for anything but ANOTHER middle reliever, if that…)
But I digress…
Anyway, apparently, Mills wants a totally different bench (seeing as how he has no choice about who plays second or third) and he wants BOTH Towles and Castro (not Q) and Maysonet, Johnson, Yordany Ramirez and Alex Romero, and he wants to give them a LOT more playing time than Fast Eddie thinks – and we all know that Eddie wants moldy oldies Blum, Q, Kepp, Michaels and Sullivan. He said, and I quote “Towles, Maysonet, Johnson and Ramirez may just have to wait until we have a spot for them…”
Which is why Fast Eddie is ranked on GM lists as – well, at least he’s not as bad as Dayton Moore…
It sure seems to be more than possible that Fast Ed is, um, going along with Drayton’s historic preference for Old Guys. After all, Ed does “work with” Tal Smith…
Tags: Houston Astros, MLB
My gosh…can we really be in for another year of crappy “veterans?” I can’t believe Michaels is back and getting a serious shot. How many times do you have to post a pitcher’s batting average before a guy gets the clue? Is this like the thing with Elvis Grbac in Kansas City? Is Michaels married to the GM’s daughter, or something?
Not surprised Eddie and Mills are disagreeing on the shape of the roster. Fast Eddie will always listen to Drayton first before talking to anyone else. We need to get some of the younger players some playing time and Mills is the right guy to give out that time. But the way the Astros brass is, we both know that ain’t gonna happen. *sighs* We’ll see how it plays out this season.
Wade get a lot of credit for drafting some of the players that made the Phillies a good team, but he wasn’t there when they went to the world series. Mills has a much better baseball resume than Wade. They hired Mills to manage the team, so let him manage, I say.
if it is DRAYTON who wants veterans, we’ll get em. and we ALL know that drayton doesn’t want/like young players unless the fans want em (see pence, willy t, etc) and thinks that young players are there to trade for vets. LOTS of managers don’t want young players neither. jimy williams and phil were exceptions – and i see that back then, i noted that phil actually said to the media several times that he was told he had to not play the young guys
mike,
wade really shouldn’t be getting near as much credit for the drafts as he does because the guy who was head of drafting, mike arbuckle, really wasn’t subject to wade’s authority and had an unusual amount of autonomy.
so when i evaluate wade, i look at stuff like trades and FA signings
I don’t get “it”. Maysonet plays a great second base, AND he has some real
“pop” in his bat. Why doesn’t Ed Wade want to play the guy??????????????
becky,
stop making sense.
sigh
i don’t know why some managers/GMs prefer older vets to young players with upside, especially if those players are better than the crappy vets. my only guess is that there is, naturally, more of a track record on the vets in the ML and assuming the player doesn’t have injuries, they expect to get what they got the year before, or at least, the average of the previous 3 years.
maysonet did MUCH better in the ML with the bat than projected, and this is playing for a manager that didn’t want to play him in the first place. he did great in the everyday lineup, and not as well as a PH (naturally) but there is absolutely NO questiuon about his vastly superior glove.
and actually, it is not really accurate to call maysonet a “young” player – he’s 28 already and only 2 years younger than keppinger…
At first, I thought, perhaps, they are just postphoning the whole arbitration clock thing but then, sending Towles to AAA and keeping Castro up shoot that theory down. And Maysonet being older…well, that seals the fate of said theory.
If it’s money that’s keeping the veterans up, couldn’t the Astros just paid the rookie half of those and, thus, having to play the rookies half of the time which would still be more than what they are playing now.
I’m sorry, Lisa, that the FO don’t make sense. I just hope Wandy and Roy would still get some wins.