I guess you could call it amusing that the Astros are having all these guys supposedly “compete” for Spring Training jobs when the GM decided BEFOREhand who the position players on the 25 man would be.
It certainly isn’t batting average or slugging, let alone fielding, that made Yordany Ramirez get sent down or Alex Romero get released. Ed Wade had ALREADY decided, no matter what, that his backup OF were gonna be Cory Sullivan and Phillies Michaels. Chris Johnson and his .325 BA and .750 SLG never stood a chance, unless Feliz and Keppinger BOTH went on the DL.
Morgan Ensberg says in his wonderful blog, that communication of almost any sort is almost nonexistant in pro ball. I’m starting to REALLY like that guy. I’m pretty cynical about professional athletes and their public vs private personas, and don’t exactly expect good human beings because of athletic prowess, but I think that Mo probably IS the decent guy he sounds like. Probably because he was NOT one of those guys who was The Popular Kid or The Supastah in hs – he certainly wasn’t in college. Yeah, sure, he’s aggressive and competitive, but I think that goes along with being male – most guys are aggressive and competitive about SOMEthing.
Anyway, he had said that he LOVED Jimy Williams as a manager – because Jimy did the 3 things well that Mo believes a manager should do: 1 – protect his players from the media (and he surely did THAT and the media hated him for it); 2 – teach – even major leaguers learn something new constantly. How many guys have said that they wish they had the body now that they are old to do what their bodies could do when they were young? 3 – COMMUNICATE – explain what they want clearly so that guys know what’s going on.
The Astros Organization is pimping the living heck out of Jason Castro – not sure if he has all these redeeming features that make him worthy of deification, or if he is just an ordinary catcher, but he was the guy they picked as their number 1 pick – picked before better ranked guys, who COST MORE (ahem) and who are proof of the wonderfulterrificness of The New Ed Wade Regime. They point to his good Spring Training numbers as the Proof of his wonderfulness.
What does this tell Maysonet, Johnson and every other guy who was told he is “fighting for a job” when in fact, their faces are being lied to? When Ed Wade, the FIRST day of ST tells the media that maybe some day Johnson and Maysonet etc might have a place on the Astros roster?
sigh
Same thing it tells me when Ed Wade can’t WAIT to praise Paulino (another guy the Organization is crazy in luuuuvvvv with) for beating the crappy Pirates – something even Mike Hampton managed to do.
We all have it figured out – Shelton, Maysonet, Johnson, Ramirez and every other guy who put up great lines in ST never were going to get anything. What does the Organization tell these guys? ANYthing? Do they praise the guys when they do well, or even bother to tell them how they could improve so that they could ever have a chance of making the team, or being traded to a team that will use them? How do guys not lose hope?
I wonder what they have told Towles, who has certainly out-performed Castro. If he hits like Piazza ’99 all year, what then? Why has Quintero been guaranteed a ML job in spite of the fact that Towles is a better defended and hitter? What do they tell him about THAT?
Ida know.
Pitchers? Well, the only ones who don’t look awful are Roy, Sammy G, Lindstrom and Sampson. I keep telling myself about Clemens in ST of 05 and his 8 something ERA and saying – well, this is what happens when guys work on stuff. Casey Daigle, who has 100+ crappy minor league innings pitched, has thrown 10 good innings this ST, and may actually get a roster spot instead of Sammy G. Casey, by the way, hasn’t pitched in the majors since 2006, when he threw 12 OK innings for the Dbax in relief. They’ll give Casey a chance, a guy who is a NRI, but they won’t give their own minor league position players a sniff.
I heard from a few good sources that Brad Mills didn’t want it that way, but Fast Eddie did. So when the New Old Guys suck, I won’t blame Mills.
Tags: Houston Astros, MLB
I don’t get what they have against Maysonet. He could turn out to be a pretty decent backup.
from what i hear tell, the MANAGER likes him, but not fast eddie
also, remember, they traded drew sutton for keppinger – and it looks like sutton is, naturally, bettern the Organization thought, so they kind of have to prove that keppinger was not a mistake.
and i would bet that this is the real problem.
for the Organization, i mean. all it tells young players is that if they are not a teachers’ pet like castro, what chance do they actually have?
we are the very last team in the majors to understand that young players are important for the team, not just to trade for other Old Guys whether or not they are any good
You sure don’t like Castro do you? You also don’t like Pence either; likes its their fault top management likes them so much.
jimbo!!!!
welcome back !!! i’ve missed you!!!
i don’t know whether or not i like castro. the guy has only a hundred+ ABs at double A and had a 740 OPS+ which is not exactly the johnny bench quality that the astros Organization keeps pimping him as.
what i do NOT like is the way this Organization gets all obsessed over a couple of minor league guys, pimps the heck out of them, gives them more chances than anyone else, regardless of numbers, and leaves the others to rot. why not do MORE with all the guys you have? why ignore them, why not TEACH them? there are the barry lamars, the junior griffeys, the albert pujolses and everyone else has a long way to go.
what i don’t like is the excessive favoritism – teachers pet-itis, if you prefer.
as for pence,
he’s a good major leaguer who hits reasonably well for a corner OF, fields reasonably well and needs to improve on his baserunning. i think he took a step backwards last year with respect to hitting because he obeyed cooper, who told him to pull everything. it wasn’t good advice. also, they had him follow darin erstad, who didn’t believe in getting a good pitch to hit, just in swinging at any old thing. that wasn’t good advice neither. hopefully, he’ll go back to trying to go with the pitch and not swing at sliders low and away.
Lisa
nice to visit you again on your new website and congradulations.
on pence i pretty much agree with you on your assetment of his situation. i to believe he suffered from poor management and poor advice.i truly believe that he has not neared his true potential and i think that this year he will have a real breakout year. i hear that he really worked very hard in the offseason to improve avery aspect of his game and that includes baserunning and stealing bases. i don ‘t believe anybody works harder and is more committed to the game of baseball than hunter pence.
on castro
i tend to think you exaggerate a bit on his situation and they are not expecting him to be another bench. i think that they really had planned from the beginning to let him compete with towles for the job, but that if j.r. had a pretty good ST and he has that they would be sending castro to AAA RR when the season starts for more experiance.
i just came back from the astros spring home in florida with my 2 sons and had a wonderful time as it was my first time to ever go to ST. i thought it would be fairly easy to get autographs being spring training WRONG Most of the players wouldn’t give you a second look or the time of day. at sundays game with the mets the boys and i were there for over 4 hours when the game was finnaly called after 1 inning due to rain. pence by far gives the most autographs as i got only his and j.r. towles the first day along with sean berry and coach meachem. towles is a real nice and standup guy. the second day on monday against the cardinals i managed to get castro’s and sheldon after the game. pence was also there and right before leaving i got manager brad mill’s autograph.
anyway i got to spend some real quality time with my 2 sons and hope i can maybe go back next spring.
.
Maysonet will ROT in the minors. Ed Wade “loved” Cooper, so what does THAT
tell you about Ed Wade????? Maysonet is a sad case. Mills REALLY LIKES
him, and fast Eddie won’t let him play. Go figure. Becky:)
its really sad that mills won’t get any say on who makes the roster and who plays,cause i think he really could become a very good manager if given the chance to manage. He has forgotten more BB than dimwit wade will ever know. too bad chacon didn’t get to finish the job on wade. lol just kidding
how AWESOME that you got to go to ST and be with your boys!!!!
if you have any pictures you’d like me to post let me know.
i would be the happiest grrrl if pence did manage to fix his baserunning problems. actually, he reminds me of my gf’s 3 year old who has a habit of running THEN looking. same endless, nervous energy.
as for castro,
i’m going on what fast eddie (and gang) has told the media. and they have said the same sort of thing from the minute castro was drafted.
i would like them to show that kind of support and confidence in some of their other players. or at least, draft the kind of players they could have more confidence in. the astros were #25 in the ML on $$$ spent on drafting in 2009. they are too interested in warm bodies and not interested enough in doing their best with those bodies, let alone picking the best ones.
cooper wasn’t ed’s pick.
i hear tell that there are OTHER organizations who like towles, chris johnson and maysonet and would play them at the ML level. it is fast eddie who prefers the jason smith/matt katas of the baseball world
and i have heard from more than a few people that mills wanted alex romero, maysonet, towles and johnson, but fast eddie is telloing him who will be on the roster.
sigh
agree about mills. the PLAYERS certainly seem to be very happy with him. and it is great to see the players looking so enthusiastic. however, it may be that it is DRAYTON who is telling fast eddie that he doesn’t want all those young guys and he wants Players With Experience.
too bad the pitchers are looking so lousy.
as for chacon, ed and coop – i will say that ed DID want to get rid of coop, but drayton wouldn’t do it – afraid to upset bud selig, i guess…
lisa
the sad thing is until we get rid of wade and get a new owner that truly cares about bringing houston a real winning ballclub and not just interested in making a buck, nothing is going to ever change.
I agree that towles, maysonet, and johnson should be on the roster. maysonet is hands down a much better ball player then keppinger who has lead feet and a lead glove. Too bad that we went and got feliz, because i think johnson is ready to get a chance to be our regular 3rd baseman. i do think that feliz is a real good defensive player and seems to be a pretty good clutch hitter, but getting him just messed up the works for johnson and for the team to get younger and start to rebuild.
towles has really been hitting well this spring and i just hope it will carry on to the regular season. He is also a real nice guy who was one of the few who took time to give me an autograph and was very polite and a true gentleman.
lisa
i also forgot to mention the fact that i was saddened that i didn’t get to see bourn or our new shortstop manzella, as they were both nursing minor injuries.
all thou both bourn and wandy have had a rough ST i think they will be ok once the regular season begins. i did get to see roy o pitch one inning before the game was called and also the next day i saw wandy pitch 5 innings against the cardinals. he was really roughed up in the 1st inning but settled down and shut them out the next 4 innings. i was standing right next to towles in the bullpen area as he warmed up oswalt for is start. roy is looking like the old roy so far and i just hope he can stay injury free this season.
We really need wandy , roy , bourn and berkman to be healthy and play well this season cause they are the strength of this ballclub and we are dead in the water without them. a lot of ifs with this club but i believe that we could be somewhat better than most people think if a good majority of those IFs come around.
[...] thing the Astros can hope for this year is that Ed Wade and Drayton McLane realize the Astros are more than a few cheap veterans away from being a contender and they start looking to trade the few coveted players they have left to [...]
[...] games, which means he should be playing, regardless of the performance of Maysonet or Manzella. Ed Wade can’t help himself when it comes to veterans, and make no bones about it – he is calling the shots. He loves [...]