Well, Johnson gets 5 days to “watch the Old Guys go about their business” that is. Berkman is going to start the year on the DL and is eligible to come back off on the 10th. His knee is still swollen and giving him problems and I hope it is not like the problem Barry Lamar had back in 05 with a bad infection. But then again, I know like nothing about knees and how they get infections inside them…
Chris Johnson hit his 6th homer this afternoon after Wandy gave up NINE earnies. Good grief. I see that Keppinger was playing short and I don’t know if fielding had anything to do with it. But I see he only struck out 1 and walked 2. Maybe Wandy’s mind is on his pregnant wife, who is supposed to give birth tomorrow, and he can’t concentrate. Because he can’t afford to return to the old days of, uh, um, trying to cut it fine. On the other hand, he was pitching to Quintero and he has not historically done well pitching to him – and unless he has changed his feelings, he doesn’t LIKE pitching to Q.
But youneverknow.
And Sampson is looking great aned Moehler is looking better, so if Paulino’s back spasms are bad, Moehler will get spot starts, not Sampson.
And Arias’s shoulder is bad enough that he’ll have to start the year on the DL. Don’t know if he will need surgery or not. Yorman Bazardo is also starting the year on the DL – smart move – this way, Fast Eddie might could slip him through waivers on the 10th.
Cory Sullivan has indeed made the 25 man – as Fast Eddie told the media the first day of ST and Jason Bourgeois will go to AAA. Some “competition…”
Tags: Houston Astros, MLB
lisa lets not make too many excuses for wandy, lets just admit that he has been simply terrible all spring training. As for pitching to quintero he pitched very well the second half of last season with quintero catching him. Starting last july 2 when he pitched exclusively to Q he was 6 and 6 with an Era of 3.21 and ended the season at 14 and 12 and lowered his Era to3.01 and would have been much better except for the fact he gave 10 er to the brewers in one game and 7 er to the cardinals in another, but i am sure that was totally Quintero’s fault.
jimbo,
i am making excuses for wandy because he’s my favorite player. i confess.
also, because i am hoping HOPING that he is having a roger clemens 2005 ST and he will again look like an ace in the regular season.
as for quintero, well, i am finishing up catcher ERA for all the guys who have caught wandy. believe it or not, up through august 2008, he did best with eric munson. also, i am not sure how good this is going to be in the end because like sampson, he had a very sudden increase in ERA when adam everett went down. this was before he turned himself into a strikeout pitcher.
i am wondering whether or not those changeups he’s throwing are getting cxalled for strikes. and whether or not they are just fat mid-plate ones. won’t know until i watch, seeing as how i haven’t seen any of his starts…
Lisa…….girl I usually agree 100% with your comments, but if Wandy keeps
:( Becky
pitching this way, it’s gonna be a loooooooooooooong season. I would have
though after he got his “footing” right, he would go out there and be the
Wandy we saw last year! Lord help us all, if his season continues this way.
Other than Roy…..I don’t have much faith in the 2010 rotation.
Houston people…you’ve only got till Sunday to check out this cool, quiet, and totally free display of Rain or Shine:
How Houston Developed Space City Baseball.
It was well worth the drive from Austin.
Oh, and I’d say Wandy had his new baby on his mind. He’ll be fine, don’t worry.
I’m with Wags on this one, my wife went 2 weeks overdue and during that time I was hopeless at work, those 2 weeks seemed like forever. Once she has popped the sprog I’m sure there will be a world of difference in Wandy’s performance.
i should also remind everyone that zack greinke, who won the AL CY young with a 2.16 ERA had a ST ERA last year of 9.67
so hopefully, wandy will just be OK once that baby is born and is OK
here tell that quintero will once again be wandy’s regular catcher for the 2010 season.
Bill Simmons had thi entertaining riff on WAR (wins over replacement) and our ex-Astro (thanks, Purpura and Drayton, you idiots), Benny Z.
My take: I stayed away from WAR (too intimidated) until Keri explained it easily on a B.S. Report last week. The rest was history. Here’s what won me over: According to the 2009 leaders, Ben Zobrist was worth 8.6 wins. Led both leagues. Even more valuable than Pujols (8.5) and Joe Mauer (8.1). Sounds a little ridiculous … and yet, the dude single-handedly won my AL keeper league. (My buddy Mike got him for $1 in last year’s auction. This year’s keeper price? One dollar. If Mike ever wins the lottery, he’s opening a sports bar called One Dollar Zobrist. Which I will immediately set on fire.) Nobody knows the power of Zobrist better than me. I spent all of last season saying, “OK, seriously, WHAT THE F— IS GOING ON WITH BEN ZOBRIST???????”
He had 599 plate appearances in 152 games, played seven positions and played frequently at two (second base and right field, where he had an outstanding 16.0 UZR and 11.5 UZR, respectively). So he was something of a Swiss army knife — if somebody was injured or needed rest, the team just threw Zobrist there and kept rolling. He also crushed it offensively: .948 OPS, 27 HRs, 17 steals and a .405 OBP. The point is, it makes perfect sense that Zobrist led the league in WAR value. It’s not a fluke. It’s not stupid. Had Tampa been a playoff team, “The Zorilla” would have been an MVP candidate.
You can blame Timmy P for the Zobrist deal, but that would be, at least for me, hindsight and unfair to Tim. I never thought Zobrist would for one year turn into the best position player in baseball.
Also, I love WAR, because it allows pitchers to actually have more worth than a batter, like Grienke leading the league in WAR, which bunks the whole “lets not give pitchers the MVP since they don’t mean as much” theory that the BBWAA does every now and then.
Zobrist was very good last season, but he will have to prove to me that he was not just a flash in the pan. So we will have to wait and see
daniel,
well, didn’t nobody think that benny zobrist would be a MVP. but he sure nuff was higholy thought of and he was a switch hitting, power hitting, good glove SS even as a minor leaguer. trading ANYONE for aubrey huff for 2 freaking months was beyond stupid
i personally am kind of not into WAR because there is no such thing as a “replacement player” – meaning that he can’t possibly exist, any more than a person born male can get pregnant. so i don’t like making a calculation about how valuable someone is compared to someone who CAN’T exist. i prefer to compare any player to the average
poetess,
sorry yall missing Opening Day. i only missed it when i was preggo back in 02 and too sick to go
Guys, Zobrist is not a one year wonder. The trade was stupid then, and it’s even more stupid now. Later in the article, Simmons makes this point:
You know who’s really scared? Mike of One Dollar Zobrist fame. He won our keeper league the past two years. I thought he was the luckiest bastard on the planet. Now I know better. Mike had been quietly using sabermetrics all along; One Dollar Zobrist was no accident. His 2008 numbers: 227 at-bats, 12 HRs, .505 slugging and just a .252 BABIP (low for a hitter). Translation: He hit for power, had bad luck, played multiple positions and happened to be hitting his late 20s. Mike sniffed him out like the sleeper he was. The question wasn’t “Why was Mike so lucky with One Dollar Zobrist?” but “Why did we allow Mike to pay only $1 for Zobrist?”
the REAL question is why drayton and tal had like NO trouble getting rid of him and why their only interest was in keeping luke scott in the minors and pimping the decaying craig biggio
“the REAL question is why drayton and tal had like NO trouble getting rid of him and why their only interest was in keeping luke scott in the minors and pimping the decaying craig biggio”
The answer starts with m, and rymes with shunny. At least that’s the answer for Biggio. Why they gave up on Zobrist for a rental is beyond me. At least if they resigned Huff, it would be slightly defendable. Letting him go, after he was not terrible if I remember correctly, just compounded the one error.