Well, even if it wasn’t Valentine’s Day, it would be a great present. There’s been waaaay too much north type weather here in Houston this year. And yeah, I know I should be grateful I don’t live in Dallas. Or even Conroe.
But somehow, this has been like the dullest offseason EVAH. Hasn’t it? I mean, not just for Astros fans, but for baseball in general. Trouble is, I think, that between someone tweeting every time some player changes his socks and the fact that there really aren’t any STARS!!! these days, there just isn’t anything exciting. Well, I supposed that if I were a Cards fan, I’d be all excited over the Albert Pujols saga of how much longer is the ownership gonna drag out signing him and of course he’s gonna get 25 – 30 mill a year – he’s been underpaid forever and then the Cards fans get to scream at him in 7 or 8 years about how he can’t hit worth 30 mill no mo and he should be dumped on the Yankees.
But I digress.
Anyway, Pitchers and Catchers officially report, although plenty of guys have been working out already and more will go to Kissimmee early – except for Clank, of course.
So I’ll start with the Catchers – not much news there:
on the 40 man roster – Jason Castro, Humberto Quintero and J.R. Towles. I was very surprised Towles was even tendered a contract, but I suppose they have to have SOMEone who can actually like catch the ball in case either Castro or Q is hurt. Q is most positively going to be the backup catcher because there is one pitcher who wants him personally and that guy is beloved by Fast Eddie and will get what he wants. Castro is going to be the starting catcher no matter what. Towles had better pray he gets traded – there was a lot of interest in him last year in ST. Unfortunately for him, he spent the whole year injured, after being sent down to AA, so unless he tears the cover off theball, he probably won’t get much interest from other Organizations.
The only free projections are Dan Szymborski’s ZIPS – and they aren’t pretty – well, they never are, to be honest…
He’s projecting Castro to have an 83 OPS+ or a .679 OPS with a BA of ,246 and 8 HR; Towles projects for an 84 OPS+ because he hits for more power; Quintero for a 65 OPS+ in spite of a .240 BA – where on EARTH did he get a .240 BA from? I’ll never understand projections. Anyway, Brad Ausmus looks like Piazza next to these guys.
NRI catchers:
Carlos Corporan, age 27, who spent 7 years in the Brewers Organization, then last year at Reno for the Diamondbacks, and has a minor league line of .251/.306/.377/.683 over 1948 AB. He did post a career high .870 OPS, but that was at Reno (you know, the desert, high averages, etc…)
Brian Esposito, age 32, career minor leaguer who has logged a .583 OPS over 2286 ABs.
Rene Garcia, age 21. This one I don’t get. He was picked in the 35th round of the 08 draft by the Astros and had a .621 OPS at A-ball (Lexington) last year. He’s not on any prospect lists, so I’m kind of stumped, but hey, maybe it was a lottery, youneverknow.
Astros haven’t developed a catcher who could hit since John Buck – and he was traded back in 04 for Carlos the Jackal Beltran. Well, at least JR Towles hit at AAA, which is more than the rest of them have done.
Next up, starting pitchers.
Tags: Houston Astros, MLB
Lisa, first time comments. I like your style, and your opinions give me plenty to mull around. I also want to say your comment re: Bagwell and the Pearlman article (Central park reference) was classic. Bravo!
With that said, please tell me you’re not saying Towles can hit. That experiment is over! Signing him again continues to beg the question – WHY?! Especially if Castro is a lock. Ah, turns out he’s not, and that’s proly why E Dubya was looking at Thole when we were dangling Roy. Goes to show on this team, everyone is expendable if your prodigy is sharing time with (love the grit, but..) Q. Maybe the title of this one should have been Pitchers and Scrubs report?
Whose dad told him to become a Catcher b/c if you can hit at all, you’ll make the Bigs? It’s just amazing the lack of talent pool at the backstop. And yes! I’d still take Ausmus today, at least as player/coach.
Re: Pujols, do you get the feeling he won’t stay relatively healthy to finish his career, like I do? And that’s why dragging feet? Supposedly, their ownership is made of money, or I’d delight in the noose he’ll be around their neck for, what? seven years. I know that sounds like the most assinine comment about the greatest hitter since Bonds and Ruth … but he looks like he’s crippled compared to his prime. And I’m going on a limb to say, the league will hurriedly catch up to him soon.
I know your girrrrl Becky wants Berkman to shine in StL, and he so much as told Grenado he’d take $4M to stay in Houston (he caught himself blurting it out, thinking it would reveal what everyone already believes – bleeds Astro Orange – and the slap in the face it would represent to the Cardinal organization for vastly over-paying him). An interesting dynamic may ensue, however, in that if he’s hitting, teams will throw LHP at them to get him hitting righty, which sets up well for the rest of their lineup.. I just don’t see Elvis in any more hay days, though – could be wrong and don’t want to be! It makes absolutely no sense that he’d come in in that much better shape for them..
That I’m commenting on these guys says alot about our catchers lol!
PS Hope Castro hits!
hi mark!!!
welcome!!!
i feel sorry for pearlman, i really do. he can’t/won’t stay away from what horrifies him because he’s too fascinated by the horrible (i should say, what he sees as horrible)
towles – but they DID sign him this year. i don’t know if he can hit but i am pretty darn sure he has no confidence and i suspect he has a personality that rubs too many people the wrong way. he’s finished with THIS Organization unless something happens I can’t even imagine, so I am guessing they are going to trade him during/after spring training, or if not, release him. you don’t pay a guy over 400G to play AAA
pujols – who knows what’s going on – as we all know the one thing that has always been true about baseball is that players are greedy and overpaid and owners never make any money/always lose money. i am guessing that he is wanting the same contract that arod got. and i am also guessing that just like arod, he won’t be worth his salary when he is old – remember, he does have a history of achilles tendon problems and he has a bad tendon in his right elbow.
berkman – sure nuff he’dd face only right relievers and probably won’t be in the lineup against good leftys. yeah, he wanted to come back here (since drayton is selling the team) and am not surprised that drayton let him go, seeing as how lance had been, uh, clear about his unhappiness with cecil cooper and some roster selections/non-selections. berkman was one of the 10 best hitters in the NL last decade – he’s unappreciated and overlooked by most. too bad. he’s the only killer B who didn’t totally fold in the post season (well, besides brandon backe, that is). if his knees/calves aren’t perfect, he’s gonna have a very tough time doing all that running in the OF at his age – but i wish him the best
castro – i hope he hits, too, because ed wade is madly in love with his very first first round pick with this Organization and by GAWD he’s gonna make it. and really, there’s no one to replace him if he doesn’t. but actually, i’m more worried about his defense, which is what catchers are mostly there to do. the brian mccanns are the exception, not the rule. not sure why most people expect catchers to be an offensive force in the lineup
MARKW……Yeah you are 100% correct. I *DO* want Berkman to “show up”
NOT the Astros……..but ED WADE!!!!!!! After the choice of words he used to tell
Lance to f-off, I want to see Ed Wade squirm in his seat, EVERYTIME Berkman
hits a home run off the Astros pitching staff. So, yes……..you could say I hold
a grudge towards Ed Wade, over the treatment he gave Berkman. AND…when
that happens, I’m gonna laugh my rear end off. I have absolutely NO respect for
Ed Wade, or Tal Smith, they are BOTH hanging around looking for scraps.
Becky
Becky
you can’t have it both ways if he shows up wade he shows up the astros. I hope he falls on his asss when playing the astros. He did alot of bad mouthing the stros in the past and he has been a big cry baby and whimpperer and did not always give the astros a 100% on the field.
sceptor……you have a right to YOUR opinion, I have a right to MINE!!
sceptor and becky,
i’m kind of in the middle here – i want lance to look like a supastah!!!! but i want the stros to win anyway
and sceptor,
disagree with lance being a “crybaby” – he never complained about his treatment by the club and he did not badmouth the astros, unless you are referring to his saying to the media that shawn chacon was a good teammate and remaining silent about cooper (who was not respected, to put it mildly, as a manager by the rest of the team)
lance sure nuff made more than a few, uh, mental goofs (ahem) but i disagree that he ever mailed it in – or showed up the manager/teammates as hanley ramirez did last year with the marlins/fredi gonzalez. i disagree that you have to run to first base when you are out to prove that you are giving your all
lisa
you run hard till you are out, not when you think that you are going to be out; and yes i saw lance tank it on numerous accounts over the last 3 or 4 years, they were sometimes more than just blunders and mental goofs.
Becky
sure you have a right to your opinion, i didn’t mean to immply that you didn’t
can you give me an example of a game in which lance mailed it in? i mean, like didn’t bother to try to throw out a runner, did the clank thing in the OF, didn’t dive after ground balls, swung at pitches like kruk did in the all-star game where he faced randy johnson, didn’t try his darndest to score if possible?
and i am not counting the times he obviously forgot what out it was – i’ve seen more than a few other guys do that
as for running hard to first when you are obviously out – you don’t do it with bad knees/legs/back or if you hit a routine grounder to second where you will be out by 40 feet
Lance Berkman was an All-Time Astro great. There is no debate that he was a “true” Astro in the sense of Biggio and Bagwell. There are other guys I put in that category, even though they (may have been) traded; Craig Reynolds, Darryl Kile, Billy Spiers, Art Howe, Toy Cannon, to an extent Hampton, etc. Then, there are guys that are true in the sense that they would’ve been here forever if it weren’t for owner or GM, like Wagner and Berkman. There’s a point at which management needs to bite the bullett, and accomodate them. HOWEVER, Lance was not worth $8M – not by a long shot! And we had to “see” what Wallace can do. What if he kicks ars? We’ll be saying Lance Who?
I agree with sceptor that I want us to win, no matter what. I agree with Becky and Lisa that he was shown the door the wrong way, and that his hussle was not so much in question (he claims he can run a 4.65/ 40 yrd dash, which means he doesn’t look fast with that frame, but truly is for a big man). What bothers me most really, is that the atmosphere didn’t inspire Lance, his input was ignored, and that his talents were wasted b/c we didn’t put a better team on the field! Signing guys like Woody, Feliz, Lee, Matsui, etc. broke our backs. Our farm went to sh^*&%, we didn’t commit to great pitching, and we forgot what offense means.
I’m in the middle on Wade, as he’s made some nifty pick-ups, but they wreak of the Grocer’s penny wise and pound stupid mentality! Having said that, I still give credit to DM for being a gentleman (surrounds himself generally with athletes/staff of character). It’s not my checkbook, so I don’t judge too harshly. Baseball is like betting on ponies, it takes a shrewd eye to make the right call, and anything can happen in a horse race. It’s easy to judge in retrospect, and any historian worth their salt must first understand the information available AT THE TIME. With McLane, the common denominator has been draft cheap, and make few/if any big splashes. Just enough to keep us a lower market club in a big city.
Now, Mills was the most efficient manager in the game last year, so give he and Wade credit for doing something with little. And give the kids credit for playing hard when the icons were traded. GO ASTROS!!!
Once last year in a game Berkman was on 2nd with 2 out when pence singled into centerfield that usually always scores a runner with avg, speed from 2nd especially with 2 out but Berkman didn’t seem too me like he was going all out and just sort walk into home plate standing up and was tagged out when a slide probably puts him in there safely. I remember you even commenting on that, Lisa.
Three seasons ago berkman there in a stretch of a couple of weeks he was making one base running blunder after another. One a recall i think against the Phillies, not sure thou, berkman was on 2nd with 2 out when the batter hit the ball back to the pitcher slightly to the first base side which he fielded cleanly and threw to the first baseman in plenty of time to get the runner, but the guy muffs the throw and it gets away from him and rolls about 15 or so feet into foul territory.
Mean time Lance is just trotting non-chalantely to third base when if he would of been running at least fairly hard he would have been around third and would have scored easely, but when he does start running Howard went and retrived the ball and threw lance out at the plate with feet to spare. Yes I have seen Berkman on several ocassions dogging it.
hi mark,
mclane basically always thought that paying for prospects was a fool’s game and minor leaguers unimportant. he always preferred basically ANY major leaguer over any rookie. and who knows how much of that is tal smith…
- but time and time again, we have signed waaaayyy over the hill major leaguers to waaaayyy too mcuh money and paid them over any younger player – and on this team, young guys had to come up and hit .300 immediately AND keep doing that – with the obvious exception of edwin maysonet – must have been personal between him and cooper. then again, seems there sure nuff were a lot of players had a lot of trouble with him.
- as for splashy signings, nope – not until the offseason before 03 when pettitte, then clemens signed. gave mclane BAD ideas, and THEN he decided splashy signings were the way to go – well, except for clank, cheaper splashy signings…
lance’s performance last year wasn’t worth 8 mill, but if it is true that he was willing to sign here for 4 mill, then it was personal, not business. because they had absolutely NO hesitation at signing a really horrid hitter like barmes for 4 mill. gonna hit 30 homers by butt…
the kids DID play their butts off and i DID enjoy it. reminded me of september 07.
sceptor,
i remember that incident last year with lance going in standing up. truly a jremy giambi moment. but now i wonder if it had anything to do with his legs/knees hurting.
and yes, lance most positively DID have times when he had what i would call, uh, brain farts, but that is different than dogging it.
Lisa, if you que up Justice’s blog (idk, a few weeks ago), it was 1560- The Game’s 6 part interview with lance, pretty interesting stuff about, among other things, inner-workings of the club. He definitely started to say he’d take $3M, so Im saying probably realistic – he’d have taken the hometown discount.. I predicted on chips blog pre-season last year that lance would take $2M, and sure enough he was willing to drop his pants to remain with his team. It sure wasn’t the team he had the most fun with, as in ’05. On brain freezes, I say 162 game season, bound to happen.
I liked Maysonet too, but it didn’t translate even in AAA after the (what was it?) .320 avg in his slighly longer than cup of coffee.. 10/4 on Coop
I tend to agree that minor leaguers are typically a crap shoot. Again to DM’s credit, have you seen what owner’s spend on “dead pieces,” well, sure you have! It’s expensive, but at least we signed Ovando (we’ll see how that goes..)
I better hit the hay.. thanks for the comments – i usually cant get enough talkin Stros ha! hey, let’s meet up @ the park sometime this year.. I know Becky’s been wanting to get a gathering together.. Just a little about me too, 40 something two kids, family man, been here since 1980, loved that team! Still remember that drunk screaming SMOKE ‘EM J.R., SMOKE ‘EM!! What a pitching staff..
ALWAYS THE EXCUSES
grinning
well, there’s excuses and there’s explanations
and there is a difference between not caring and losing your concentration/doing something stupid
Mickey Mantle played 18 years on bad knees; and your explanations i surely don’t always agree with. You always seem to have them for your pet players, but not so with players you don’t like. I get visions of double standards with you.
Mark W……The Lance Berkman discussion, was the *WAY* Ed Wade told him…
the Astros were not interested in bringing him back. I was so angry with Ed Wade, if I had the chance, I’d L O V E to knock his block off. Too bad Chacon
didn’t get a better grip on him. That is NOT the way to do an Astros icon. Roy
asked to be traded, and while we WILL miss him, he wanted out. Period.
Lance Berkman was traded because he approached Ed Wade, and “took one for the team”. I just want Lance to make a new name for himself. Who knows,
maybe somewhere down the line, we might get him back as a hitting coach!!
sceptor…….Daaaaaaaaang! Who p*ssed in your Cheerios this morning?????????
sure i have pet players – we all do
but there are some guys who dog it (see clank) and some guys who have, uh, brain farts, and some guys who don’t bother to read signs and some guys got very little baseball sense. or even baserunning sense (see Charles Gipson)
mickey mantle died when i was a little grrrl (and i would bet i never heard his name until i was at least 10 or 11) so it is tough to comment about someone i never saw play who is a legend. sometimes it is very hard to separate legend from reality especially when stories get started. but i HAVE read that he sure nuff spent a heck of a lot of time partying and whoring and didn’t exactly show up for work in the best condition he could have. and at least with me, i think that if you drink/party/whore around so that you show up for work in, um, suboptimal condition, well, that is aidifferent kind of dogging it
Why everyone wants to be on chacon’s side is beyond me. He was wrong from the very beginnning and was way out of line in his actions. He had always been a trouble maker before coming to the stros; and anyone condoning his actions and behavior are also very wrong. Yes maybe wade should have done a better job of handling it, but that dosen’t excuse Chacon for his very bad actions and behavior.
As for mickey, don’t believe all you have read. The sportswriters blew many things way out of proportion at times just the same as they do today. Anyway his intoxications at times didn’t seem to effect his performance, and drunk he still played better than most sober ballplayers.
Also, if i mifght make an excuse. Maybe because Mickey was hurting everyday for so many years that it might of lead to his excessive drinking.
playing with bad knees and many times intoxicated Mantle was still one of the greatest, greatest players of all time.
sceptor,
1 – mickey – trouble with someone who becomes a legend is that it is tough to know what is real and what is not. who knows when he started drinking/partying/staying up late before games. who knows how much this ended up affecting his game. who knows if he had to take lots of greenies to help with his focus because he was hungover etc.
- but i sure nuff can read stats and absolutely NO question he was one of the 10 greatest position players ever. makes you wonder what he could have done if he had had access to the knee surgeons players have today
2 – shawn chacon
let me clarify how i personally feel about the situation:
- his behaviour was, to put it mildly, not acceptable
- his behaviour was, to put it mildly, a very good indicator of how much he had NO respect for cecil cooper
- the quotes given on the record to the media by his teammates showed how much the REST of the astros had no respect for cecil cooper
- ed wade didn’t handle the situation as best he could have. chacon had a legitimate beef with cooper BUT manhandling ed wade was so far out of line that he couldn’t stay on the team
Niether one of these two idiots won that battle. Ed Wade has a little man’s complex. He handled the Chacon fiasco like a prison warden. He cussed Chacon
out in front of the whole team, and THAT speaks volumes about HIS crappy
personality. Chacon was a ticking time bomb. Ed Wade didn’t do his homework,
or he would have KNOWN Chacon had some pretty serious anger issues. Sooooo
neither one of them won that day. Cooper’s problems were pretty well stated,
from nearly everyone on this team. He was simply not ready to be a manager.
sceptor…..I miss-spoke, and I apologize for taking Chacon’s side.
BOTH Ed Wade *AND* Chacon were WRONG, WRONG, WRONG.
Becky
Daaaaaaaaaang!!! I can hardley BELIEVE this!!! Pence WON!! He finally beat
that dried up old man Tal Smith!!! I’m feeling SOOOOOO GOOD!!!!!!!!! Becky