SB Nation - Chris Sampson

Ed Wade gets his relievers, but what did the Astros get?

DyingQuail — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 07:41:22 -0000

More photos » by Elaine Thompson - AP

Congrats man, you're average in every way, but you just got paid.

So an hour or so ago I said that I would have to wait until tomorrow to process the day's events, but I lied. A solid hour of tossing and turning while visions of mediocre relief pitchers parading as closers danced in my head lead me back to my laptop. Mediocre relief pitchers parading as closers, that's kind of what we got today. Not so much in Lindstrom, but definitely in Lyon. Now I can't help but think Dave Cameron is being a little hyperbolic in his assessment of Brandon Lyon, but everything he says is correct. Lyon isn't good. Period.

He's average in every respect. Compare him to anyone else already in the Astros bullpen and you'd lose him in the haze of mediocre total-skill sets. Alberto Arias and Chris Sampson have high ground ball percentages. Jeff Fulchino is just a clydesdale that is dependable. Matt Lindstrom has life his is stuff that portends to better things to come. Sammy Gervacio has an awesome delivery that gives him difficult to distinguish stuff. Brandon Lyon literally is average in every respect. Pick a stat or a trait. Look at it. It'll be average.

Lyon will definitely go down as a not good signing. Will it ever be a signing that's cited more than two years after the contract is completed? No. Carlos Lee was a bad signing, so was Barry Zito. Lyon is just a poor signing—for the Astros. If any other team inked Lyon to this deal, it probably wouldn't resonate as much as it does right now. There's the Ed Wade loves relief pitching too much factor. There's the luck inflated ERA factor (thank God they're upgrading defense a SS, we think). And there's the this team doesn't have the payroll flexibility to afford this factor. Those three factors make this signing laughable to outsiders and repugnant to Astros fans.

But I don't think it's bad because of in 2011 and 2012, just 2010. We never had enough money to start with this winter. Ed Wade had just made a pretty savvy little trade with the Florida Marlins to bring in someone who would add depth to a bullpen that didn't need a closer because the Astros won't be good enough to justify needing a true closer, much less over paying for one (which they didn't even end up doing).

Really, he could have just stopped there. I would have continued to actually be content and happy with the state of this team for at least a few hours. And then the malaise of being an Astros fan could have set back in when I realized I was happy not because my team had gotten better, but because my team didn't do anything to make themselves measurably worse off.

But now it appears as though they have.

Can we afford Miguel Tejada back? Nope. Can we—realistically—afford a worthwhile fill in at 3B? Probably not. At this point, offering LaTroy Hawkins arbitration has never looked so good to me.

Now, I'm left wondering the following questions: Why did we have to move so fast to sign a relief pitcher who could be a closer? There were still options out there; we didn't really even need someone else (i.e. another closer-esque reliever is a luxury, not a necessity). Why move so fast on Lyon and offer him everything he wanted? Why not try to whittle him down in price or years (preferably price, but only scantly)? What will Ed Wade use to justify Lyon versus someone with promise and an ability to add worthwhile value to the team...like say Mike Gonzalez?

(Please don't let it be his 2009 ERA, please, please, please, please don't. I won't be able to take it. Something of mine will break after I hurl it against something if I awake to an Ed Wade quote about Lyon's ERA.)

For a brief moment it felt like the Astros had faced the reality of their situation: they have to stop pretending they are contenders. Lindstrom was a savvy trade to provide a cost-controlled insurance for the backend of the bullpen for the next few years. It allowed us wiggle room to try and fill in other gaps that could actually have placed us in the faint pale of the glow of contenders. After that trade I smiled because I was proud of Ed Wade. He'd made a move that was exactly what this team needed.

But now, with Lyon inked for too much, we're hamstrung. It's like Ed Wade is waiving the white flag on finding help at 3B or SP and figured he'd roll the dice on Lyon and see what happened. It's ilke he's forgotten that things like signing Joel Pinero late in the game can make the a huge difference, if you have the money to do it at the time. Or he's forgotten about all the players who signed late in the ball game at just about every position last year, too.

If you haven't picked up on the meme of this post, it's that I can't figure this deal out. It's really not a terrible deal for any team that has payroll flexibility and a total dearth of options for their bull pen. But for the Astros—especially after the Lindstrom trade—Ed Wade dropped the ball in a big way. Yes, Lyon might bounce back to his 2008 control and have his 2009 strand-rate and BABIP, but why gamble one-half to one-third of your budget on it?

To answer this post's title: The Astros got nothing the needed, just something a few in the front office might have wanted. Now they're left wanting things that can't afford. So, I guess they got screwed hamstrung. There's really nothing about Lyon's signing that can bring cause to justify it. There was a lot in the Lindstrom trade, but that's been buried under the mountain of inanity that is three years and fifteen million dollars for Lyon.

Of course, we also have yet to hear the final word on Lyon's deal. So maybe myself, Dave Cameron, and just about every baseball person I follow on Twitter will be eating crow tomorrow...or so I can hope.

The Astros and Arbitration: The annual non-sensical decision

DyingQuail — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 22:17:37 -0000

More photos » by Alan Diaz - AP

This man is going to get paid now. It could have been prevented.

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I don't want to come off as too persnickety, I know that Ed Wade took a bold step forward this afternoon when he sent Jose Valverde an arbitration offer. Great, grand, wonderful. But here's the thing, Valverde's not going to accept that offer. I think that's been a foregone conclusion for just about every observer of Valverde's free agency. So yes, I'm happy we'll be netting some kind of first round compensation pick, but I'm not happy that we'll now be forced to either overpay or lose out on LaTroy Hawkins.

Why will we have to do this? Because this is a team without a closer and a GM who loves relief pitching. So either Ed Wade accepts his fate and rolls the dice on in house options. I don't know which it'll be, but I'm not pleased with either end result (unless one of our in house options set's the NL on fire in 2010).

This will be the decision of this year's free agent crop I will not understand. LaTroy Hawkins is a good—not great—late inning relief pitcher who could easily slot into a closer-eque position for this team and provide serviceable work on our mediocre-to-below-mediocre team at a relatively reasonable cost. That is, if other teams don't try and overpay him for the same role or even just as their eighth-inning guy.

Prior to a few hours ago, Hawkins was a questionable free-agent to invest in because of the detrimental Type-A tag hanging off his right arm. All Ed Wade had to do was explain to Drayton McLane is that by not offering Hawkins arbitration, he'd start hearing sizable offers that the Astros, or really any rational actor, likely cannot prudently match. Or that with an arbitration offer the Astros would get one of two results: teams become gun-shy due to the draft picks if Hawkins declines it, or the Astros get Hawkins back for probably no more than $4 million for one year if they go to arbitration.

Who, upon seeing that logic, says no to that?

So either Drayton McLane is wholly illogical, or Ed Wade did not frame this decision very well to his boss. One of the two. But now there's no going back on this one and I think we'll see an interesting race to overpay for guys on the fringe of closer (like Hawkins, Gregg, and Sherril) as the hot stove heats up.

People on the short list of being happy with this news are:

LaTroy Hawkins' agent (bigger cut)
The Boston Red Sox (my pick for who signs Hawkins)
Jeff Fulchino, Chris Sampson, Alberto Arias (all possible closers in waiting)

That's it, no one else makes out well in this transaction (that I can think of in the heat of the moment).

To sum: it's good that we'll get one compensation pick—and that the news wasn't entirely bad because it didn't cause me to throw my laptop at the wall in frustration—but the Astros managed to still botch this royally.

**UPDATE** As I watch the reports roll in and see that pretty much no one is offering arbitration, I feel better—slightly. Then I read Dave Cameron's breakdown of arbitration risk-accessment and I went back to being angry:

If a team is assessing their actual risk as the full potential salary that they would have to pay out if a player accepts, they’ll be overstating their own liability and miscalculating the costs and benefits of an arbitration offer. I would suspect we will see multiple teams do just this tomorrow, leaving value on the table by being overly risk averse. [emphasis added]

Cecil Cooper from take off to landing

DyingQuail — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 12:00:27 -0000

by Gene J. Puskar - AP

6 months ago: Houston Astros manager Cecil Cooper walks in the dugout during a baseball game against the Pittsburgh Pirates in Pittsburgh Saturday, May 30, 2009. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)

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A one-hour plane ride and two torn out pages of the Bill James Handbook, that’s all I have. Perhaps it’s because I’m a grizzled veteran now, but probably because I know that I work best under a deadline (see: 3 AM the ~~night~~ morning before any important paper due in college); whatever the reason for this hare-brained idea, that’s what I’m working with to produce this post.

If you didn’t believe me when I said that I was going to be using the interesting things I’ve stumbled upon in the Bill James Handbook as fodder for 30 or so posts—believe.

Today’s topic: Cecil Cooper’s managerial statistics. The juicy details: after the jump.

James has a couple of pretty useful measures for us to talk about what we got with Coop in 2008 and 2009. Looking over the historical stats for various managers in the book, I noted how it seemed like a lot of these stats were driven by the kinds of teams that the managers could pull the levers with. But here’s the thing, Coop doesn’t really seem to fit that mold at all.

(Since I’m writing this in a bind, I don’t know that I’ll do the greatest job of holding onto my objectivity, but c’est la vie. I’ve now sat through an hour and half of delays and there will always be a part of me that will hold Coop in ire for 2009 being a second half nose-dive. My stasis is not the best for pure, rational objectivity.)

2008: The year that Coop drove us nuts with the running game

The Astros attempted 154 stolen bases, 81 sacrifices, and started the runners moving 112 times. Having loosely observed the various levels of these stats for other managers, this is a pretty high year for wasting outs. The stolen base has a negative run expectancy. A sacrifice obviously uses an out (and let’s be honest, Coop wasn’t using sacrifices in high leverage situations only), and I’ve never read anything on the statistical impact of sending the runners, but I imagine it’s probably not a wonderful statistical move.

Thinking about this team without the aid of FanGraphs, Baseball Reference, or any of my statistical sanctuaries, this wasn’t a shrewd move on Coop’s part. Subjectively, let’s think about the bone headed stolen base attempts we saw that year: Ty Wigginton and Carlos Lee on several occasions. There was, of course, the well-publicized "green light" policy and the neglect of telling Hunter Pence and Michael Bourn that simply being fast doesn’t mean you’ll steal with a lot of success.

These numbers don’t capture their effect. They’re just a count of attempts, but just thinking about the number of attempts with the cogs that were cranking the wheels, it’s not hard to say that this wasn’t the finest piece of utility maximization in the history of managing.

2009: The year that Coop, seemingly, destroyed the bull pen

There are only two numbers I need to give you (four really, but get off my back): 116 and 449 (108 and 488). The first number is the number of times that a reliever was used in consecutive days and the second is the total number of relievers used. The non-parenthetical numbers are 2009’s totals and the parenthetical are 2008.

In twelve less games than he had to work with 2008, Coop increased the number of consecutive days, while using nearly forty less relievers. While this probably isn’t the most damning usage of relief pitchers ever, let’s consider who Coop was working with:

Chris Sampson: Coming off an off-season elbow surgery.
Geoff Geary: Coming off an off-season hip surgery.
Doug Brocail: Coming off a season where he’d just been abused in the 8^th inning all year long. And yes, he was over the age of forty in both instances and had a faulty ticker.
Jose Valverde: Coming off his shredded calf muscle in April.
Relief pitcher X: The guy I should have mentioned but have forgotten as I realize I’m running out of time.

Just like with the running game in 2008, this isn’t to say that Coop definitively killed the Astros bullpen because determining that would take a lot more evidence than I have. Both of these brief blurbs are to point out that Coop had bad tendencies as a manager. The usage pattern in 2009 for our relievers was bone-headed. There’s no other way for me to describe it. During all of our discussions of what helped the Astros out pace their Pythag record in 2008, we all came back to our successful late-inning relievers. The second of 2009: we were trying to plug the links as they sprang up; ultimately, our ship sank.

So what’s the overall point of this (besides the challenge of writing all this between takeoff and landing)? To say that these are the small changes in managerial tactics that I think can hopefully give the Astros a better starting point in 2010. Brad Mills, please take note.

Astros Roster Breakdown: The Relievers

davoag — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 12:00:21 -0000

More photos » by Al Behrman - AP

Reliever Sammy Gervacio

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Your Tuesday morning special is a look at the 2009 Astros bullpen. First, though, I thought we could consider a question:

Can a minor league reliever be considered a prospect?

Almost all the Astros homegrown bullpen additions this decade have been starters in the minors before making the major leauge club. Guys like Billy Wagner, Brad Lidge and Chris Sampson made a successful transition into relievers, but started almost all of their games on the farm. Lately, though, the Astros have been moving prospects into the bullpen earlier in their minor league career and still giving them a shot to make the club.

As a comparison, only three players in the past 13 years have made their major league debut for the Astros after not starting more than 10 games in the minors. They were:

Wayne Franklin, came over from Dodgers, but was a minor league reliever before being called up in 2000. Franklin started just seven games in the minors before coming up during the first year at Enron, which was a wasteland of relievers. Remember the best pitcher in the 2000 bullpen, Joe Slusarsky? Yeah, it was bad. Franklin was sent back to the minors in 2001 and put into the starting rotation, much like the Astros are talking about doing with Wesley Wright (more on that later).
Brandon Puffer, went through three organizations before being called up in 2002, but only started six games in minors. Puffer doesn't show this as much, because he bounced around so much early in his career. Plus, his funky sidearm delivery was probably not though of as something that would hold up in a starter's role, forcing him into the 'pen.
Alvin Morman was called up in 1996, but only started 19 games in the minors. Even then, he was only used as a starter for part of one season (1994), when he started all 19 games at Double-A Jackson. Morman was a relatively high pick (6th round, 1991), but stayed in the pen for most of his career, as some leftys do.

That all changed this season when Sammy Gervacio made his big league debut. The 24-year old never started a game in the minors before appearing in 29 games this season over two stints in Houston. Another reliever, Chia-Jen Lo, is doing well in the Arizona Fall League after signing out of Taiwan last season. Lo also has been used mainly as a reliever along with a couple other mid-level prospects, like Danny Meszaros. Still, there is not a good history of guys with this profile succeeding. It will be interesting to track whether this is a trend that is changing or if these prospects will flame out once they get to the show. With that, let's get on with a look at the bullpen...

Tim Byrdak, LHP

2009 Season Stats: 1-2, 61 1/3 IP, 3.23 ERA, 76 games, 58 strikeouts, 36 walks, 10 HR, 1.22 WHIP, 129 ERA+

FIP: 5.29

Leverage: 24 High, 13 Medium, 36 Low

BABiP: .188

GB/FB: 0.71

Pitching Runs Created: 30

Notes: For a lefty specialist, Byrdak sure developed into a solid pitcher for the Astros. It really surprised me that he pitched in so many high leverage situations. His peripheral stats are worrying, as he was EXTREMELY lucky to give up so few hits and without a good defense, Byrdak would not have done nearly this well. The two things that jump out (other than his FIP and BABiP) were his homer rate (1.5 HR/9) and his walk rate (5.3 BB/9). Both were right in line with his career numbers, but are not great, especially the walk rate. At the same time, Byrdak has put up three straight seasons with ERAs of 3.00, so he's doing something right. Hopefully, he'll still be effective in 2010.

Chris Sampson, RHP

2009 Season Stats: 4-2, 3 saves, 55 1/3 IP, 5.04 ERA, 49 games, 33 strikeouts, 21 walks, 2 HR, 1.57 WHIP, 82 ERA+

FIP: 3.24

Leverage: 25 high, 10 medium, 14 low

BABiP: .335

GB/FB:1.17

Pitching Runs Created: 15

Notes: Talk about a hard luck season. Sampson suffered muscle spasms in his shoulder and was put on the DL in July. He came back but was ineffective and was finally optioned to Round Rock on August 13. Sampson pitched in some very tough situations and was somewhat unlucky before the injury, but his shoulder may still not be right. His FIP was much lower than his ERA, but his strikeout rate plummeted. Basically, Sampson was very hittable and that needs to change if he's going to be successful in 2010.

LaTroy Hawkins, RHP

2009 Season Stats: 1-4, 11 saves, 63 1/3 IP, 65 games, 2.13 ERA, 45 strikeouts, 16 walks, 7 HR, 1.20 WHIP, 195 ERA+

FIP: 3.92

Leverage: 35 high, 10 medium, 17 low

BABiP: .283

GB/FB: 0.86

Pitching Runs Created: 39

Notes: Hawkins put up great numbers, especially considering he pitched in more high leverage situations this season than any other Astros reliever. He'll be 37 next season in his 16th big league season. Fun fact: Hawkins actually started 129 games in the minors and was used as a starter by Minnesota for three seasons in the majors before beginning his very lucrative career in the bullpen. Hawkins was probably a little lucky this past season and his strikeout rate isn't anything to write home about. Still, with the rest of the bullpen being as solid as it is, I could see Hawkins closing next season and filling in the rest of the 'pen with Arias, Fulchino and Gervacio.

Jeff Fulchino, RHP

2009 Season Stats: 6-4, 82 IP, 61 games, 3.40 ERA, 71 strikeouts, 27 walks, 7 HR, 1.18 WHIP, 122 ERA+

FIP: 3.52

Leverage: 18 high, 14 medium, 28 low

BABiP: .281

GB/FB: 0.93

Pitching Runs Created: 37

Notes: Thank you Kansas City Royals. The Astros plucked Fulchino off waivers last December and were rewarded with a great season out of the bullpen. In face, Fulchino's season almost makes up for how bad the other Royal imports (Jason Smith, Tyler Lumsden) were. While his strikeout rate doesn't strike fear in the hearts of other teams, Fulchino did avoid giving up home runs for the most part. He also wasn't used in a ton of high leverage situations, so his stats were perfect for middle relief.

Jose Valverde, RHP

2009 Season Stats: 4-2, 25 saves, 54 IP, 52 games, 2.33 ERA, 56 strikeouts, 21 walks, 5 HR, 1.13 WHIP, 178 ERA+

FIP: 3.50

Leverage: 26 high, 13 medium, 10 low

BABiP: .261

GB/FB: 0.66

Pitching Runs Created: 34

Notes: Valverde was exactly what the Astros needed. He brought a swagger to the mound that this team lacked. Injuries robbed him of time this season and the fact that the Astros weren't very good down the stretch held his save total down. You can't ask for much more out of a closer, though, as he managed to strike out one an inning and his home run rate was the lowest since 2005. He has enough concerning factors to his season that I worry about giving him a long term deal. For one, his strikeout rate was the lowest of his career and his BABiP meant his season was more lucky than you'd like. With a couple more hits landing, his numbers could easily have skewed upwards more. Since he's already suffered through an injury-riddled season, what will happen if the Astros give him a 4-to-5 year deal and he's hurt for half of it?

Alberto Arias, RHP

2009 Season Stats: 2-1, 45 2/3 innings, 3.35 ERA, 42 games, 39 strikeouts, 19 walks, 1 HR, 1.49 WHIP, 124 ERA+

FIP: 3.11

Leverage: 12 high, 8 medium, 22 low

BABiP: .340

GB/FB: 1.68

Pitching Runs Created: 18

Notes: When discussing Ed Wade's best moves, Arias has to be among them. While not a home run-type move, Arias was gotten for nothing and has turned into a very effective reliever. Arias had a higher-than-normal BABiP, meaning he was a little unlucky in posting a higher-than-league average ERA. The only thing that's a little concerning about Arias going forward is his strikeout rate is a bit low. Without missing a few more bats, Arias is going to have a hard time giving up just one home run again next season.

Wesley Wright, LHP

2009 Season Stats: 3-4, 44 2/3 IP, 5.44 ERA, 49 games, 47 strikeouts, 25 walks, 9 HR, 1.75 WHIP, 76 ERA+

FIP: 5.14

Leverage: 7 high, 18 medium, 24 low

BABiP: .358

GB/FB: 0.82

Pitching Runs Created: 14

Notes: The word is the Astros would like to make Wright into a starter. With his age (25) and relative lack of innings to this point, it may take an entire season at Triple-A for Wright to make the transition. Having more left-handed starters, though, can't be a bad thing. Wright has been effective and used in semi-big situations. While Cooper didn't have as much confidence in him as Byrdak (judging by leverage situations), Wright did an adequate job and still strikes out a ton of batters. Even if he loses 2 strikeouts per nine innings off his rate by moving into the starting rotation, he'll still be very effective.

Sammy Gervacio, RHP

2009 Season Stats: 1-1, 21 IP, 2.14 ERA, 29 games, 25 strikeouts, 8 walks, 1 HR, 1.14 WHIP, 194 ERA+

FIP: 2.25

Leverage: 7 high, 7 medium, 15 low

BABiP: .319

GB/FB: 1.24

Pitching Runs Created: 15

Notes: As I mentioned above, Gervacio was one of the few Astros prospects to make the big league without starting a game in the minors. Gervacio was the only Astro with a double-digit K/9 rate, and had a smaller walk rate than in the minors. Still, Gervacio didn't pitch many innings, but showed enough to be a big contributor next season. He was used in a few high leverage situations and didn't embarrass himself. In fact, his usage pattern was somewhat surprising for a rookie. His FIP and BABiP all showed that his performance was not a fluke, though with his innings, the sample size wasn't big enough to draw huge conclusions. I would be happy to use him in the 'pen in 2010, though, instead of a more expensive option (see: Valverde, Jose).

Geoff Geary, RHP

2009 Season Stats: 1-3, 20 IP, 8.10 ERA, 16 games, 12 strikeouts, 10 walks, 4 HR, 2.00 WHIP, 51 ERA+

FIP: 6.05

Leverage: 6 high, 4 medium, 6 low

BABiP:.382

GB/FB: 0.54

Pitching Runs Created: 3

Notes: Geary is a good example of why teams shouldn't spend a ton of money on non-closers. Relievers are so fungible, it's hard to justify spending the money for a multi-year contract when their performance can vary so greatly. Take Geary; in 2008, he was a good addition to the 'pen and one of the better throw-ins to the Brad Lidge trade. In 2009? Geary finished the season in the minors and was granted free agency. The righty never could get locked in this season, even though he was used about the same in leveraged situations. His BABiP was high, which means he was probably unlucky. I could see Geary having a productive year for someone in 2010, though it probably won't be the Astros.

Doug Brocail, RHP

2009 Season Stats: 1-0, 17 2/3 IP, 4.58 ERA, 20 games, 9 strikeouts, 13 walks, 4 HR, 1.95 WHIP, 91 ERA+

FIP: 7.28

Leverage: 4 high, 2 medium, 12 low

BABiP: .298

GB/FB: 0.94

Pitching Runs Created: 6

Notes: It's safe to say the Doug Brocail experiment didn't work out as the Astros had planned. It's not that Brocail did poorly. In fact, you could argue that he was Houston's most effective reliever in 2008. However, his age may have caught up to him this season, as Brocail only played 20 games before suffering an arm injury (?). What's interesting is looking at what leveraged situations Brocail was used in this season. For someone who was so good a season before, Cooper obviously didn't want to use him in pressure situations in 2009, as he was used in twice as many low pressure situations as anything else.

Chad Paronto, RHP

2009 Season Stats: 0-0, 6 2/3 IP, 12.15 ERA, 6 games, 3 strikeouts, 1 walk, 4 HR, 2.40 WHIP, 34 ERA+

FIP: 10.50

Leverage: 0 high, 0 medium, 6 low

BABiP: .407

GB/FB: 0.50

Pitching Runs Created: 1

Notes: Paronto has been great for Round Rock the past two seasons, but battled injuries in 2009. He was called up in September and gave up a ton of home runs, but was a tad unlucky. Paronto is exactly the kind of arm the Astros have collected at Triple-A the past few years. He's serviceable but probably only needed in spot duty in the majors, if there is an injury.

Billy Sadler, RHP

2009 Season Stats: 0-0, 1 1/3 IP, 13.50 ERA, 1 game, 2 strikeouts, 1 walk, 0 HR, 2.25 WHIP, 31 ERA+

FIP: 2.40

Leverage: 0 high, 0 medium, 1 low

BABiP: .500

GB/FB: 1.00

Pitching Runs Created: 0

Notes: The only Astros pitcher to not get at least one Pitching Run Created, the story was that Wade promised Sadler he'd be added to the big league team before the end of the season. That's why he got the call-up at the end of September, though Sadler didn't pitch much at all. Fun moments in small sample size: Sadler's FIP was 11 runs lower than his ERA, but only because he struck out two in his 1 1/3 innings. Of course, now Sadler's a free agent and probably won't come back. But we'll always have that 1 1/3 innings.

Roster Breakdown: The Money

davoag — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 21:12:42 -0000

I mentioned there would be a more in-depth look a the Astros 2009 roster today and this is the first part of that attempt. My plan is to look at three different phases of the roster, starting with the monetary worth of all the players, followed by how the position players performed and then how the pitchers did. Hopefully, by knowing what the Astros were last year, it will help predict what they need to do in 2010 to be successful. Onward and upward after the jump...

Helped by the wonderful people over at FanGraphs, I charted the Astros entire roster on both their value in dollar amounts and their actual salaries, which I got from Cot's Baseball Contracts. I added all of them up to get the team's total value for the season and how much money they actually spent. I should also note before we dive into analysis that I adjusted the pitcher's values for their batting, which I'll talk about more in a minute.

The Astros players performed at a value worth 95.2 million this season, while the payroll came in around 106.2 million. This means the team underperformed the payroll by about 11 million dollars. I was a little surprised at this, as I mentioned yesterday in the Dave Clark story, the Astros outperformed their pythag record by six wins. I thought this might translate into value for the club. It did, but not to the extent I expected.

In fact, if we discounted the pitchers' batting, the team would have outperformed payroll by about 7 million, but some of the pitchers, like Oswalt, Wandy and especially Moehler, all were hugely affected by poor batting. Moehler went from one of the few bargains on the team to being one of the biggest detriments. Oswalt also underperformed his contract by about 3.7 million, though he was one of a handful of Astros to contribute double-figure value.

On the plus side, Michael Bourn and Hunter Pence combined to produce 33.9 million of the Astros overall 95 million value. Both are playing on pre-arbitration contracts, so were the two biggest values on the team. Wandy was also a huge value, adding 11.8 million over his 2.6 million dollar contract, but lost 3.8 million because of his hitting. That seemed a bit high to me, but as I thought about it more, the only way pitchers can't hurt their team batting-wise is to pitch in the American League, and I'm not sure Wandy would have put up the same value if he had pitched in the tougher league.

Who else were values? Jeff Fulchino came in fourth, with a 3.2 million positive difference, while Mike Hampton was fifth at 2.6 million. It also didn't hurt that Hampy added 0.8 million with his bat. Chris Sampson and Alberto Arias were the next two on the list and the last two that topped 2 million in positive difference between their contracts and their worth. Anther surprise for me was Edwin Maysonet outperforming his contract by one million.

The other side of that coin is the guys who underperform, and the worst at that was Carlos Lee. At -7.9 million, he had the biggest negative difference on the team. The only two players coming close to that were Darin Erstad and Jose Valverde, who both clocked in with negative-5 differences. Doug Brocail and Tim Byrdak were the next two on the bottom, followed by Geoff Geary and Roy Oswalt. The reason so many of these guys are relievers is that their salary greatly exceeded their worth. In fact, the only one who added positive value to the team was Valverde at 3 million. Quick shot analysis of this is that relievers really are fungible, so it's silly to pay more than a million dollars for all but the best closers. Otherwise, you're wasting monetary resources on a position you can fill many different ways.

As for Lee, that contract is an absolute albatross. His hitting is great and all, but his defense hurts the club out in left field and he won't always hit like he's doing now. On the current open market, you can definitely find a bargain that can hit 30 homers and bat .280 for left field without spending 10 million per year, much less the 18.5 Lee earned in 2009.

That's all the analysis I'm going to do now, because I'll get into more detailed looks at player performance later, but I've included the data I used for the entire team for you to peruse below. Look for more posts on the managerial hiring process too as we get more information.

	WAR	Salary	Difference
Bourn	18.700	0.435	18.265
Pence	15.200	0.439	14.761
W. Rodriguez	14.400	2.600	11.800
Fulchino	3.600	0.400	3.200
Hampton	4.600	2.000	2.600
Sampson	2.700	0.449	2.251
Arias	2.500	0.402	2.099
Quintero	2.300	0.610	1.690
Rodriguez	3.100	1.500	1.600
Gervacio	1.900	0.400	1.500
Blum	2.600	1.200	1.400
Keppinger	1.700	0.428	1.273
Maysonet	1.400	0.400	1.000
Norris	0.400	0.400	0.000
Sadler	0.000	0.402	-0.402
Towles	0.000	0.402	-0.402
Manzella	-0.200	0.400	-0.600
Kata	-0.300	0.400	-0.700
Berkman	13.600	14.500	-0.900
Tejada	11.800	13.000	-1.200
Paronto	-1.100	0.500	-1.600
Bazardo	-1.200	0.405	-1.605
Ortiz	-1.100	0.750	-1.850
Michaels	-1.200	0.750	-1.950
Boone	-1.200	0.750	-1.950
Lopez	-1.600	0.400	-2.000
Hawkins	1.500	3.500	-2.000
Johnson	-2.000	0.375	-2.375
Moehler	-0.200	2.300	-2.500
Wright	-2.100	0.425	-2.525
Matsui	2.400	5.000	-2.600
Coste	-2.500	0.460	-2.960
Backe	-1.500	1.500	-3.000
Paulino	-2.600	0.405	-3.005
Smith	-2.800	0.500	-3.300
Oswalt	10.300	14.000	-3.700
Geary	-2.000	1.700	-3.700
Byrdak	-3.200	1.000	-4.200
Brocail	-2.200	2.500	-4.700
Valverde	3.000	8.000	-5.000
Erstad	-4.100	1.750	-5.850
Lee	10.600	18.500	-7.900

This is way the Astros season ends: Not with a bang, but a whimper

DyingQuail — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 12:58:48 -0000

More photos » by Kathy Willens - AP

My feelings exactly, Aaron.

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I've done pretty much anything but think about the Astros today. There were too many mixed emotions to sort through; too many other tantalizing distractions to latch onto. I've watched a dismal Fantasy Football day crush my spirits, the Texans look weak in the second half against the Oakland Raiders, talked HLP down from the ledge as he fretted about his ability to clinch our rotisserie keeper-league (he did, Congrats buddy, you earned it).

I didn't even watch the Astros game. I couldn't.

I saw the standard tweets about it on my desktop client (Tweetie) and that was enough depression for me. The most critical thinking I could bring myself to do about the Astros was a few expletive deleted texts and about five minutes worth of phone conversation between HLP and myself. I don't know why it is that I feel this way, or I have felt this way for the last few weeks, but I think the catharsis of knowing that it's over has finally allowed me to snap out of my funk.

I can still remember when the glimmer of hope I had for this season was born. BtB's Sky Kalkman emailed me the spreadsheet for his Community Projection Project and I rushed to input all the projections. Without any fan embellishment, we were something like an 80 win team. It was late December and I was shocked. Flabbergasted. Almost afraid to actually publish the result publically. I probably wrote about seven drafts of an email I never sent Sky explaining—politely—that I thought his spreadsheet was broken.

We spent the next few weeks tweaking and refining the inputs and suddenly we were an 82 win team. Then in late March Ivan Rodriguez and Jeff Keppinger landed in Houston and we quickly became an 83 win team. There was probably inflation, but a .500 season seemed realistic, and there were all the variables in place to allow for some kind of meaningful and exciting season to get underway.

April and May saw the NL Central become a smorgasbord of stories that had thrown the conventional off-season predications of how the Central would play out, out. Yet the Astros struggled for most of it and seemed destined to be mired in irrelevancy, even as opportunity knocked. I managed to avoid excess worry and pessimism during this stretch by being wrapped up in graduating from college and then not living like a member of the real world for the next month (that month will easily go down as the most enjoyable month of my life). Perhaps that's what insulated my glimmer of hope and kept me set up for the inexorable Astros-depression that has plagued me as of late (does semi-ignorance count as denial?)

June arrived and the Astros were quietly good. The responsibility of covering the team on a daily basis allowed for me to be slow to notice the fact that the Astros were stringing together victories and closing ground in the Central. So it was a very plesant surprise when I finally allowed myself to consider the possibility of the Astros becoming...contenders(?!).

By the time the All-Star break was upon us, I don't think that there were many of us who weren't starting to harbor something akin to excitement. When we opened the second half by splitting the series with the Dodgers, I'd say most of us were starting to place ourselves in the camp of believers. I know I was.

Sure, there was a mountain of statistical evidence based on macro-level measures that could demonstrate how the Astros couldn't possibly succeed, but we saw a different picture. We saw a team that had been felled by Jose Valverde's monstrously wicked calf strain, Roy Oswalt's post-WBC inconsistency, and Lance Berkman's weird odd-year-early-season-under-perfomance. We were buoyed along by the fact that Wandy, in spite of his two weeks of HR/FB regression, was pitching consistently and finally living up to all of our hopes. There was Bud Norris tilling the farm in the PCL with a low 2.00 ERA and thus the hope that our rotation could only get better—not worse.

This all led to what I'll consider to be the peak of the Astros 2009 Season: July 20th-22nd. The NL Central leading Cardinals were going to be at MMP and the Astros had quite the opportunity on their hands. Prior to the Astros three game sweep of the Cards, I wrote the following:

Unlike previous years when the Astros and their fans had to hope and pray throughout the month of September that other teams would drop the ball while the Astros took care of other opponents, the Astros will be firmly in the drivers seat this time around from July 20th on...

...I consider this series to be the keynote address to how the Astros will handle the opportunity they're presented. They're only real opponent is themselves. This is a division, and even an Wild Card race, that has proven to be anything but decided ninety plus games into the season. So the Astros, flawed as they are, have legs to stand on in the search for October baseball, but we've all yet to figure out is how sturdy those legs ar e.

As we all know, the legs weren't that sturdy. Our offense collapsed into a black hole of paltry OBP (.305) and our farm hands and scrap heap veterans were anything but consistent as the season pressed forward on the mound for us. Even Roy Oswalt couldn't hold up.

But I don't want to get to that part yet.

There was a week long period after that where it genuinely felt like the Astros were going to do it. They were going to shock all of us and make a legitimate run at the playoffs. Actually take their fate in their own hands and dispatch their NL Central rivals. Maybe it was a fan's bias, but I did. Hell, I even put my neck on the chopping block and tried to show up SBN's own RJ Anderson when he wrote about how screwed the Astros actually were. I still don't think his argument was overwhelming, completely thought out, or entirely objective, but, in the end, he was right and I was wrong if you obscure the issue somewhat.

I think this is known as the first stage of grief: denial. What I was really saying and hoping was: "The Astros are fine, there's a way these obvious defects can be overcome. I can't say exactly how, I just believe they can."

Did I partake in too much of the Kool-Aid? Probably. But I really don't see how I couldn't. It felt like the stars were aligning. It felt like my sports luck was going to turn around. It felt like the baseball gods were going to pay us back for Hurricane Ike, the Selig/McLane/Cubs/Milwaukee fiasco, Joe Creede's ridiculously dumb defensive luck circa October 2005—everything.

It happened, though. Not a bang, but a whimper. The Astros dropped a series to the Mets at home. Then dropped series against Chicago on the road were swept by a Matt Holliday powered Cardinals. At the time it felt disconcerting, but certainly nothing to lose the faith over. After all it, was still just early August. It was impossible for me to fathom that it would be the start of a 25-42 run for the Astros. Reading that number right now it still seems impossible.

The team just started to slip way in bits and pieces. Chris Sampson went down, exposing the limits of the set-up men. Alberto Arais faltered and would go down with injury and later go under the knife. Bud Norris, whose was dazzling in his debut in St. Louis, started to get shelled. Yorman Bazardo got a call up to fill in for the now comical merry-go-round of Feliepe Paulino, Mike Hampton, Brian Moehler, and the released Ortiz, but struggled as well. Every game I oscillated between the anger and bargaining phases of grief. It was either: "What the hell is (object of my ire) doing/thinking, this is absurd. I can't believe they're finding new and impressive ways to blow this" or "Please baseball gods, please, just let them pull it together. It's not to late for them salvage something."

By the time September was underway, I was in full blown depression, the fourth stage. I didn't want to write about this team, I didn't want to think about this team, I didn't want to watch this team. Every loss was too painful; every glimmer of hope from Norris or Paulino tainted by my own jadedness. As I mulled over our options for 2010, the prospect of trying to make this team a contender on the budget Drayton McLane will provide did nothing to pull me out of my funk.

In the depression stage of grief, apparently one disconnects oneself by being silent. By not allowing their thoughts to be challenged or corrected by someone who could bring hope. Even though I wasn't writing, I was still reading. Most of you have continued to find the silver lining. Me, I couldn't stop adhering to Jerry Garcia's adage that every silver lining has a touch of gray.

Sure, Bud Norris has flashed brillance, but I've been stuck on knowing that he'll turn up injured before May rolls around next year. Paulino? He'll probably be on the Wandy Rodriguez path to greatness and take until 2013 to finally arrive. Wesley Wright's conversion to starter? Could Ed Wade be any more desperate for his owner to throw him a lifeline in the form a $10 million to go grab a worth while pitcher?

I could go on, but I think you get the point. That's pretty much how I've been thinking and feeling about the Astros for the last month. It's been awful.

Sometime around 8:30PM though, I finally reached the final stage, acceptance. Was this season a disappointment? Yes. Even so, it still provided a six to eight week stretch where people believed. Where people cared. Even though there's no one thing I can find to blame the Astros soul-crushing, for me, atrophy into the team that limped their way to a 25-42 final stretch, it's ok. I'm not sure there is. This once meteorically hot team just whimpered its way through the majority of the second half to a dismal 5th place finish in the NL Central. From one game behind on July 22nd, to seventeen games back on October 4th. It's probably fitting that they were shut out.

There's always next year.

It's still too soon for me to cling to that adage with the kind of hope I did last December, but at least that's what we have to focus on now.

Wednesday Astros, etc Round Up

HighLeveragePerformer — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 11:00:29 -0000

More photos » by David J. Phillip - AP

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If anyone has a thing for 67 year old chubby managers of one time NL championship teams, then you're in luck! The Astros' top choice for their managerial position may Jim Fregosi. Richard Justice is confident that Ed Wade, who made decisions in Philly to hire both Terry Francona and Charlie Manuel, will choose the right man to take the helm of the SS Astro.

Lest a pity party inadvertently break out for Cecil Cooper, injury news concerning Roy Oswalt and Alberto Arias should remind us of one reason why Coop was fired. Oswalt will head to Dallas to seek a second opinion from a specialist in bulging disks, while Alberto Arias will undergo arthroscopic surgery on his right knee. Arias, thankfully, should be ready to pitch in the Dominican Winter League, while Oswalt hopes to avoid surgery at all costs. A quote of Oswalt's I've read before strikes me as sorta scary:

...I don’t want to lose feeling in my leg

Yikes. Why he was asked to continue pitching even after he left a start early in August against Chicago, I do not know. As for Alberto, Coop made mince meat out of him after Chris Sampson was rendered useless after overuse. It's a downright irresponsible legacy he left, these injuries. True, he wasn't given the best starters in baseball, but when in doubt, he would more often than not make the walk from the dugout to the mound to pull a guy, rather than leave him in to take one for the team. I do not know if Alberto Arias' injuries are a direct result of his usage this season, but it certainly could not have helped. He is an ex-starter, and he actually pitched more innings in 2008 than in 2009. Cooper using him too frequently in back to back games is one area that may have hurt Alberto in the long run.

Beyond the Boxscore has a nice article on managerial longevity and similar subjects. Quality stuff as usual.

For those who like to play Monday Morning Quarterback...the Astros (like clack noted last week) could have drafted Derek Jeter in 1992 instead of Phil Nevin. A late 1990s double play combination of Derek Jeter and Craig Biggio probably would have made my 13 year old head explode with excitement, so maybe it's a good thing we used the likes of Ricky Gutierrez and Tim Bogar...

Speaking of Bogar, we've had a few nights to sleep on the firing of Cecil Cooper, and more importantly, to ponder the options to replace Coop. In light of that, after weighing the facts, pros and cons of the names thrown out there, who would you like to be the next manager of the Houston Astros?

Poll

Who should be the next manager of the Astros?

Jim Fregosi

5 votes

Tim Bogar

15 votes

Al Pedrique

4 votes

Jeff Bagwell

17 votes

Manny Acta

32 votes

Craig Biggio

8 votes

Brad Ausmus

39 votes

Bobby Cox

14 votes

Dave Clark

4 votes

Someone Else

33 votes

171 votes | Poll has closed

Can the 2010 Astros be competitive?

DyingQuail — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 12:00:29 -0000

More photos » by Dave Einsel - AP

My opinion: 2010 hinges on this man's performance.

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I'll admit from the outset that this depressing for me to write for two reasons. One, of course, being that it's depressing that I can't find anything worth writing about the 2009 Astros and two being that I am left wondering how the 2010 Astros can do better than their 2009 version. This ominous thought has been lurking in the back of my mind since I did an interview with Fred Fauor a few weeks ago in which the topic of how the 2010 Astros should assemble themselves left me clawing for any semblance of hope (which is a sports fan's best friend in times like these).

The logical place to start this conversation is payroll. A team can't build something if it can't afford to buy the requisite building materials. Everytime I have tried to account for the dollars and cents of the core of the Astros roster for next year I've totaled $75 to $82 million. This roster includes (with best guess efforts for arbitration bonuses and salary escalation):

Lance Berkman
Carlos Lee
Roy Oswalt
Wandy Rodriguez
Hunter Pence
Michael Bourn
Jeff Keppinger
Kazuo Matsui
Tommy Manzella
Miguel Tejada (anywhere from $6 million to $11 million. The latter would actually be his fair market value at 3B if he replicated 90% of his offensive production from this year, assuming a cost of $4.5 million per WAR)
LaTroy Hawkins (anywhere from $4.5 million to $7 million to be our closer)
Bud Norris
Felipe Paulino
Brian Moehler
Yorman Bazardo
Sammy Gervacio
Alberto Arias
Chris Sampson
Wesley Wright
Tim Byrdak or some a near equivalent LOOGY
Humerto Quintero
Jason Castro
JR Towles or Brian Bogusevic
Rounding out the roster with relief pitchers that will have an average price tag of $1.25 million

This would be a young Astros team compared to their previous few versions, so there is of course the ability to infer hope from it because the projections for many of these players has a wide range of variance. But is that the kind of hope that we as Astros fans—especially most of the regulars here, who all have a far more sharply objective view of baseball—want claim? Can we even claim that as hope? I guess the answers to that are personal and subject to one's own preferences.

Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately) for you, the readers, I get to work out my thought process in front of you. For those who just want to move past this discussion, I'll do this after the jump.

If we have learned anything from the 2009 version of the Astros it is this: A seemingly stacked offense is not a good way to build a baseball team. The fact of the matter is, and will continue to be, that the core of our line up has skill set that is high slugging percentage relative to on-base percentage. This, as we now are so painfully aware of, does not an offense make. There's just no consistency in such a skill set and that fact was exacerbated by poor managerial strategy by the man at the helm of the offense, Cecil Cooper.

Even if the Astros front office decides to spare us the indignity of having Cecil Cooper continue to pull all the levers of the 2010 Astros, offense will not be our strong suit. This leaves us to the lesson we all learned in 2005: If you've got pitchers who pitch well, the team will perform well. As of right now, the only starting pitcher I put on the list above who I have confidence in is Wandy Rodriguez. I hope that Roy Oswalt will pitch well on a consistent basis in 2010, but his continued climb into his thirties, combined with his worrisome back issues, don't fill me with the confidence that the Wizard once inspired.

Dratyon McLane has already announced that payroll in 2010 will be lower than payroll in 2009, and has cited attendance this year as the motivation for this reduction. If payroll is scaled down to match in the loss in attendance revenues this year, than would place the Astros at somewhere within a million or two dollars of $90 million. That doesn't leave a lot of dough to fill out the bench and bullpen, while also buying the services of another top-tier pitcher to complement Roy and Wandy.

That leaves the likely candidates as Bud Norris, Feliepe Paulino, Yorman Bazardo, and Brian Moehler. However, it's hard to say that all aren't question marks in my mind. I doubt that our starting rotation will include more than two of the above to start the season, as I am sure there will be some manner of reclamation project scooped up by Ed Wade this winter. I also doubt that this unnamed pitcher will be more than a giant question mark in my mind as well. How can I be so confident that whatever Ed Wade pulls off the scrap heap will be a question mark? Just take a look at the options.

Bud Norris has flashed brilliance this season, but Wandy Rodriguez had a long and torturous journey to consistently being brilliant, so it's hard for me to place too much hope in Bud. Were Bud Norris to speed up his learning curve and provide legitimate number three services, then the Astros would have a strong rotation. Not 2005 strong, but strong enough to inspire confidence, and dare I say it, hope. Were Bazardo, Moehler, Wright (who'll be auditioned as a starter this spring, allegedly), and whoever is Ed Wade's reclamation project, to be relegated to the four and five slots, then they're imperfections and questions marks wouldn't matter as much. 2009 has been dismal mainly because 3/5 of the time there's no reason to expect good things from the guy taking the mound. At times, when injury has felled Wandy and Roy, there's almost no reason to hope for anything other than an offensive explosion to mask the deficiency in pitching.

So I've talked myself to this point: Should Bud Norris be an effective starting pitcher next year, I think that the 2010 Astros can be competitive. Do I have hope? There's a glimmer of it. Am I being unduly pessimistic? I'll leave that for you to decide. Have I missed/glossed over something? Probably. Again, tell me where I went wrong.

Why are the Astros wasting September?

DyingQuail — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 12:00:21 -0000

More photos » by Pat Sullivan - AP

I'll already said I'd be willing to try this? What are you guys waiting for?

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September opened yesterday with the absolutely thrilling announcement that Doug Brocail would be joining the truly heart warming story of Aaron Boone. I don't want to take anything away from the truly miraculous return of Aaron Boone, but when the headline for roster-expansion is a guy coming back from open heart surgery, one has to wonder what the front office is thinking. With about 30 games left in 2009 the Astros have less than 1% odds of making the playoffs. Less than 1%. There's nothing to be gained from these games except previewing potential lineup cards for 2010.

I am aware that these kinds of roster expansion typically take place once the minor league season is in the books, but there's a catch for the 2009 Astros organization: Both Round Rock and Corpus Christi aren't playing for anything. There's literally nothing holding the Astros back from experimenting for an extra week to make more informed decisions in the offseason. The best part is, pretty much everything the Astros need to see is already on the 40-man roster.

How does Miguel Tejada fair at 3B? Does Geoff Blum really need regular playing time? Does it matter if he makes a bunch of ridiculous errors? The answer to both of these is no.
What does Tommy Manzella hit like at the big league level? Better yet, how does he look at SS? With Miggy over at 3B, it makes perfect sense to bring up his ostensible in house replacement, who is on the 40-man roster, and see how he fares. Sure his bat is important, but I'm really curious to see how his glove plays.
How do Brian Bogusevic and Yordany Ramirez look? Our current outfield trio aren't going anywhere, but with a relative (and I mean relative) surplus of seemingly capable outfielders why not see if we can get them a strong cup of coffee and sell high on one of them? Think Josh Anderson in 2007, only hope for more than Oscar Villareal.
What has another year of AAA done for JR Towles? Can we count him in for 2010? Or can we potentially shop him this offseason? A replication of 2007's cup of coffee could do wonders for his stock.
Who would be a better regular: Jeff Keppinger or Edwin Maysonet? My guess is Keppinger, but why not give them both a consistent run of starts. It's not like Kaz Matsui needs to play extra games, he's already fragile enough.
Could Yorman Bazardo be more useful as a Chris Sampson-type in the bullpen? It would save him some innings, and allow us to see get a better idea of his relative utility to us.
Finally, it'd be cool to see how this worked out for scrap heap types? I guess we're really out of scrap heap types, but maybe we could figure it out.

With Richard Justice already predicting someone's firing tomorrow today, what does this organization have to lose? Let's be bold.

Monday Morning Astros, etc Round Up

HighLeveragePerformer — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 11:00:18 -0000

More photos » by Pat Sullivan - AP

It's gotten to the point where we're posting photos of ex players.

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After the New York Times levied pitch tipping allegations against Miguel Tejada, Tejada saw fit to respond yesterday:

"I've never tipped pitches," Tejada told MLB.com before he was given a rare off-day from the starting lineup on Sunday as the Astros closed their three-game series at Chase Field. "I love this game and that's not the way I play it. I'm a proud player. I would never do such a thing. It's tough to get a hit. And for me to tip pitches to anybody, that's crazy. I play for my team."

From what I can tell, it seems questionable that he was knowingly tipping other team's hitters as to what pitch was about to be thrown, despite former teammate Johnny Damon's assertions that "it seemed like all the Dominican guys were killing us." Sorry, but I don't really trust Damon's reflections on a particular nationalities' success against his team 8 years ago.

JJO raises the same point that clack did weeks ago- have Bud Norris's IP total caught up to him? Dewey Robinson seems to think that Norris is doing fine, and that skipping him in his next start will do him good. As far as September call ups are concerned, Round Rock pitcher Billy Sadler will get a call up once the RR season is through. Anyone with information on him is welcome to chime in. Wes Wright will also join the Astros in Chicago....also,

Time to welcome some vets, folks. Doug Brocail and Aaron Boone will be added to the major league roster on Tuesday. Chris Sampson, Tommy Manzella and JR Towles are other possibilities to be added to the club in September. Chris Johnson, for those who were wondering, isn't on the 40 man roster and therefore isn't eligible to be called up.

First Jeff Bagwell gets in the news after RJ touts him as next Astros' manager, then Beyond the Boxscore does a post on the top 14 first basemen of all time in terms of WAR, and Bags is #6 on the list:

He had excellent power (perhaps not completely appreciated due to his home park) and an exceptionally good batting eye (149 walks in 1999), which helped him post a career OBP of 0.408. He also had excellent speed for a second baseman, topping 30 steals twice, and was a fine defender throughout most of his career. He led the league in runs scored three times, and won the MVP in the strike-shorted 1994 season with a crazy 0.368/0.451/0.750 season (that's 39 home runs and 9 WAR in 110 games, folks)...He becomes eligible for the Hall of Fame in 2010. I have a hard time reading the rest of the mainstream media, but I suspect that his teammate Craig Biggio will have an easier time than Bagwell despite having the weaker, albeit longer career. Lack of association with steriods may help both of them given the current backlash against suspected users.

The group of players ahead of Bagwell, Gehrig, Cap Anson, Jimmie Foxx, Roger Connor and Dan Brouthers, all had careers that were finished before WWII. Is Jeff the greatest 1B of the post WWII generation? At least by one measure, yes. (At least until Albert finishes up, that is). Frank Thomas was not a part of the list, as he was considered to be a DH. Before Bags had to exit the game, their stats were remarkably similar...as were their birthdays!

Elias released its most recent classifications of players. Astros' free agents that are either classified as A or B:

Miguel Tejada, B

Jose Valverde, A

LaTroy Hawkins, A

Doug Brocail, B

Tim Byrdak, B