There is no excuse for this deal. Not that kind of money for ONE year, let alone THREE!!!

NONE. And I mean NONE.

Anyone who thinks that Brandon Lyon is any sort of competent closer only needs to check his records with the Diamondbacks. I’d post it, but I’m too tired and angry. This deal is stupidity even greater than the Kaz Matsui signing.

I’ve made excuses for Wade, explained (honestly) that his hands have been tied by Drayton, but I am now on the official Ed Wade’s obsesion with crappy middle relievers makes him a lousy GM – bandwagon.

As for continuing to blog, again, I’ll let all yall know if/when I move this one, not that there seems to be much of a point. Hard to believe it was only 5 years ago that we went to the World Series, and were in the playoffs year after year. Now, we’re just the sorry-ass Royals/Pirates/Orioles…

I would guess that decision was Drayton’s and NOT Ed’s, as he has offered more than a few relievers more than 1 year. Too bad we didn’t offer arb. But Hawk isn’t exactly a young man, and he did have some DL time last year, and there certainly is a good chance that he might could have some injury/ineffectiveness issues. But he is good insurance for Trevor Hoffmann, who isn’t exactly a young whippersnapper his own self.

Fast Eddie apparently isn’t interested in starters, having told Richard Justice that he is interested in getting first and foremost a closer, then some offense (REALLY?), then more relievers, then a bench. And we certainly don’t need starters, seeing as how we have 5 aces lined up with 5 more in waiting at AAA. (Whaddaya mean, like WHO?????)

With both Valverde and Hawk out the door and Rafael Soriano still the possession of the Braves, Eddie traded some minor leaguers AND OUR RULE V DRAFT PICK!!!!! for Matt Lindstrom, the on again off again Marlins closer, whose selling point is the velocity of his fastball. Whoopie DOO on the velocity. Because, as every single ML hitter will tell you, it AIN’T the speed, it’s the motion, that make yo daddy swing n miss….

The minor leaguers were a rookie league SS (not Mier, of course) and an A-ball pitcher named Robert Bono. The only reason I’m a little nervous about this is that Beinfest has an outstanding eye for minor league talent. Lindstrom is now arb eligible, meaning he has to be paid more than league minimum, meaning that Loria wants him off the team.

So let’s take a look at Lindstrom:

He was drafted by the Mets in the 10th round of the 02 draft and traded to the Marlins after the 06 season for Jason Vargas (don’t guess THAT worked out real too good for the Mets, hunh? Larry Beinfest has got to be THE most underrated GM in the biz. Billy Beane gets all the cred for working with a small payroll team, but Beinfest does more with even less.)

The Marlins called Lindstrom up in spring 07 and put him in the bullpen.
He threw 67 innings with a 141 ERA+ and a 1.266 WHIP and a 3.09 ERA (and of course, the most important stat of all, the win/loss record of 3 and 4, which according to Jack Morris’ fans, tells you all you need to know about that pitcher’s heart, guts and testicular capacity. Unfortunately, though, not about his arm, but I digress…) He also had a career high 3:1 K:BB, with a little under 1 K/IP. I note that he finished 11 games, but saved none, so it looks as if he wasn’t used in high leverage situations much.

In 08, he threw fewer innings, 57, but finished more games, 27 of 66, and was credited with 5 saves. He didn’t even average an inning/appearance, so he must have been brought in with MOB to put out fires or brought in with a game already won or lost.

Interesting.

He also had a 3.14 ERA but a 1.448 WHIP, and his K/9 dropped from 8.3 to 6.8 and his BB/9 increased from 2.3/9 IP to 4.1/9 IP.

Last year, he started the year as closer. Let me be kind and say he didn’t have a real good year. His ERA+ dropped from 138 to 72. I do know he was hurt and went on the DL, but let’s take a look at his game logs:

He did fine in April, except for one game from he!! vs the Phillies in which he threw gopher balls and was tagged for 7 ER over 0.2 IP which, uh, wasn’t good for his ERA. In May, he saved 4 games and had only 1 bad game in which he gave up 4 ER over 0.1 IP throwing in a game that was already lost. So over 2 months, he gave up runs in 6 of 23 games (and 11 ER in 2 of those.) He appeared in 9 games in June, didn’t blow any saves or lose any games, but he did have an ERA over 7 and he went on the DL for almost 6 weeks.

He returned in August, appeared in 13 games and allowed runs in 3 of them, but didn’t lose any games or blow any saves, and he had a 2.45 ERA for the month (interestingly, all the run but 1 were given up against the Astros.) He appeared in 9 games in September and gave up runs in 4 of them, including a 4 run job vs the Cards, and his September ERA was 8.59.

Reminding me of 06 Brad Lidge.

But hey, let’s be cheerful here – Lindstrom COULD turn into the 08 Brad Lidge. After all, it IS baseball and youneverknow…

It is most likely that Valverde could net a multi-year deal elsewhere for at least 10 million a year, and that he would decline arbitration to pursue that. A reasonable gamble with upside.

If he did accept, he could always be traded for prospects at the deadline, unless Drayton McLane is suffering from his usual inability to see the forest for the trees and thinks that the Astros are “competitive.” It would, however, hinder efforts to spend that 10 or 12 mill on GOOD bench players.

Brocail, a type B FA (can you believe he was even typed, given the fact that he lost most of the year to injuries and didn’t pitch well when he DID pitch) was already paid his $250K buyout. He may or may not try to latch on with another team, or even re-up with the Astros at a significantly reduced salary, but offering arbitration would certainly net him a bigger payday than what he is worth.

Miggy Tejada, the second of the 3 Type A FA, was paid 14.5 million last year, and he will most likely not be able to earn even half of that in 2010, let alone receive more than a 2 year deal, if that. He certainly is not worth any 14.5 million but would most likely not receive any significant salary cut in arbitration. I know that he is supposed to have all this “leadership” – whatever that is – but he certainly didn’t exactly lead the Astros to greatness last year.

It will be interesting to see what team will finally bite the bullet and sign Tejada, as they will have to give up a first or second round pick to do so. And no, I don’t want to resign him for 2 years to play third base, ground into endless double plays while fielding like Mike Lamb.

Fast Eddie is supposed to be trying very hard to re-sign Hawkins, the third Type A FA. I would guess that Hawk wasn’t offered arbitration because the Organization was afraid that he would receive more in arb than he will in his new contract – that is, IF he signs a new contract with the Astros. I would guess that he probably would, as most teams are extremely reluctant to cede draft picks to sign a setup man, and he clearly saw what happened to Juan Cruz last year.

Richard Justice recently wrote a blog entry asking readers – OK, given that you can NOT trade Berkman, El Caballo Gordo or Oswalt, what would YOU do if you were Ed Wade?

Naturally, half the readers said to trade one or all of those 3 guys.

Really?

Carlos Lee will be paid 18.5 mill this year, 2011 and 2012, which is a HUGE amount of money for a DH or a terrible defensive LF (who knows if he could play 1B?) who is the second worst baserunner in the majors (next to Bengie Molina) according to the Bill James tables.

Now WHAT team out there is going to agree to take El Caballo Gordo, that is, assuming he would agree to be traded, for that kind of money AND give us any prospects? Which team HAS that kind of money to spend on a DH for the next 3 years?

The purpose of trading Lee would be essentially removal of his salary from the payroll. Let’s be real here. No team, and I mean NO team, is going to give the Astros any minor leaguer worth anything for 3 years of a DH at 18.5 mill/year. Anyone who thinks different has more than a few screws missing. Anyone who thinks that Drayton is going to PAY some team perfectly good money for the sole purpose of getting rid of his RBI man (and fan fave) to get some other team’s major league rejects or untested minor leaguers in hopes of getting another Jeff Bagwell, also has a few screws loose.

We have NO minor leaguers who look to be ready to replace the production Carlos does give. So do we play some of them anyhow? When they hit like Ausmus and field like Mike Lamb (in left), do we go out and sign another Jason Michaels? Which reminds me – who wants us to go and sign yet ANOTHER expensive FA to a long term contract? Who wants us to sign another crappy washed up MLer to a 1 year job?

Lance Berkman?
Well, this is the last year of his contract, and he’ll get 14.5 mill (and yeah, you have to think about his 15 million dollar option and his 2 mill buyout, too). Now if all yall remember, he had a lousy (for him) year last year. Some club would have to gamble on a bounceback year. One more time – now WHICH club out there is going to pay that kind of money for a guy on the downside of his career who very well might NOT have that last bounceback year?

Who here really thinks that this mystical club is gonna pay 14.5 mill PLUS a buyout/option year AND give the astros even ONE good, young player?

Now that just might could happen at the deadline, all right, especially if Lance has a good year, but not now. At that time, Drayton might could possibly eat a few mill IF Tal/Eddie/Pam persuaded him he was getting back at least ONE guy who had some serious upside, especially if he could be put right on the ML roster.

Roy?

Well, he’ll be paid 15 mill this year and 16 mill next year, and he has a 2 mill buyout. I love the boy to death, but he’s had nagging injury problems and back problems for a couple of years now, and I doubt he’s going to turn back the hands of time to 5 years ago. He really isn’t worth ace money any more – sorry, but unfortunately, it is true.

What evidence is there that any team has any interest in trading for him right now, let alone giving us any good prospects for him?

I think that the days of the Braves giving 4 top notch prospects for 1 major leaguer with 2 team-controlled years are gone. I think the days of teams giving prospects for old and expensive non-ace pitchers in their last 2 years of a free agent contract are LONG gone.

The thing is that Drayton has to sell tickets. He is going to have a lot of trouble doing so if he appears to be getting rid of all his highly paid players so that he can lower the payroll by 50 million dollars while fans at the ballpark pay 6 bucks for a soda and 8 bucks for beer. If Drayton starts coming off like Jeff Loria, he will see his ballpark filled like Marlins Stadium (or whatever its most recent name is.)

Stars market a team. They do. Drayton CAN’T market very well with Wandy, Pence and Bourn – and a handful of cast-offs. IF he were to undergo full scale rebuilding of the sort that was done in the early 90s, he would have to make very VERY sure it didn’t look to fans as if he wanted an extra 50 mill for himself. AND he would have to populate the entire team with guys who appear to be rising STARS, not just Erstads or Cody Ransoms.

*crickets*

Well, Fast Eddie decided that Koby Clemens (age 23, 3B/C/DH at A+) .345/.419/.636/1.055 and Drew Locke (age 26, 2B/OF at AA) .338/.389/.531/.920 weren’t worth putting on the 40 man roster because, hey, who needs guys who can hit? You can add some crappy relievers like – and I am NOT making this up – Evan Englebrook, RH RP, age gonnabe 28, 25 IP over 21 G at AA (for his third year): minor league line over 6 seasons – 3.90 ERA/1.40 WHIP; 8.4 H/9; 0.6 HR/9; 4.2 BB/9; 7.3 K/9 over 448 IP.

Or hows about Jose G. Valdez, RH RP (age almost 27) picked up as a minor league FA from the Yankees, who posted this sterling line at AAA – 19 IP over 9 G: 4.19 ERA/1.71 WHIP (yeah, I know, small sample size) with a career minor league line of 3.58 ERA/1.31 WHIP over 518 IP: 8.7 H/ ; 3.6 BB/9; 6.9 K/9.

You don’t wanna hear about the other 2 guys put on the 40 man.

Fast Eddie has this obsession with picking up crappy relievers by the fistful, then signing crappy bench guys, then worrying about what to do with the ML roster. Me, I’d rather give the Bogusevic/Locke type guys a chance than watch tons of crappy ML rejects flounder around. For every Russell Branyan/Carlos Pena reclamation projects that succeed, there are hundreds of Jason Michaels/Matt Kata ones that don’t.

Natually, the Astros have zero interest in either of the 2 primo OF FA, Bay and Holliday, or the primo FA pitcher, Lackey. I’m sure that at the end of the season, we’ll be sure to sign some more Mike Hampton/Russ Ortiz/Shawn Chacon leftover dreck to keep any young guys who don’t have 1.00 ERA at the end of Spring Training off the starting roster. And we’ll also be sure to sign some more Erstad/Michaels/Cruz Jr. washed up bench guys so as to make sure that no young guy really has a chance.

And I know this because Justice has reported that the Organization told him they expect to be competitive – and around here, that means Old Guys. Until I actually SEE a young guy who isn’t one of Fast Eddie’s pets, like Bourn and Wright, being given any sort of REAL chance, I won’t believe it.

And really, the only news is that the Cubs signed some LOOGY for $$$ and that some other FA IF signed somewhere with someone. I suppose you’d call it “news” that Yankee and Red Sox fans are arguing over how Toronto should be grateful to take the Yankees crappy failed ML pitchers or the Red Sox low minor league guys. And the usual stuff about picking players for the Hall of Fame – how nobody is as good as The Guys Back In The Old Days who used to hit .360 and used to throw 300 innings/year for 20 years and 200 pitches a game every 4 days and still end up with a 2.00 ERA.

Last year, a huge vocal Red Sox fan group managed to convince too many voters that steroid-free Jim Ed Rice induced TEH FEAR!!!!! into hitters to the extent that he deserved HOF admission for his 5 good years in MLB. Did I mention he was steroid-free? And his rages were not roid? This year, it is good pitcher Jack Morris (he won the most games in the decade of the 80s!!!!! and beat the Braves 1-0 in a 10 inning CG in the 01 WS!!!!! nevermind the terrible record he otherwise put up in the postseason) who is getting the push from the baseball writers who are rebelling at the insidious, devisive and poisonous presence of the Keith Law/Rob Neyers of the world who use statistics other than ERA, complete games and !!!wins!!! to evaluate pitchers.

Whatever. I just hope that if roid-free “Old Skool” guys like Morris are going to get in, that hopefully the writers will also elect Andre Dawson and Tim Raines and Fred McGriff (hey, ALL steroid-free!!!! and GOOD GUYS TOO!!!!!) Of course, they will again omit guys like Roberto Alomar (too many teams and career OVAH at 33) and Barry Larkin (didn’t hit as well as A-Rod, which is how all modern SS hit) and Alan Trammell (see Larkin, and no MVPs either) and Bert Blylevin (so what if he was a better all around pitcher in every way than Morris? too many teams and Real Men Pitchers Win Games even without any run support when they pitch for crappy teams and besides, Cy Young votes shouldn’t be given to great pitchers on crappy teams.)

But we know that SOMEbody has got to be elected because MLB needs the pub in the middle of football season and the museum needs the money. Always comes back to money, doesn’t it???

And I hope all yall had a better Thanksgiving than we did. We had to put Phat Stuff Dog to sleep. Remember Phat Stuff? It was right after I brought him home from the pound that the Astros went on their 2004 sudden streak to the finish that gave us an unexpected post-season berth and Phil Garner the undeserved reputation as the guy who turned the franchise around as soon as he got here. I just hope that the Astros post season appearances haven’t been buried with Phat Stuff Dog.

Winning is, of course, valuable. And, of course, the point of pitching is to throw the ball in such a way that the other team is unable to reach base and score runs. This goes without argument.

However, the starting pitcher is not solely responsible for his team’s victory. Duh. He can lose a no-hitter if his fielders make errors and allow batters to reach base and come home to score. He can give up only one solo homer and lose if his hitters can’t manage to score.

These guys know this stuff.

They like to pretend that Back In The Good Old Days, every one of the 16 teams had 4 pitchers who pitched every 4th day, threw complete games every time, threw over 120 pitches/start without deleterious effect and pitched for 20 years. They have exactly zero evidence to support their contention that even during their own lifetimes, the majority of pitchers completed even half of their starts or threw well over 120+ pitches every start.

They could, of course, go back to game logs (in Retrosheet) and take a good long look at the quality of hitters in the league and see if, in fact, the other 7 teams had lineups with 8 solid hitters (they didn’t) and they would see that they seldom had more than 2 good hitters. Tango’s pitch count estimator shows that pitch counts Back In The Good Old Days weren’t different than they are these days.

Starting pitchers tire somewhere between 80 – 120 (give or take a few) pitches. With very few exceptions, they always have. If they throw significantly more than 120 in a start, they tend to tire more quickly their next start. Duh.

It is also well documented that the vast majority of the time, that pitchers get hit much harder the 4th time through the lineup and that fresh arms are usually much more effective than tired ones, which is why relievers have much lower ERA+ than starters. Most managers operate Tony LaRussa bullpens, and have a specific person to pitch the 8th inning and another specific pitcher to pitch the 9th.

Even if a pitcher threw 7 shutout innings every time up, he would still be at the mercy of other relievers as well as his hitters and fielders.

These media guys know this perfectly well. Why on earth they propose that essentially, the other team members’ efforts should be treated as totally irrelevant when considering a pitcher’s effectiveness, I do not understand.

Because the starting pitcher is not totally responsible for pitching the entire game he starts, because starting pitchers are no longer used as relievers (and acquire additional wins that way) and because they are dependent on the support of their own fielders and hitters, the pitching W/L record is hardly an accurate representation of the pitcher’s pitching abilities.

And the mainstream media guys KNOW this – and it is, in fact, why they didn’t award the 2003 Cy Young to Russ Ortiz with his NL leading 21 victories (and 4 something ERA.) Instead they gave it to Eric Gagne, who didn’t blow a save all year but lost more games (3) than he won (2). And, of course, a miniscule 1.20 ERA and (shudder) 0.692 WHIP, a sky high 6.85 K/BB ratio, and only 2 HR/82 IP.

Personally, I think they know only too well that the “best” pitcher is not always the one who has the most wins. They just want to grouse that those stupid dorks in they mama basement and their endless stupid acronyms are explaining why the ancient standards aren’t totally appropriate for evaluating the modern game. Yes, the modern game. Because some people want to pretend that there is no difference whatsoever between the baseball game that was played in 1900 and any baseball game played in 2009.

The hard cold facts are that there are more differences than similarities, in spite of the continuity of the rule book (with only a few changes.) Times change, people change, the way things are done change. And pitchers these days seldom pitch complete games because even if they are good pitchers on losing teams, Organizations want to be able to use those pitchers at a high level for a long LONG time instead of wrecking their arms by having them pitch 300 innings to demonstrate testicular capacity.

AND pitchers don’t want to throw their entire careers down the drain attempting to duplicate Mark Fidrych’s only glorious season. Some people hate the fact that ballplayers are paid more than, say, minimum wage employees, but they are, and they are going to be until this society no longer values athletes as entertainment, and the ballplayers are going to consider the consequences of their actions in light of their future employment.

Truth is that in spite of all the crying, the BBWAA members no longer believe that “Wins” are the best measurement of pitching excellence. They know very well that the best pitchers prevent hitters from reaching base, and prevent any men who do reach base from scoring by getting subsequent hitters out. They also know perfectly well that this ability may or may not be correllated to run support, fielding excellence and quality relievers. I know they hate the acronyms (or, like me, don’t fully understand them) but I also know they actually DO know that they are significantly more accurate than merely ERA or “Wins.” I know they are cognizant of changes because they use them in their columns to describe pitchers and because they no longer automatically award Cy Youngs for the most wins.

It’s that there is this Vision of how Things Used To Be – and back then, everything was Done Right. I understand. Back In The Good Old Days when I was a kid, MTV played videos 24/7 instead of the stupid un-reality shows and Baseball Tonight hosts discussed ALL the teams instead of 45 minutes of the Big 6, 5 minutes of 15 second excerpts of the Washington Generals’ games and 5 minutes of homers/web gems AND the networks/commissioner didn’t think it was a terrible thing if neither Yankees nor RedSox qualified for the playoffs (which they seldom did.)

Of course, the difference is that my vision is The Truth and theirs isn’t…

It’s a good idea.

Now Joe, he figured money into the deal, and I understand his reasoning, but I prefer to use the word “valuable” only in reference to the player’s actual performance notwithstanding his salary. ESPECIALLY this year, as only Michael Bourn and Wandy Rodriguez far exceeded their salaries as determined by WAR (from fangraphs.com) in which 1 WAR (win over non-existent replacement) = $4 million.

Now me, I decided to select a player whose appearance on the field not only yielded NO value, but actually cost the team wins.

And the winner is

JASON SMITH!!!

Don’t ask me why he was even put on the 40 man in the first place – some very VERY bizarre idea of Fast Eddie. Not only was he placed on the 40 man, but he was actually called up and unfortunately used in place of Edwin Maysonet, a far superior player, but, unfortunately, a rookie and we can’t be using Those People on a baseball field when we have the likes of Jason Smith and his lifetime 48 OPS+ hanging around.

With the Astros, he had 27 PA over 21 games (!!!!), NO hits, NO walks, 1 GIDP and 1 RBI groundout for a grand total OPS+ of negative 100. And no, it don’t get no lowern dat, it surely don’t. He also soaked up 34 innings in the field making 8 putouts and turning 5 DP (and not managing to turn 2 more, from my notes.)

I did consider Wilton Lopez, but by the time he was called up, the season was in dreadful shambles and hey, any live body who could get on the mound and throw the darn ball was a blessing.

RHP: Kenny Baugh (AA), T.J. Burton (AA), Jose Capellan (AAA), Casey Daigle (AAA), Tip Fairchild (Hi A), Abraham Gonzalez (R), Ryan McKeller (AAA), Billy Sadler (AAA) – I’ll talk about this guy because for some unknown reason, Fast Eddie picked him up offn the scrap heap – was a reliever most of his minor league career, was pretty decent. Made into a starter at Round Rock, had a 5.12 ERA, 1.64 WHIP, didn’t even average 4 IP/Gs; Charlie Weatherby (AA): the rest of the guys can be summarized as – um, massive suckage.
LHP: SP Mark McLemore (AAA) – injured a LOT, missed all last year, half of this year, unusually low K rate for him; SP Josh Muecke (AAA) – low K, high BB, WHIP 1.59 – as bad as last year at AAA; SP/RP Andy Van Hekken (AAA) – age 30, spent most of the year at AA, unremarkable except for low walk rate
1B: John Gall (AAA) ; LH Mark Saccomanno (AAA) – age 30, local boy, lead glove, minimal power for a 1B, .765 OPS his 3rd year at AAA
2B: Drew Meyer (AA) – age 28, a well paid 1st rounder, has a minor league OPS of .682 and had a .757 OPS at AA after 3 straight years at AAA. What is called a “bust.” Felix Molina (AA) – age 25, very little power, won’t walk, minor league OPS .699
3B: Chad Spann (AA) – age 25 – don’t know how his glove is, but I can tell you that Michael Bourn has more power
SS: Ronald Ramirez (Hi A) age 22 – pitcher turned SS who hits like a pitcher
OF: RH Reggie Abercrombie (AAA) age 28 – would have produced with glove and bat better than Erstad fer SHER, at 1/4 the price, but unfortunately, Reggie’s to Black to supply needed Grittiness; RH Ray Sadler (AA)- age 29, had 845 OPS at AAA last year, had no place to go with the ML club seeing as how we got Jason Useless Michaels, was let go, went to the Rays, sucked, came back, spent a few weeks at AA, sucked

How can I put this – any AAA guys who are allowed to become minor league FA very very seldom go on to become useful major leaguers. I mean, it’s possible, but hey, let’s be real. THIS Organization doesn’t have ANY useful AAA guys. And don’t hand me Reggie Abercrombie unless you have a lineup like the Phillies and need a PR/DR in the OF. He does hit some homers, but he strikes out more than Mark Reynolds. And while I am usually not real too upset about strikeouts, there IS a time and place to point out that poor strike zone judgement is not a good thing.

I’m going to check out the list from other teams, see if there just might could be anything good among the scraps.

And no, I don’t want Elizardo Ramirez.

To be nice about it.

Basically, almost everything I’ve glanced through has said something like – how the Yankees/Red Sox are going to trade for the young, cheap stars of other teams (Adrian Gonzalez, Curtis Granderson, Edwin Jackson, etc) for some cheap-o prospects/cheap rooks who aren’t exactly Evan Longoria type Grade A+ guys. And this is because San Diego needs to cut Gonzalez’ 4.5 mill salary (you GOTTA be kidding me, right???) and because Detroit needs to get rid of (of all people) Curtis Granderson’s 5 mill salary, which is choking the team (not Magglio Ordonez’ 18.5 mill) or some such nonsense. And besides, the Yankees/Red Sox deserve to be allowed to accumulate all of the good players (check out all the talk about how Joe Mauer IS going to be a Yankee in 2 years because the Yankees deserve the best and besides, Mauer must want to go to a winner, right?)

Part of it is that most of the national baseball writers are out of the closet Yankee/Red Sox fans.

but

Part of it is that a whole lot of owners are, in fact, at least talking about cutting payroll. (Like Drayton, you know.)

I happened across this article written by Nick Cafardo, which I found in a pile of Red Sox articles (you know that each paper has like FOUR reporters who write about baseball during the entire offseason. Our ONE reporter is lucky to be able to talk about the Astros getting some players to sign baseball for some charity or play golf or something. It feels like 2002, except that year’s team was a little better, but going nowheres. And there was almost nothing in the off-season Astros news. If ONLY we could find another Rojah.)

where was I?

Oh yeah.

Anyway, Cafardo was interviewing/quoting Scott Boras. Yeah, that guy. I know that a whole lot of people think that if he just up and disappeared then ballplayers would all want to play for free and the owners wouldn’t care if they made any money and would spend their OWN money and seats would all be a dollar again. Just enough to pay the electric and groundskeepers, right? (Enter the guys with the butterfly nets)

But if there is one thing Boras knows, it is money and how much money teams get and how much money teams spend and on what and on who. Yes, he has a few occasional screwups, who doesn’t, but his judgement of the market and who will pay what is simply outstanding. Check out a few quotes:

“We heard a lot last year about the impending doom of the economics of baseball, and they had another record year of revenues, $6 billion again this year, and the economy is better… So the real truth of baseball right now is a lot of teams are starting to identify their ownerships from the following perspective: that they have an ownership that’s going to pay off their debt by getting the revenue sharing and money they’re getting from central baseball – $80 million-$90 million a year – and they’re going to turn around and draw 1.5-2 million, make $40 or $50 a head. All of a sudden, they’re sitting there with $200 million in revenues and they’re spending $50 million, $60 million, $70 million on players.

“We have clubs who aren’t successful getting $80 million before they ever sell a ticket. The question is always going to be, in the end, what are they doing with that money? For most of them, they’re paying off their debt to purchase the franchise. So they become owners, debt-free, but they have not done a lot to contribute to the success of the game…. (they are) basically using our industry as a method for acquiring hundreds of millions of dollars in assets on the backs of the industry.’’

The fans have to look at it and realize that kind of revenue is available. The other part of it is I think we’ve proven time and time again that investment in players produces revenue streams and success points for franchises. Even in an economy where many businesses are struggling, in our industry, as I said last year, we’ve been able to keep revenues at a record level.’’

Cafardo didn’t suggest this, but I wouldn’t be surprised if many owners are cutting payroll and intend to pocket the difference to pay off their OTHER debts, and leave baseball fans in the lurch for the simple reason that they will not lose money if they lower payroll under what they will receive from MLB. They have zero reason to even try to p0ut a winning team on the field. So what if the Big 6 go out and get every single good player? So what if we end up in the “Golden Age” of the same 3 teams getting in/winning the WS? It would make the media deliriously happy and none of the owners would lose a penny.

Would the fans of the other 24 teams finally just lose all interest? Would all stadiums look like Marlins’ Stadium? You see how badly it has cut into Jeff Loria’s profits. NOT.

I think it will take a while before Drayton could get himself seriously into thinking – so what if this team is a bad losing team like the Pirates/Royals? Would he trade Oswalt/Berkman/Lee for a bunch of minor leaguers and have a 40 mill payroll and not care a bit that no one would show up to the stadium to watch that lousy team, even if he just made himself 40 something mill more? Not just yet, I think.

As I always say, people who insist that he sell the team had darn well better come up with the name of someone who will spend even more AND agree to spend HIS OWN MONEY and not mind that he loses HIS OWN MONEY every year. Yeah, surrrrrrre.

We all know that Drayton is not going to trade the Big 3 (unless they demand it, and we all know that Berkman and Lee are not going to agree to be traded and we all know that Oswalt isn’t going to fetch much, not with his injury history of late and not at that salary. We have no one to replace Wandy and any FA is going to cost a LOT more and require a longer contract and Pence is the fan fave who at least isn’t a serious negative on the team (like Francoeur with the Braves) and trading him would be dumb at this particular point. Fans WANT favorite players. Unless they are A’s fans and like Billy Beane trading off everyone every 2 years – how exciting!!!

But the fact is that Drayton either needs to commit to a team of young guys this year, even though they probably won’t be real too much better than last year, or he is going to have to go out and get more Jason Smith/Matt Kata/Mike Hampton type crappy fringe major leaguers. I don’t mind if he scrimps IF he agrees to buy good players in the draft. Thing is that he also knows that if he has a losing team for too long, that top FA aren’t going to want to sign – and it really WON’T be about the money (see Carlos Beltran.)

But

if he has gotten to where he understands, like David Glass/Jeff Loria that it really doesn’t matter if your team is terrible and will suck for the rest of eternity, he’ll still make money getting beat up by the Big 6 every year, then I don’t guess it will matter.

Meanwhile, Drayton and Pam have decided that putting butts in seats is good, and they are offering a nice deal for the Cheap Seats – Buy 2 season tickets, get 2 free. I swear if we had the money I’d go for it.

Yes, I know. I admit it. I’m not ready to kick the Astros habit and I’ll pick up that phone and call Astros Anonymous some other time. Hello, my name is Lisa and I’m an Astrosholic. But I promise that if Drayton decides that David Glass has been right all along, I’ll be the first in line to make that call…