Fear and Loathing in Houston

Evan here: Well the clock is ticking on Ed Wade making a trade to improve the Astros. With every movement of the minute hand, the fate of the Houston Astros for seasons to come becomes more and more apparent. There will be no moves to better this team down the line. There are 23 minutes left. Don't hold your breath. Put down the rabbit's foot. After winning 4 out of 6 games against divisional opponents, our chips are on the table- and we're goin' all in. Don't mistake this bravado for baseball intelligence. No, no- the Houston Astros of 2008 are not "stupid like a fox". They're most likely just, well, stupid. I hate to say it, because you won't find a bigger Astros fan than me. Or any of us, for that matter. We've all thought the same thing today- why can't Drayton see this team for what it is?? (20 minutes)How can he miss the forest for the trees? My answer is this: sometimes, those closest to the situation can't see the problem around them, no matter how evident. If you go to a friend's house, and all their family does is fight- you can leave thinking, "well, if Person A did this and if Person B did that and if Person C didn't do that the family could be a lot more cohesive." (19 minutes) We can scream until our lungs burst with frustration, but this is just how the current team braintrust is going to operate. To some extent I give them credit- they all want to win. Their avenues for arriving at the ultimate destination need to be seriously reconsidered, but their hearts are in the right place. Their minds however, need to be reconfigured. (17 minutes)


Let me preface this by saying that I defended Ed Wade's off-season moves until I was blue in the face this off-season. My logic was that should we try and fail this year, at least we had acquired/possessed a ton of tradeable pieces to re-stock and re-build at the trade deadline (which is fast approaching). Evan's and I's conviction in the fact that something like this would happen is what led us to picking up the blog again for this season. What follows is four three months worth of frustration and attempting to find a silver-lining in the cluster-f@*k of a season this has been only to continually just be shat on by our management.

The Astros acquired LaTroy Hawkins last night. It's a low risk move if you don't analyze it because Hawkins will be almost free to the Astros (we can pretend that this is not because the Yankees are just that pleased to get rid of him). However, to acquire Hawkins, we gave up Matthew Cusick who in 573 career AB at A ball has this triple slash: .293/.383/.455. Those numbers look good for a 10th rounder. Granted it's A ball, but at this point possessing someone who has upside in our farm system is like striking oil. LaTroy Hawkins was so bad as a Yankees reliever they released him. Outside of Mariano and Joba, try to name a Yankees reliever who isn't awful...that's HOW bad LaTroy Hawkins was this year so far. His control is terrible 5.1 K/9 to 3.8 BB/9, which you would expect from a 35 year old relief pitcher who's just never been that good.

Ok, enough of my baseball statistics nerdery. What does Ed Wade have to say about this deal?

On Hawkins' terrible year so far:

His overall numbers don't look all that great right now, but our reports on him over the last month or so, he's gone back and thrown more of his four-seam fastball and his velocity has been good.

Alright Ed. What you're saying is you know he's bad, but now that he's throwing the ball harder, the fact that he can't locate his pitches to not walk people will be ameliorated. Phew.

On giving up a projectible young prospect:

We like Matt. He's swinging the bat very well at Lexington, and he's had a good season down there. I had a chance to see him play a handful of games early in the season. We consider him a prospect, and obviously, the Yankees consider him a prospect also. But if you have a chance to add an experienced guy like Hawkins, and the price of doing business is a lower level bat, then it makes sense to go ahead and do something.

So we have this kid in our farm system who is doing some really outstanding things, but you had a chance to take a guy who is way past his prime (if there was one) in your bull pen. Which, by the way, is already full of decent but not great guys. Good call. It's not like this team isn't chock full of veterans who are declining rapidly in some aspect of the game or other. What the franchise has too much of is is talented young prospects to replace these guys -- hopefully sooner rather than later.

Well then Ed, how do you feel what you've done to help a team who have a negative 56 run differential while being 9.5 games back in the Wild Card race behind a scant six teams (I could have also just written: Have no hope of doing anything meaningful this year)?

We sort of went into this period of time looking to bolster our starting rotation, and get some more depth in the back end of the bullpen, and we think with Randy Wolf and LaTroy Hawkins, we've done those things.

You've added more depth that is for sure. You've also added a pitcher who's numbers are park inflated, and a reliever who is losing his ability to pitch effectively. In the process you've given up a pitcher who many thought would be the next Dan Wheeler and a A ball guy who was playing very, very well. This would possibly be excusable if the following things weren't true:

1. Our Starting Rotation would actually be improved by Randy Wolf.

2. Our Bull Pen would actually be improved by LaTroy Hawkins.

3. 1 and 2 would only be legitimate if the following weren't true:

A. This team weren't in the bottom of the league for .OBP and had prospects for increasing its run scored.

B. This team weren't buried in the basement of the NL Central by 13.5 games and the Wild Card by 9.5 games and six other teams.

4. If 3(A) and 4(B) are true, the logical plan would be to unload the movable and valuable talent on this team for as many talent prospects as possible, in an effort to make this Matt Cusick kid look like a schmuck in our farm system.

At this point, I feel inclined almost to root against the Astros, so that Ed Wade might get splashed with a painful and shocking dose of reality. So that we might have a front office rebuilding process and then further down the line a team rebuilding process -- once the front office is qualified (read: not lobotomized) to take on such an endeavor.

I just checked MLBTradeRumors to see if Ed Wade has just been playing the fool and suddenly sent an email to every GM listing his terms for Wandy, Miggy, Wiggy, the Bench Crew, Valverde, Brocail, and Geary in what would be forever considered one the saaviest moves ever to drive up demand elasticity for our guys...there was no such news. Damnit.

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