Trades, Pads and Compensatory Picks

Tumbleweeds rolling, crickets chirping, Ed Wade bringing in an average at best starting pitcher. As Astros fans, we seem to be in a lose-lose situation. If management does do something, odds are it will be poorly conceived and cost the team money. If management does nothing in the next week, the team will have bypassed another good opportunity to strengthen our minor league system.

When this team was constructed, there were holes in the lineup and the starting rotation. If the Astros can’t get through the end of July without scrounging for bullpen help, the efforts Wade went through to create a new team this past off-season was all for naught. Trading away much of your bullpen from last year for an entirely new crop may have been the right move. Chad Qualls in essence yielded Jose Valverde, who despite Monday's debacle, has pitched well as the closer. When Dan Wheeler was sent to Tampa Bay, Ty Wigginton came in return and has played more than adequately, to the tune of an OPS+ of 113. He has helped to solidify a position that would have seen a Mark Loretta and Geoff Blum platoon day in and day out; negating two more chips to trade with. Michael Bourn has struggled, yes, but trading Brad Lidge to Philadelphia was the right move because despite having the break on his slider return to pre-2006 levels, the fact remains that every piece of that deal that came to Houston has been used. Geoff Geary has been a more than serviceable arm for the bullpen, and Mike Costanzo was sent to Baltimore in the Miguel Tejada trade. Michael Bourn is who he is: a speedster who has trouble getting on base. I know that is a strong indictment against a table setter, but until Bourn has 600 AB’s under his major league belt, I won’t completely dismiss his ability to be a competent player on this level.

While he has done just about everything he possibly could with the roster, farm system and owner he was given, I’d like to know what kind of GM Wade really is. He came to Houston as the man who drafted Jimmy Rollins, Chase Utley, Ryan Howard and Cole Hamels. But, what sort of stimuli does he respond to when the deadline approaches? This is a question that we baseball outsiders will probably never able to answer, as we aren’t privy to the information necessary to arrive at any conclusions. No question though, this will be the time that Ed Wade can define his first year as the Astros GM. As it stands right now, I doubt that he will be able to land another relief pitcher. Teams that are in contention have both greater needs and greater resources (i.e.- farm systems) by which to acquire players.

Stephen and I are were both under the assumption that Wade was looking to the future, despite the comments he’d given to the media in the past few weeks. Then yesterday happened. The only benefit I can see from this trade is that maybe Randy Wolf can put together a solid second half and qualify himself as a Level “B” free agent, thus giving the Astros another draft pick next year. If not, millions of dollars will have been in essence wasted. Jack Cassel could very well provide the same amount of success in the second half as Randy Wolf. Cassell has a very high HR/FB ratio, which should come down some in the second half if he pitches enough innings for the regression to the mean to occur. This is based of his 2007 season, in which he pitching sparingly, and like Wolf, luckily for the Padres. Wolf, as Stephen mentioned yesterday, has been unlukcy with his LOB%, but very fortunate in other categories. Moving from PETCO Park, which is an extreme pitcher’s park, to Minute Maid, which is neutral as far altering the runs scored/prevented in a game, should stand to bring him back to earth. There’s still more than a week left until the non-waiver trade deadline passes by, but Ed Wade’s first move is a head scratcher for sure.

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