MVN: Most Valuable Network

I hate the winter - like another famous Texan, I stare out the window and wait for spring so I can watch baseball...

Because all we Stros fans have is the Lukewarm Stove.

It was right about 5 years ago, after the end of the 03 season, that Billy Wagner famously remarked that Drayton McLane wasn't willing to spend the money necessary to make the club winners, instead of settling for second.

"It's going to be a tape job," Wagner said after the (2003) season finale. "It's not like we're going out there and getting any marquee pitchers."

And within a few days after the end of the WS, McLane traded Billy to Philly - for Zeke Astacio, who was incredibly, grossly overvalued, Brandon Duckworthless and Taylor Buchholz, another guy who didn't tell management he was injured and got shipped off for Jason Worthless Jennings. (Anyone besides me notice that players not telling the management they were hurting injured occurred with unnecessary frequency over the past 5 years?)

Anyway, seems it is deja vu all over again. Crummy manager, team finished behind the Cubs, had a couple of great players and at the end of the year, seemed management was not willing to go out an acquire the players necessary to finish first, as they did in the old Larry Dierker days.

The farm wasn't great at the end of 03, but it certainly wasn't as completely empty as it currently is.

Drayton lucked into Andy Pettitte with a lowball offer, after the Yankees didn't try hard enough to keep him, and then he hit the jackpot BIG time with Roger.

That kind of deja vu ain't happening again. This year is gonna be, at best, another tape job. Randy Wolf/Mike Hampton are not 2003 Andy Pettitte by ANY stretch of the imagination, let alone Roger.

sigh 

The Marlins naturally got rid of any player who would be earning over a mill and unfortunately, the Astros didn't seem to even bother to try to get any of these guys - Gregg, the closer (we could have traded Valverde for prospects) or Willingham, a decent and cheap OF or Scott Olsen, a very young but erratic lefty who does not fit the goody 2 shoes image of the Astros. But thing is - even if we didn't keep him, we could have flipped him.

Now look at them GMs, that's the way you do it
You work the cell phones on that MLB
That's called trading, that's the way you do it
Prospects for players and uh, um

oh yeah - we ain't got no prospects because Drayton wouldn't pay to get good ones or agree to offer arb. Nevermind...

Where was I? Oh yeah. Trades.

If they have no plan to give Towles another chance (and I don't think they do, judging from what I'm hearing - hearing between the lines, that is) they certainly need someone to augment Quintero, who is terrible. I am always surprised that the same guys who wanted to throw Brad Ausmus out on his ear don't sem to be saying anything about Quintero. I don't get it at ALL.

Ignoring defense, Quintero's lifetime OPS+ is 52 and his line is .230/.271/.304/.575 - he's 28 years old and I seriously doubt he'll be improving. He has 391 ABs and 16 BB and 17 GIDP. Last year, his OPS+ was 51 and Brad Ausmus' was 60. And Brad was 39 years old. Actually, In even the past 10 years - with Brad being OLDER than Quintero, Brad didn't have an OPS that low. And he had a better OBP every year as well as a better SLG - not that Brad was exactly Mr. Slugger.

I don't want to sign Varitek (who is just Brad Ausmus except not as hot) or Ivan Rodriguez - they are Type As and Bor-ass clients as well. I'd rather sign David Ross, who is actually decent and was let go by the Reds for reasons I don't get.

He's another guy with a low BA (but if the Astros fans are happy with Quintero's suckulosity, they best not complain about Ross, whose line is .222/.309/.435, which comes out to be a 90 OPS+ which is almost twice as good as Quintero's. Plus which, he grounds into a LOT fewer DP.