Let's start the week off by looking at what the Astros did before and during the 2009 season. No major trades went down, nor were there any major signings. In fact, it sounds much like I'm sure this offseason will. Please give me your own take on the moves in the comments and what grade you'd give to Ed Wade for last season.
Move One: Signed Mike Hampton - The lefty Rob Lowe came at a bargain, earning 2 million dollars with 2 million in performance bonuses. I'm not sure if he met those, though. Hampton proved to be just what we thought he'd be: a little below league average and not very durable. For the money, though? You're not going to get much more.
Move Two: Signed Ivan Rodriguez - As a catcher with the Astros, it's fair to say Pudge failed. He started enough to break the record, but was pretty terrible when he did play. His OPS+ of 75 seemed to belie what fans saw on the field. It appeared that Pudge was having a meaningful impact on games, though his stat showed differently. Look at his splits in close and late situations, though: .359/.388/.406. Go even deeper, and you can see his numbers in high leverage situations: .280/.313/.320. Of course, this was offset by the fact that Rodriguez struck out all three times before getting to the late innings. He was a frustrating player, but his signing wasn't terrible, just ill-conceived.
Move Three: Signed Jason Michaels - Another guy who should have been better than he was. His career average of .269 should have made the Astros bench stronger, but Michaels couldn't put it together and struggled for much of the season. It also didn't help that he wasn't the best defensive replacement as a fourth outfielder. Still, who else were you going to get for 750K?
Move Four: Signed Russ Ortiz - With Hampton, he formed the "Let's Hope the Old Pitchers Can Revive With Us...Oh, Wait, HGH and Steroids are Banned...We're Screwed" duo. It's not the catchiest of names, but it is effective.
Move Five: Re-signed Doug Brocail - Doug was a pleasant surprise in 2008, but injuries derailed him last season. Who'd have predicted that the 42-year old reliever would have injury trouble? They're usually so reliable...Considering Brocail had injury trouble two years before, the Astros did well by stocking up on relievers with minor league deals, just in case. Was it 2.75 million well spent? Probably not.
Move Six: Re-signed LaTroy Hawkins - As I mentioned in my reliever rundown, Hawkins proved to be a reliable reliever for a second straight year. Whether this was due to the league he was in or to some sort of mechanical adjustment, the Astros have more than reaped the reward for a 3.5 million dollar contract.
Move Seven: Claimed Jeff Fulchino - Waiver claims like this show just good your advance scouts and major league scouts have to be. Fulchino provided a nice addition to the bullpen when Backe and Brocail both got hurt. Plus, Fulchino came much, much cheaper than either Hawkins, Valverde or Brocail. Oh, by the way, according to FanGraphs, he was also worth 3.4 million, which is more than all three of those relievers combined.
Move Eight: Signed Aaron Boone - I won't be glib here, since Boone had to go through too much this season. I respect the hell out of him for coming back and playing late in the season, but the Astros had to have wanted more out of him on the left side of the infield than they got. Still, here's hoping Boone continues to be in good health and can be a productive player, if he so chooses.
Move Nine: Claimed Chris Coste - The former Phillie probably wishes he were in the World Series right now instead of the unemployment line. He should have been a lefty specialist off the bench, but hit worse against lefties than righties. Coste also didn't provide the pop the Astros needed when Berkman went down with an injury. Would they have been better served calling up Mark Saccomanno?
Move Ten: Traded away Ivan Rodriguez for Jose Vallejo and Matt Nevarez - This trade would have looked even better if the Rangers had made the playoffs and had to throw in another player. Still, the Astros basically paid 1.5 million for these two prospects. Not too shabby...
Move Eleven: Traded Drew Sutton for Jeff Keppinger - Boone's heart condition probably necessitated this trade to shore up the left side of the infield. As one of the commenters pointed out in the Mackanin post last week, Keppinger was only played at short after Mackanin put him there. Kepp did an okay job filling in for both Tejada and Blum. This trade happened before Chris Johnson broke his hand, but was certainly fortuitous. The Astros really didn't have anyone who could fill in for Blum on a regular basis.
Move Twelve: Claimed German Duran - This was a move for next season. We'll have to wait to see if Duran can contribute before passing judgement on it.
Overall, it was a mixed bag for GM Ed Wade. He made all the moves he could with no budget, tinkering around the margins and getting somewhat solid players. In both trades, it appears he got value, as Kepp is a good bench player and Drew Sutton didn't make much of an impact in Cincy, getting 66 big-league at-bats with an OPS+ of 68.
The Pudge signing was mandated by Drayton (I think), but give Wade credit for standing up to his owner enough to flip Rodriguez for some value. As disappointing as 2009 was in so many ways, Wade hasn't been among them. He's proven he can let Bobby Heck work his magic in the draft and can make those little moves that Gerry Hunsicker used to make so well.
Overall grade: B
0 recs | 18 comments
I'd agree with a B
I think he does a wonderful job finding those deals on the waiver wire.
Timothy De Block - November 2, 2009
Yes, I agree with the grade and general conclusions.
In addition to Fulchino, Arias was plucked off waivers toward the end of the 2008 season, another great pick up in the bullpen.
I don’t think the Hampton signing (or Ortiz signing, for that matter) was bad, per se. The mistake was believing that Hampton was a candidate for No. 2 or No. 3 rotation starter. Wade seemed to believe that Hampton is a cheaper version of Randy Wolf. If Hampton had been signed for the No. 5 rotation slot along with a higher level free agent, like Wolf, the signing would look very good. The Ortiz signing was a good signing, considering the cost, which was less than a million dollars. Ortiz was a long shot to be on the 25 man roster when he started spring training, and he ended up contributing through 2/3 of the season…that’s not a bad signing. What’s bad is that Hampton and Ortiz were the only signings.
While we’re on the starting pitchers, what about losing Fernando Nieve on waivers during spring training? That was a bad move, in my opinion. Nieve’s performance for the Mets seemed to prove that the Astros had mis-evaluated his ability. However, it probably wasn’t critical, given that Nieve suffered a season ending injury later for the Mets.
It’s hard for me to say much bad about the Pudge signing. He was cheap, and I don’t think the Astros could have gotten a catcher as good for the money. At the time, the Astros were facing an impending disaster at the catcher position, with Towles and Quintero hitting poorly in the spring, the Astros forced to void their free agent catcher’s contract, and the Rule 5 catcher pick getting injured. Pudge saved the Astros from facing a more significant problem at catcher during the season.
clack - November 2, 2009
now that I think about it, I might lower my grade to B-
Wade gets the grading benefit , from most of us, in knowing that McLane put strict financial constraints on him. But I did not like the way that he tends to lock up bench players and role players early in the off season (or late in the previous season, in the case of Erstad Moehler) at $700,000 to $2 million contacts. Individually the deals don’t look bad. But if you add them up, they could be the difference between affording a higher quality free agent 3d baseman or pitcher. It seems like he spends the money on these guys, and then he didn’t have any money available when quality players were signing for $5 million or so late in the off-season. The Michaels signing, by itself, wasn’t bad, but why sign him that early, when it’s likely that he, or a similar, player will still be available late in the season. Not a big deal, I suppose, but it didn’t seem to me that Wade made the best of a bad financial situation.
clack - November 2, 2009
Agreed, I was thinking about that a little as well. Probably should have used his scouts’ noses for waiver claims and rule 5 for the backup roles, as well.
OremLK - November 2, 2009
Are we grading Ed Wade through the mid-season, or just the off-season?
It’s hard to disagree too much with yours and clack’s opinions on the off-season—I don’t agree with all of the moves Wade made, but I can understand them and find them reasonable.
But if you work the mid-season into the picture, that’s when Wade really screwed up, in my opinion. At least one of Hawkins, Valverde, or Tejada should have been traded at the deadline. It’s true that we were only 4.5 games back, but that fails to acknowledge all of the big moves the Cardinals were making, not to mention all the injuries the Astros were dealing with at that point. Catching them at that point was beyond “long shot”.
Furthermore, it’s difficult to understand why Cooper kept his job as long as he did. He should have been gone by mid-season, not the end of the year.
The wild card of course is, how much did Drayton have his fingers in the pie. It’s not hard to imagine him preventing Wade from selling for perception’s sake, or holding onto Cooper too long because of Selig.
OremLK - November 2, 2009
I can’t disagree about not firing Cooper earlier. But I would be engaging in hindsight to say that the Astros should have made those trades at the deadline since I strongly opposed making the trades at the time. And, based on the time period and standings, I would still have that opinion. Now the error will be letting Tejada or Valverde go without offering arbitration, since the arbitration option is one of the reasons I opposed trading them. The Astros were in contention and they had a lot of bad luck subsequently, and the Cardinals got very lucky with their acquisitions. No one could predict that the Lugo, DeRosa, and Holliday transactions would have the immediate offensive impact that they did…and that was a lot of luck for the timing of hot batting….look at how the Cardinals’ offense later slumped at the end of the season and in the playoffs.
clack - November 2, 2009
I’m not saying a reasonable case couldn’t be made for trading these guys at the time—after all, we had debate on this web site over it, with good arguments on both sides. I think either direction was reasonable….and I wouldn’t knock Wade’s grade because of it.
clack - November 2, 2009
I’m just remembering that Oswalt had just gone down with back problems and gotten an injection for it, and Berkman was on the DL. Even with a healthy rotation, I never believed Hampton and Ortiz could be true #3 and #4 starters consistently. Without Oswalt, our pitching was dead in the water, and without Berkman, so was our offense.
The timing of these things combined with St. Louis acquiring a very hot Matt Holliday and going on a tear. All signs pointed to a season-ending collapse, and that’s what happened.
OremLK - November 2, 2009
My memory was that the Oswalt and Berkman injuries happened so late in July that on deadline day, it would have been hard to predict how much either would be able to contribute to the rest of the season.
As of July 31, we were basically at .500 (51-52), and I wouldn’t be surprised if Wade was working the phones, but couldn’t put anything together. Valverde and Tejada had hard-to-move contracts and Hawkins has a reputation for not being able to get the job done as a closer. I wasn’t terribly upset that they stood pat at the deadline…I’m generally of the belief that if it’s a coin toss, you go go for it. But I would have been upset had we traded those guys and gotten less-than-fair value in return.
AstroAndy - November 2, 2009
Well, the timing of Oswalt’s back problems didn’t leave much time for trading. The trade deadline was July 31 and Oswalt’s back injection was July 30. The doctor who gave the injection thought that Oswalt would return to the rotation within the week at his normal performance level (or so the news articles said at the time). Really the Astros needed to decide what they were going to do at least a week or more earlier, in order to have time to work on trades if they went that route, and the situation looked much different then.
clack - November 2, 2009
Andy, didn't see your post until after I wrote mine.
clack - November 2, 2009
Fair points, but one other thing to note is that we never heard a single rumor, to my knowledge, that trades were being explored for any of the three. It makes me suspect that Wade didn’t even seriously explore the possibility. I doubt he would answer if asked, but I would love to know for certain what actions he took at the deadline. If he was on the phone all day trying to hammer something out that’s a very different image from the one I’m picturing, I suppose.
OremLK - November 2, 2009
Ed Wade usually keeps thing close to the vest when it comes to personnel decisions, so it’s possible that he was making phone calls and we just didn’t hear about it. Tejada, Hawkins, and Valverde are not big names that are going to create interesting trade rumors.
I do agree that more should of been done at the trade deadline, as I was one of those who was in favor of dealing off some of the veteran players to fill the prospect pool. It would of been nice to hear some rumors, but you have to wonder if any big name prospects would of even been considered for some of our Veterans.
Timothy De Block - November 2, 2009
Hmm. . . I disagree
Really? A former AL MVP? (One who made somewhat iniquitous headlines off the field as well.) The 2007/2008 NL saves leader?
I’ll give you Hawkins, but IMHO I think Tejada and Valverde are big enough names to generate buzz, if there had been any buzz to be heard.
Danyah - November 3, 2009
Tejada went from 32 to 34, there’s also the issue of the lying to the government, and he’s also a declining shortstop entering his twilight years. He might have the reputation of a big name, but he’s not a big name anymore. Valverde might have the most saves in 2007/2008 but saves as a stat are overrated and while Valverde is a very good closer I don’t even know if he’s a top 5 closer.
Timothy De Block - November 3, 2009
My impression (as speculative as it is) is that Wade probably didn’t go out of his way to offer the veteran players to any teams, but listened to any offers that were made for them, if there were any. The reason I say this: (1) Both sides said that the Pudge trade didn’t happen because Wade was trying to deal him, but rather that the Rangers came to the Astros with the idea, which Wade considered and eventually acted upon; and (2) Wade made it fairly clear prior to the trade deadline that he was not looking to deal his veterans, or deal for anyone else’s veterans. I think the Astros made a rational decision on their trading strategy sometime in early to mid July, and went from there. If someone came forward with a trade which was attractive, they probably would have considered it, but they weren’t pursuing a course of actively getting rid of players.
clack - November 2, 2009
next yr
remember,, in july we were 2 games out of lst….loss of relievers was main reason astros fell apart….and a general nightmarish pitching situation….hampton..ortiz..chacon…were major mistakes…next yr…norris, wandy, oswalt…valverde?? fulchino…and other pitchers…a bunch of them got major league tryouts and experience… we need at least one reliable 200 inning pitcher…besides what we have…. berkman in truth had a good year…not super…he had a good obp…lots of walks…why do they keep walking him…arent they afraid of those who hit behind him??? tejada is over the hill…well, not quite maybe…should offer him 2m and 3b…take it or leave it….his salary subtraction should provide some flex…mike
Mike HJALM - November 2, 2009
I agree with some of your points. As for Berkman and his walks, he has done that his whole career, even when a healthy Jeff Bagwell or Jeff Kent was batting behind him. Berkman simply has good plate discipline. It’s one of those traits which makes him a great player.
clack - November 2, 2009
You must Login with your SB Nation account and be a member of The Crawfish Boxes to post a comment.