The Astros just took 2/3 from both the Rays and the Red Sox, bringing the Astros overall record to 39-43. If the Astros play above average baseball for the next two weeks, they very well could get their record to the .500 mark. If you are an Astros fan, you should think long and hard about whether or not this is a good thing or not.
If you wonder if I'm suggesting whether or not you should be cheering against your home town team, my response is that I will leave that for you to decide. But what I am saying is that I think that there might be good reasons to cheer against your home town club for the next two or three weeks.
In making this case, I operate under several key assumptions. First, no matter what happens for the remainder of the season, the Astros will not win the World Series. It would take a miracle for the Astros to win the Wild Card, and even if they did, I can fathom almost no possible scenario where the Astros beat teams like the Phillies or Cubs, much less the Red Sox, Rays, White Sox, or Yankees in the playoffs. It just isn't going to happen. The Astros don't have the arms to compete with those teams, and in the post season, pitching is what wins games. If you need evidence that pitching is what counts, remember that the Astros' '04 and '05 playoff runs were fueled by phenomenal pitching staffs and also remember that the '05 run occurred in spite of a generally anemic offense. Don't let the Astros recent success against the Red Sox and Rays fool you, both of those pitching staffs win out 90% of the time in a seven game playoff series against the Astros.
My second key assumption is an offshoot of the first: not only will the Astros not win the World Series, but the chances that they will make the playoffs are slim to none. Currently, the Astros trail the first place Cubs by 10 full games, and trail the Cardinals and Brewers by 7.5 and 5.5 games respectively. The Astros have almost no chance of catching the Cubs, and their catching the Cards and Brewers seem comparably slim. I also see the Mets, Marlins, and Braves all playing better baseball in the second half of the season so even if the Cards and Brewers were to faulter, it is likely that the Astros would face competition from one of, if not all of those teams for the Wild Card.
All of this information is relevant because if the Astros are still within double digits of the Wild Card at about the two week mark after the All Star break, there is no way that the Astros trade off any assets and start building for the future. Drayton has seen his team get hot in the second half too many times, and he is a bit too nieve to consider selling Roy or Jose Valverde with a team "in the race" (although 7 1/2 games hardly strikes me as in the thick of the race). Drayton very may well be right that the Astros could make some sort of run, but any sort of run will likely fall short of the needed number to win the Wild Card. More likely is the Astros end the year around .500.
Frankly, if we are going to finish at .500 with the players we have, I would assume see if we can land some prospects in return for Valverde (or if we get a fantastic offer, even Oswalt)and infuse the organization with some young hotshots so that the team might be a good team in two years. Seriously, if given the choice between being an around .500 team for the next three years or finishing 20 games under .500 for this and next season but then being a legitimate contender for the NL central the five years after that (which is what could happen if the Astros landed a couple of stud prospects in return for Valverde or Oswalt), which would you choose?
I'm not saying that you should cheer against the Astros to have a bad three week so that they start to build for next year, that's your decision. But whether it's in the Astros' long term best interest to be crappy for the next three weeks is a question worth thinking about.
Monday, June 30, 2008
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