Thursday, December 08, 2005

Astros news:

The Astros sign OP to a 2 year / 1.9 million deal. Meh. I don't much care for it. Yeah, Palmeiro is all right - he plays solid defense, works counts, and has put up OBP's of .336, .344, and .341 the last three years, which aren't terrible for a bench playear (though he has no power). But he's also 37 and we gave him a two year deal? Where does that leave Luke Scott? It's not a terrible signing, but if we give Ausmus this exact same deal I'll be pissed.

Astros rumors:

Taveras + ?to the D-Backs for Javier Vazquez

Scott Barzilla is fighting the good fight on the Astros Daily message boards for this trade. Go check them out if you want more info. Here's my take:

Taveras is a young CF who is likely to improve, but he just put up a .666 OPS with 25 walks and 20 extra base hits in 592 AB's. He has value since he's cheap and plays good defense and steals bases at a decent clip, but he's not that great.

Javier Vazquez has demanded a trade from the D-Backs, and he's set to make 15 million over the next 2 years. His numbers don't look that great (4.91 ERA with the Yankees last year, 4.42 ERA with the D-Backs this year), but he's pitched in some tough parks and his BB / K ratio (a great indicator of future success) is superb. He is a bit of a flyball pitcher, so he'll give up his share of HR's at Minute Maid, but the guy is only 29 years old, extremely durable, and has a career BB/ K ratio of almost 3.5. If we did this trade without throwing in too much else, I would like it quite a bit. A front three of Oswalt / Pettitte / Vazquez would be really nice.

There have been rumors that a few teams have been interested in Adam Everett, but we've told them forget it. WHY??? At least listen to what they're offering!!

Miguel Tejada wants out of Baltimore. I don't think they're going to trade him, but if he wants out, look into it. He's making 48 million the next 4 years but he'd be a huge upgrade over Everett at SS. I don't see it though.

More later, gotta run.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

As far as I'm concerned, there is nothing wrong about Ausmus. Ok, so he's not as solid defensively as he has been in the past and his offense is, at best, anemic. But he did improve to a .300 batting average after the allstar break in '05 and had a high OBP in that time period. Oh, and he was the lowest as far as errors as well. I do agree, however, that the pursuit of retaining Ausmus is for the hope of Clemens returning and of the drought of solid catchers this year, especially after Hernandez signed to Baltimore.

Anonymous said...

Jack,

I noticed you mentioned the boards over at Astrosdaily. What's your screenname over there?

BTW, I agree on OP and Ausmus, but don't mention it to those folks there. They don't want to hear logic right now.