Carlos Beltran out according to Baseball Tonight

Wow, you put more effort into it than I did.

 

Apparently you missed "outside of the Astros organization". And Pettitte, Kent and Clemens were no discounts....please. What happened to resigning Alou, Wagner......let me guess, you have another one of you built-in lame excuses to back that up, your defense of Drayton is flat out wrong and old Max.

 

.....Also, Drayton had the chance to sign Clemens 3 years ago but Drayton balked at paying the money so Clemens resigned with the Yankees. Drayton cuts corners. Our payroll is 80 million dollars, nothing special even for a mid-market organization.

 

he made millionaires out of alou and wagner. frankly, i wouldn't have committed more money to alou at that point..alou proved us all wrong. he gave wagner HUGE money...don't pretend he didn't.

i'm not making excuses, i'm posting facts. the dollars out are on par with levels this franchise has never seen. they spend well enough to put a contender on the field. that's it.

how was pettitte a discount? the yanks cut off their bidding. they screwed the pooch on that one. he came down to two teams, and the yanks backed away. the number went where it went naturally.

clemens was absolutely a hometown discount.

kent's salary arrived where it arrived at in the exact same way pettitte's did. the giants dropped out of the picture. who else was bidding? who did he reject with a bigger offer to take up the 'stros.

and ultimately i don't give a damn if he got discounts or not...he brought the guys in!!! in a league of serious haves and have nots, he has managed to keep this franchise incredibly competitive. you can ignore the players he kept around all you want...but that's part of the picture, too...and can't be ignored if you're looking at this fairly.

 

So when McLane resigns Bagwell, Biggio, etc. it doesn't count because they are inside the organization, but when he doesn't resign Alou, Wagner, etc. it is bad?

It doesn't count when he signs Hidalgo and Berkman to big contracts YEARS before it is necessary? Berkman signed a 3 year deal that expires this season and he still can't be a free agent.

He doesn't resign Wagner, but he signed him to a HUGE contract to begin with. What has Wagner done this year - oh yeah, that's right, he's been hurt most of it.

I guess it doesn't count that the Astros pour money into their Venezuelan baseball academy.

I guess it doesn't count that he has spent the money to keep Hunsicker around either.

The fact is that every year since 1994 the Astros have been in contention for a playoff berth (in a league where only 4 of 16 teams advance to the playoffs) except 2000. There are few teams in baseball that can say that. I guess they have done that in spite of the owner?

 

Don't worry, most of us agree with ya MM.

 

Hunsicker balked at renegotiating an existing contract AND having to trade players (including Elarton who was considered 'untouchable' at that time) to acquire him. I suspect if he was a free agent, they would have met his demands.

 

all but a choice few agree with this. it's really not even a legit argument, particularly from the perspective of a long-time 'stros fan who never saw this team compete for free agents...never get involved in mid-season trades..and rarely compete at all for a playoff spot.

 

somone remind me why we kept Hidalgo over Abreu


carry on

 

madmax.. with andy though.. he was offered quite a bit more by boston if i remember correctly.. but wanted to either stay in nyc or go home... if it wasn't for the whole home thing.. boston would have blown us away in the bidding

 

bad call..but no one thought it was a bad call in 2000. or 2003.

 

That is the one question I would ask Hunsicker if I had the chance. His answer in general to that questyion is that they had to choose who to protect for the expansion draft - Hidalgo or Abreu. My question would be, why was it between those two? Couldn't you have kept both and left someone else exposed to the draft?

 

Simple-

2000:
Richard Hidalgo- .314, 44 HR, 42 2B, 122 RBI, 118 R, .391 OBP, .636 SLG, 13 SB

All while having a rifle-arm in the outfield.

That was the potential the Astros rightfully saw in Doggy (granted, Abreu's 6 straight 20-20, and possibly 2nd career 30-30 season is nothing to sneeze at).

Who knew that Hidalgo would bulk up too much/get too comfortable with a big contract/any number of things and not come close to reproducing those numbers?

 

Regardless, McLane offered enough money to persuade Pettitte to sign with Houston. and they are paying him $31.5 million for 3 years. Boston offered around 52 million for 4 years but Pettitte decided he could not pitch for the Red Sox. It was not the "hometown" discount that kept him from pitching for Boston (at least it wasn't according to Pettitte).

 

i don't know if that's true or not, frankly.

but should it surprise any of you that boston could outbid us for a player? it shouldn't. they have revenues far in excess of what the astros have.

 

my point was though.. I believe we got andy because everyone knew it was either stay in nyc or go home.. if the whole go home thing was out of the picture.. I think we'd have seen a lot more teams outbidding us for him. and the yanks did offer him 8 more or so more than us....

of course most in nyc will argue they didn't blow us out of the ballpark in bidding for andy because they were samrt enough to know of his injury problems..

 

The Astros made a mistake. Personnel mistakes happen to every team, I simply don't like the excuse they use to justify it. Abreu has had solid seasons every year since 1998.

For his career, Abreu has hit .304, OBP of .410 and slugging of .515 with more HRs, RBI and stolen bases than Hidalgo. They also have the same amount of outfield assists.

 

I bring up the injury thing because I don't think it's "hindsight".. I think we were all wondering.. okay.. why arent the yanks blowing us out of the water in bidding??? Why don't t hey want to offer him an extra year etc??? The NYC speculation was that they weren't blowing us out of the water because they were afraid of his injury problems....

I blew it off and was as happy as anyone to sign him.. but looking back should have taken seriously the fact that the yankees woudln't let a mid market team like us stay with them in the bidding war if not for a reason

 

So what. Alou didn't prove anyone wrong, he wasn't finished to begin with. What does getting paid on a prior contract have to do with getting paid on a resigned contract.

So did I, 80 million dollars is nothing special for a mid-market team. We'll see where the commitment is when it comes time to resigning Beltran and putting a true contender on the field. In which case, if we don't, I'm sure you will have some sort of excuse as to why we didn't.

It's not like we got into a bidding war with the Yankees and won by throwing out a number that topped that of New York's. Pettitte wanted to play here and played for a reduced rate.

Sure I like bringing in guys too, but I also would like to keep some of those as well, and Drayton has not signed anyone not named Bagwell and Biggio for market value. I haven't ignored the players he's kept around, for one, because I wasn't targeting the resignings of Biggio and Bagwell; and two, the good players we have kept around, either free agents or roster players, are so few and far between. There have been good moves and bad moves, I'm not trying to say everything has been a bad move, but it comes down to this: McLane is not the owner to go out and pay someone like Beltran open market value, period. He's committed to winning as long as it is within his tight (relatively considering) budget. If he resigns Carlos along with the others this offseason, I may change my tune.......a little, untill then he's been nothing but frugal.

 

Yeah, **** happens. Look at the Eddie Griffen situation...or lack there of.