How to Fix Things

The Astros have made many mistakes in the last fifteen years. Those mistakes can largely be confined to four areas:

1) Overusing Free Agency
2) Failing to invest in the farm system
3) Making shitty trades.
4) Failing to properly project prospects.

All go hand in hand. The Astros probably wouldn't have needed to overpay Carlos Lee if they had pulled the trigger on the Adam Dunn trade in 2005. They probably wouldn't have needed to trade for Tejada if the system had produced a major league shortstop with actual hitting power. Julio Lugo and Adam Everett were the only two produced in a long while. Neither were that great. Lugo was awful defensively and pretty bad offensively. Adam Everett may have been the greatest defensive shortstop since Honus Wagner, but he certainly didn't have the Flying Dutchman's hitting skills.

The last is a case for greater statistical analysis. Johann Santana, Bobby Abreu, and Mitch Meluskey were all players the Astros should have held on to. Instead, they were lost to other teams or were traded away. (Meluskey is a spectacular example of Hunsicker's problems. Meluskey was a great offensive catcher in his one season with the major league club - he was an awful defensive one, however - but he had attitude issues. Biggio and Berkman preferred Ausmus, so Ausmus was traded for. Meluskey spiraled into personal problems and was out of the majors in a few seasons. Hunsicker should have told the Killer B's to shove it on this one.)

So what can be done?

The first is to cut payroll. One of the most striking sentences in Moneyball comes from future Toronto GM and (oddly enough) Adam Dunn hater JP Ricciardi. He's talking to the new head of the Blue Jays and the CEO of the Rogers Corporation, Paul Godfrey.

"He had a reason for everything," said Godfrey. "Of all the people I talked to, JP was the only one with a business plan and the only one who told me, 'You are spending too much money ... These people [the lineup] are all replaceable by people you've never heard of.'"

"'Look ... I can make you cheaper and better. It'll take a couple of months to make you cheaper an a couple of years to make you better, but you'll be a lot better.'"

That's the thing: the Astros can be cheaper pretty quick, and the difference can be invested in player development. Instead of spending $15,000,000 on Tejada's annual salary, we can spend a fraction of that and spend $13+ million on coaches, trainers, the draft, and facilities. In a few years, the Astros will be exponentially better than Tejada would ever have made us.

Let's take a look at the Astros' payroll.

A brief list of the larger contracts (the ones not under club control):

Tejada: 14.8 million
Berkman: 14.5 million
Lee: 12.5 million
Oswalt: 13 million
Valverde: 4.7 million
Matsui: 5.5 million
Wigginton: 4.35 million

some of the smaller, but still kinda big:
Blum: 1.1 million
Erstad: 1.0 million
Loretta: 2.75 million
Geary: 1.25 million
Brocail: 2.5 million

Okay. The thing that immediately jumps out at me is how little we're paying Blum, Erstad, and Loretta. Combined, they still cost less than Matsui.

As for the big contract guys:

Valverde is being paid 3-4 times what we would have paid Chad Qualls.
Tejada is being paid more than Berkman.
Matsui is being paid more than Wiggy.

What we need to consider is what, exactly, we have gained by the marginally increased production from Loretta to Matsui at 2B.

The goal of the team is to make it to the playoffs. They can't do that (normally) without around 90 wins. Moving from Loretta's 90 OPS+ to Matsui's 102 OPS+ isn't worth the extra cash.

The same is true with Valverde. I've said before that his only value will be in turning him into prospects. We can only do that by trading him.

Ultimately, we have to live with the "big three" contracts: Oswalt, Lee, and Berkman. All have no-trade clauses. Only Oswalt could be talked out of it.

But everyone else is only contributing marginally to the club's expected wins. All could be replaced with either cheap minor leaguers or cheap veterans (like Erstad and Blum and Loretta) with little change in the quality of the club.

Let's look at the position of SS, as an example. Let's say, in this coming offseason, Wade trades Tejada to a rich, stupid team. We get a couple prospects in return, which we shovel into Corpus Christi or Salem and let set for a year or two. In the meantime, we need a new shortstop. Let's say we let Loretta go (not a bad idea. 2.5 million is probably too much for his services).

Chris Gomez (.294/.341/.340) went to the Pirates last year for $1 million. That's pretty reasonable. If we were to grab Chris Gomez next year at last year's rate and trade Tejada, we'd save $13 million and probably lose about the same number of games.

So who's going to be an FA next year at SS? From MLB Trade Rumors (my comments are in italics):

Orlando Cabrera (34) - too much money
David Eckstein (34) - not as much money, but still too much
Rafael Furcal (31) - same
Nomar Garciaparra (35) - overrated, and will want lots of cash
Cesar Izturis (29) - ditto
Felipe Lopez (29) - maybe, but unlikely to accept what we want to pay him
Edgar Renteria (33) - $12MM club option for '09 with a $3MM buyout - uh no
Juan Uribe (30) - how many shortstops do the White Sox have? Might be cheap enough, but probably not
Omar Vizquel (42) - will probably be retiring, won't take what we'll offer
Adam Everett (32) - AH HA! Now we're talking!

Everett is the perfect choice! His shitty batting skills mean he'll be offered next to nothing by virtually everyone. We can pick him up for cheap, sell Tejada for prospects, and reinvest the savings. zomgMatt, you're a freakin genius!

Plus, everyone in the clubhouse loves him and we can recycle his old bobbleheads. This general managing stuff is easy!

That's just one example. We can do it with pitchers, too. Particularly those of the closer type. Anyone who can be called up from the minors should be, and we'll just deal with their shitty skills for a season or two.

That's the cost. Two seasons of pain. At the end, though, we'll have a better farm system and lower expectations. It's a win-win.

I know what you're thinking. Toronto isn't exactly tearing up the AL East, why should we follow their lead?

Because we have an owner willing to commit $130 million in payroll a year. Imagine what we can do if we have that and some sensible fucking management.