Shalom, everybody!

It's Yom Kippur! And since Tulane has a roughly 30-40% Jewish student body, we get the day off. Doesn't help me much, since I only have one class on Thursdays, anyways, but it's a nice gesture, even if I am Catholic.

So the Astros started making cuts. My favorite comment from the Astros website on this is from "Tranquillado": "That's a shame about Borkowski. Oh, wait, no it's not." I chuckled pretty hard at that one.

I suppose they're making room for FA's and draft protection. However, Drayton's said they probably won't go after the big-name FA's this season. I don't know how I feel about that. As I've said before, it seems like Drayton and Wade are half-assing the whole thing. They need to either pick the "spend a lot of money and get free agents" route or the "rebuild the farm and get good later" route. I favor the latter, but they have most of our big pieces locked up. Lee, Oswalt, and Berkman all have no-trades. Tejada is untradeable. Only Valverde and Wigginton might command something special. So you might as well go after free agents this winter. Whatever.

In other news, Jason Castro apparently led the HWL with a .438 BA in his first week. He now is 5th. Still, that's pretty good. He's only walked three times (2 BB, 1 IBB), but he's doing well. He only has two doubles, however.

The Astros took a lot of shit for drafting Castro. I know that I would have preferred Smoak. But I think that Wade was really drafting for signability, allowing him to spend later (as with Seaton). And Castro had done fairly well in low-A. He's not hitting for the kind of power that one would like, but he's walking about 11% of the time and can add power. And there's really nothing wrong with a guy who just hits for average and has a good OBP. It's, sadly, kind of a lost art. Ichiro is commonly thought of as that type of player, but (unlike Tony Gwynn, for instance) he hardly ever walks. We're looking for more of a Wade Boggs type player.

So if Castro turns into that type of player, that's fine. Hitting for average and the occasional double or homer while still walking makes you a great player. And it's the kind of player that really helps out teams, especially when you've got sluggers behind you.

I guess that's the bright side of the Astros not signing anybody significant. We at least won't lose any draft picks. And maybe Wade can really build a good farm system.