I thought this passage from Richard Justice's Nov. 10 blog in the HC was interesting:

 "David Lakey recently was inducted into the Texas Scouts Associaton Hall of Fame. In eight years as scouting director of the Astros, he--and his assistant, Pat Murphy--drafted 35 big leaguers (with another three to five still in the pipeline). The MLB average is 2.5 players per draft. Lakey almost doubled that number, but he and Murphy were sent packing. Do you think the Astros regret those decisions?

When Ed Wade interviewed for the GM job, he told Drayton McLane that one bad draft can set an organization back three years. The Astros had about three bad ones in a row under Paul Ricciarini. Wade's first important hire was to replace Ricciarini with Bobby Heck."

"The Astros built a consistent winner through their farm system. Few teams worked the now-defunct draft-and-follow system or the Venezuelan market as well, and they also had a knack for finding quality, low-cost college seniors. But the talent has dried up this decade, and Houston has had to invest heavily on free agents to keep winning. That approach has proved costly, not only in terms of big league salaries but also in its affect on the club's drafts.

In three of the last five drafts, the Astros have forfeited their first-round pick as free-agent compensation. McLane has become more reluctant to offer arbitration to his own free agents, so only once during that period has Houston received bonus choices of its own. He also has been increasingly unwilling to buck MLB's slot recommendations. All three of these factors resulted in a disastrous draft in 2007.

By signing Carlos Lee and Woody Williams as Type A free agents, the Astros surrendered their first two draft choices. Offering arbitration to three of their own Type A free agents--Aubrey Huff, Andy Pettitte and Russ Springer--was a low-risk proposition that could have yielded three first-round picks and three supplemental first-rounders, but Houston declined to do so. The Astros couldn't try to compensate by drafting players with high price tags because McLane refused to exceed MLB's guidelines.

Houston thought it had signing parameters in place with its first two choices, third baseman Derek Dietrich (third round) and righthander Brett Eibner (fourth), as well as righty Chad Bettis (eighth). But they all asked for more than slot money and wound up opting for college over pro ball. The Astros spent just $1.584 million on the draft, $3.6 million below the average of the other 29 teams.

They also haven't been aggressive internationally, especially since former director of Venezuelan scouting and development Andres Reiner left the organization in February 2006. Reiner, a pioneer in establishing a Venezuelan pipeline, helped sign players such as Bobby Abreu, Carlos Guillen and Johan Santana, as well as the club's current top pitching prospect, Felipe Paulino. The Astros haven't brought in any comparable foreign talents in recent years."