2008 Astros Preview at Bucs Dugout

Having said that, a .500 record in this division is good enough that better than expected years from some starting pitchers  and/or great offensive years by the middle of the lineup could put the Astros in contention by adding 5 or 6 more wins.

I was critical of trading away young pitchers too. But in retrospect, some of the trades may not be as bad as you would make of them.  Lidge continues to have knee problems and will miss spring training, and now it is evident that Troy Patton, the best traded prospect (to Orioles), has serious shoulder problems which may require surgery.  I think the Astros gave up a little too much for Valverde, but I still like the trade a lot, mostly because I have always been a fan of Valverde's stuff.

The Baltimore newspapers quote Patton as saying that he first felt the shoulder pain after his second ML start.  That is what I was worried about when he was called up last year.  I went back and found my post when he was called up, for instance:

"What worries me...

about the Garner and Pupura quotes is that continuing to give him starts through the remainder of the season may not be a good idea.  The Astros need to be very careful with Patton's arm, given that he is only 21 years old.  A previous article indicated that Patton is approaching his career high in innings pitched. And you know his adrenalin will be flowing, and causing him to pitch harder than ever. It's fine to give him a taste of the majors and see how he does in an outing or two, but it is foolish to risk injury on a kid that young.

by clack on Sat Aug 25, 2007 at 02:52:14 PM EDT "

I know I repeated the same thought in later postings after the Astros continued to give him pitching assignments after the first start.  At the time, the Houston Chronicle blogs by Justice and Ortiz, etc., were urging the Astros to pitch Patton because of the rampant notion that the team doesn't move its prospects fast enough.  I feared that the Astros might react to those complaints.

I'm not sure the Stros will be contending for the playoffs, but I can say with good certainty that they'll be better than they were last year (how can they possibly be worse).  You went through and highlighted several areas where they'll be improved offensively, then went on to mention how much of a disaster our rotation was LAST year.  Without putting up any numbers, you dismissed our current rotation as a lost cause, but I'm of the opinion that we'll be surprisingly improved in that area, if only because we were so bad last year (subtracting Albers' and Jennings' combined 219.2 IP at 5.86 ERA can't hurt).  

The area you didn't bother to address was the bullpen.  You made it sound like Wade's moves were all willy nilly, but he clearly prioritized improving the bullpen and improving the defense.  It's funny how critical everybody was of Lidge and how broken he was, but as soon as the Astros trade him away, he's good again.  Our bullpen SUCKED last year, regardless of how good some of the pieces were in previous years.  We didn't dump the Qualls/Wheeler/Lidge of 2005.  We dumped the Qualls/Wheeler/Lidge of 2007.  Valverde should help stabilize the back end, and between Villarreal, Brocail, Paronto, Geary, Chacon,  Sampson, Paulino, etc., we should have the depth to have a pretty solid bullpen.  Time will tell.

I think the weakest and most unattended-to area of the club right now is the bench.  Losing Lamb is going to hurt.

I'm with Clack.  I think we project as about a .500 team.  They could surprise people in either direction, but I'd slot them above the Cardinals for sure.  Talk about a team without direction and with giant question marks in their rotation.

In the end though, thanks for the input and for sparking some discussion.  I'll be curious to read the rest of your previews.

I liked the move for Vilareal and Valverde. All the other moves were bad in my opinion. The problem for me is after 08. They have no future that I can see. Who will pitch in the future?

The most important thing for the Astros is the 08 draft.