Zach Levine got the same treatment in his article yesterday. What is wrong with being slightly optimistic about 2010?

Maybe you’re right and Berkman and Oswalt are in decline and done. But that’s not written in stone. You can’t just “get rid” of these players. Oswalt, Lee and Berkman have “no trade” clauses. But who’s to say they won’t have huge comeback years? As far as the rag tag comment……..what are YOU smoking. There are teams who would line up to get Pence and Bourn. Feliz has been a solid run producer for a championship team. Manzella is touted as one of the best defensive shorts stops the Astros have ever had. Jason Castro by all accounts is the real deal. Lee is always solid offensively and Bourn makes up for his lack of range in the outfield. Oswalt, Wandy and Norris have a legitimate chance to post a combined 45 wins with enough support. Lyon and Lindstrom are talented enough to lock down the 8th and 9th inning against any team. Rag tag is not even close to accurate.

In meant “2009” instead of “2008” in the above post.

But….Berkman had a bad year. We had basically nothing from Blum and Feliz is a better RBI producer. The pitching staff was good but look at the numbers…not huge win totals but very good ERA’s….is that pitching or defense? The 2010 team should be a much improved defensive club.

2005 team has to be the template because they went to the Series. I agree that this team will not be one of the Astros all time best. It would be foolish of me to compare the 2010 team to ‘80, ’86, and ’94. Those teams were stellar. I’m simply saying the 2005 team was good but not great. Everything had to fall in place. The 2010 team has a chance to contend in the division if it happens again.

As I said…If EVERYTHING falls into place.

The bottom three spots in 2005 were Ausmus, Everett and the pitcher. Now what we you saying about not being able to have those spots as sure outs??

I could not agree more about injuries….but every team in baseball can say the same thing.

I know this is off topic but in trying to find info on Brandon Backe, I saw Max Sapp’s name, but nothing new since June or so. Is he still planning to return to pro baseball?

Well, the 2005 pitching staff was the beneficiary of pretty good defense; Clemens, Pettite, and Oswalt all had very good FIP, but it wasn’t anywhere near as good as their tiny earned run averages would suggest.

We’ve upgraded our defense this off-season, so it’s possible, though unlikely, that the rotation could get overall results nearly as good as in 2005. The 1-3 starters won’t be quite as good even in the best case, but I like the back of the rotation better for 2010.

The reason our ceiling is around 85 wins (as clack said) is the offense. It’s going to be horrible.

They were both very good but to say that Wandy and Norris can’t combine for similar numbers (2005 #‘s) would be very short sighted. I’m not saying they will….I’m saying they can.

I’ll just say that I think that is a very optimistic comparison of the 05 and current team by position. Among other things, Ensberg is a HUGE advantage over Feliz. Ensberg had a good defensive season, and was one of the better defensive 3d baseman in the NL that year to go along with numbers that made him the best offensive 3d baseman that year….he also was No. 4 in the NL MVP vote. I don’t think the advantage in LF is as huge as you state; the Astros defense in LF in 2005 was very good, mostly because Burke was the principal LFer for the second half of the season, and was rated as one of the best LF defenders in the league (+24 UZR/150 in LF over 83 games. As for Norris vs. Backe, it isn’t clear to me that the difference is that great. Backe had a 4.76 ERA in 2005; my expectation is that Norris could have a mid- to low- 4’s ERA in 2010.

Allow me to plant these thoughts in your mind.

The cubs have made so moves good or bad its to early to tell.
They have taken a few steps backwards in their pitching. They are hoping for Lilly and Wells to step up. They did add Carlos Silva but he’s very inconsistent. They currently don’t have confidence in their closer (Marmol) and hope to pluck Capps out of free agency and he’s not air tight at all. As of today they don’t have a right fielder. So the jury is still out on the Cubs especially with new ownership.

The brewers have improved pitching with Wolfe and still could make so moves
Before you get to high on what they have done remember. Their set up man is LaTroy Hawkins who was good for us but not great. The Astros wanted him back because he was a cheap replacement for Valverde. They are also putting all their defensive hopes on a questionable middle of the infield. They weren’t very good defensively last season and they haven’t improved. They did get Wolfe but they still have Parra, Bush and Suppan in the rotation. They didn’t exactly go out and get Sabathia and a healthy Ben Sheets. Don’t forget Trevor Hoffman is 42. Will he be healthy all year?

The reds won’t have bruce slump as bad, and in general should have some more o with their young pitchers getting healthy
I agree…..but I don’t expect Berkman to slump as bad either. This is the team I am most worried about but there is a lot of talk about them moving Harang which would put a lot of pressure on some very young pitchers. Good thing for them is when (it’s not an if) their closer Cordero goes down they have 40 year old Arthur Rhodes to fall back on….or is that good for us?? huuuummmmm? They are very talented offensively and if the pitcher perform up to their ability they could win the Central easy.

the cards will still win a lot of games with carpenter and wainwright leading the staff, and they still are leading the Holliday race.
But they still haven’t signed him and I believe that if the Red Sox want him he’s theirs. Sox, Angels, Cardinals in that order for Halliday. Once new years rolls around we’ll know. The Cardinals are being somewhat tight with their money this year so it all depends on just how bad do they want him. No question about their pitching staff as long as it’s healthy. Their problem may be closer and IF they don’t get Holliday other than Pujols where does the offense come from. Offensively, the Astros and Cards are similar. The Cards just have better pitchers.

all in all asking a lot from a team that had a good second half to win 74 games.
We were 1 game out in June and then collapsed. Our problems came from Oswalt’s terrible year, Norris going through injuries and Moehler….well……we had Moehler too high in the rotation and Berkman not being able to get out of his own way.