whew…. dodged a bullet there

This is exactly what I hoped for. Not just Jose turning it down, but the Betancourt/ Rockies arb was important to me as well seeing as how The Rockies would have aggressively perused Hawk if Rafy passed. But he didn’t and now we have one less competitor while trying to resign Hawk, which is what I wanted all along.

What/who should we spend the $6 mil or so saved on?

Thanks Jose I enjoyed your time with the Astros and hope you did too. Good luck wherever you pitch next year!

I would probably prefer to spend that cash on pitching. (J.Duch., Sheets, C.M.Wang, maybe even Chan Ho for the Pen, I dunno just some quality depth)

For 3B take a chance on a non-tender, (Andy Marte or someone) or a Rule 5 guy and hope for the best. Pretty much all the FA 3B’s left have their hangups and wouldn’t be worth the money imo.

making a minor deal to get Kevin Kouzmanoff to play third, would you rather have kk, crede, atkins or johnson/blum playing third? its tough to tell

Beltre or DeRosa would be good…. except for the fact that they would cost nearly what valverde was going to, not to mention draft picks, not our first but still

Hopefully the stros can bring in someone that has a chance to be a quality 3rd starter for cheap, most likely myers, but im open to pretty much anyone else too

at closer it would be nice if we had 2 out of 3 between hawk, m. rodriguez, and putz, but just one would do

if brocail’s shoulder is feeling good, id grab him on a minor league deal too

at catcher i’m really hoping john buck gets non tendered by the royals, and we sign him, let Q go

what if the astros got Bedard on a 2 year 18 mil dollar deal? signed Buck, Crede/ or traded for Kouzmanoff, and brought back hawk, or in putz; call me crazy but i think that team has a shot to make the playoffs

i mean look at this possible roster:

Starters: Roy, Wandy, Bedard, Bud, Moehler/Paulino/Wright/Sadowski
Pen: Sampson, Byrdak, Fulchino, Arias, Gervacio, Hawk/Putz, Brocail?, Lopez, Wright, Rule 5
Infield: Berkman, Keppinger, Manzella, Crede/Kouzmanoff, Blum, Johnson, Maysonett, Kaz
Outfield: Lee, Bourn, Pence, Ramirez, Reggie, Locke, Bugosevic, Erstad, rule 5

oh, i think its time for bed, you know you’ve had a little too much to drink when you start arguing that the astros could make the playoffs next year