Win Now, Baby: Astros Offseason Talk

Hey, I said I didn’t actually like the plan…

When the Astros traded for Bourn, Baseball Prospectus said that Bourn is what Pierre should have been. If Bourn has a age 30+ career like Dave Roberts, that wouldn’t be so bad. Roberts was a fairly decent player for the Padres in his 30’s.

My big problem with this is I think there is a very large degree of uncertainty at so many positions. I could easily see a scenario where things get settled down a little more this season and 2012 becomes the “WIN NOW!” year, with everybody still in their primes, but this season…? The most promising performance from a young player last season came from Chris Johnson, and I still have no earthly idea how he is going to perform in 2011. I wouldn’t be shocked if he posted .650 OPS, or .850.

I agree with you, I do. The only thing I would say is down this road lies the Pittsburgh Pirates on one end and the Florida Marlins on the other. The idea that you can just blow up the team if things don’t work is fine, but that’s what the Pirates have essentially been doing since Barry Bonds left town. I’m going to be a fan of this team no matter what, but I’d rather not have to suffer through many more months like this April and May.

Garland and Uribe would be okay choices. I think, though, there’s a little more cost certainty with Lee. If he fails, you’re screwed, but you have a better chance of getting your money’s worth over that five year contract than you do with Uribe or Garland on shorter deals. What if Uribe pulls a Pedro Feliz? What if Garland turns into Woody Williams? There’s always risk in free agency, but I think that you have less certainty on shorter deals.

Thanks, Andy. I had an inkling that that might be the case, but seeing it backed up with, you know, numbers, is interesting. I wonder if the Astros will negotiate a long-term deal with Bourn. I could see signing him to a three-year deal now. By the end of it, he’d start declining, but that’d give one of the Austins (Jay or Wates) to maybe fill that gap.

My guess is that OBP ability has a lot to do with speedsters’ performance declining over time. (I haven’t researched this—so just take it as speculation.) As we all know, the speedsters can’t steal a bunch of bases unless they get on base, and at some point too low an OBP will cut down their playing time. (I think of this as the Willy Taveras effect.) My theory….I am thinking that the hitter’s walk rate may tell us how long they can stay in the league. Guys with really low walk rates (like Willy T) get by with a high BABIP fueled by extreme speed. But as they age, they may lose a split second of speed. It may not be enough to affect their defense or base stealing, but it reduces their batting average as they can’t beat out every infield grounder. The Roberts – Pierre contrast is an example perhaps. Roberts remained fairly productive as he played into his early to mid 30’s because he could post 11% – 15% walk rates in those years. Pierre has a 5.9% career walk rate, which is the reason that he shouldn’t be a starter. Guys like Willy T and Cory Patterson (5.1% and 4.6% career walk rates, respectively) declined quickly. Taveras and Patterson can still steal bases and play defense, but their OBP fell so precipitously that they can get in the lineup. When you consider that experience can help improve base stealing and defense, the tiny reduction in speed doesn’t hurt those skills, but it may take away enough infield hits to cause the OBP for guys with low walk rates to plummet.

Bourn is more like Roberts than Pierre. Bourn’s career walk rate is 8.9%, compared to Roberts’ career walk rate of 9.1%. Both Bourn and Roberts have K rates higher than you would like (even though Bourn’s is clearly worse). Bourn still doesn’t have the patience and walk rates that Roberts showed in his best years. But perhaps it’s a good sign that Roberts’ improved his walk rates in his age 30+ years. Maybe Bourn can do the same.

You could also roll with the current team and add via trade during the season.

Is enough to get us to the postseason, let alone the WS. And realistically that’s about what Crawford + Uribe would add. Realistically we probably need at least 15 wins and maybe 20. Now for me, Crawford has about equal value to Cliff Lee, at least over the next couple years (he may age worse, I’m not sure, he’s a bit younger even though his game is based on speed). So signing either one is approximately the same thing in terms of overall value, I think.

Now David’s suggestion of adding Adrian Gonzalez along with Uribe and a top-tier free agent is probably a lot closer to what we’d need. If you want to say Uribe is worth 2 wins and Lee, Crawford, and Gonzalez are all worth about five, adding two of those three guys plus Uribe would be adding about a dozen wins. Which is close, although I still think we’d need to have an unexpectedly good year in terms of players already in the organization to actually make the postseason.

I’m sure it would depend on whether the Cardinals actually want to move him (it sounds like they don’t) and how much they like Bourn and Wandy. Rasmus would be a great player to build around though.

A recent fangraphs article predicted that the Astros have no realistic chance of putting together a contending team until 2015 or 2016. I’m not agreeing with that conclusion, but I think it follows the line of thinking you suggest (i.e., the current “core” is weak, and the next wave of farm system reinforcements are more like complimentary players, rather than core players). As long as McLane owns the team (and one can only guess at that), I don’t see any chance that he will wait that long for the prospect of a contending team. It’s probably difficult for Wade to convince McLane to wait until 2012 for a contending team. If the team can’t get into contending shape in the near term, I think McLane will move toward a strategy more like the one David set up in this article.