Where Houston and Austin meet
Posted in Good Reads, Gripes and Groans on Aug 17th, 2011
He was supposed to be the ace of the staff. Yet today’s birthday boy, Brett Myers, turns 31 and is still far from an ace. A fantastic 2010 season aside, the Astros saddled themselves with a pitcher who they inexplicably thought could lead a staff, despite the fact that he relies purely on breaking balls [...]
Posted in Breaking News, Good Reads on Aug 15th, 2011
Hardball Talk is reporting that approval of the sale of the Astros to proposed owner Jim Crane, which was supposed to be voted on by the owners this week, has been put momentarily on hold. Eric Fisher of Sports Business Journal tweeted that Crane’s business record may “be at question.” Just after Hardball Talk initially [...]
Posted in Good Reads, Gripes and Groans on Aug 12th, 2011
So unfortunately, it’s been “that time of year” -where fans begin to think of what may happen next year instead of continuing to subject themselves to the mental suffering that comes with following a team as bad as the Houston Astros- for about three months now. While I admit that watching the young infusion of [...]
Posted in Good Reads on Aug 9th, 2011
You may think that I’m one of those sick, obsessive fans that think about their favorite baseball team day and night, never stopping to realize that, in fact, there might be other things in life that are more important and/or more interesting. If you’re so bold as to think THAT low of me, well…you’d be [...]
Posted in Good Reads, Prospects Watch, Roster Moves on Aug 4th, 2011
Kevin Goldstein of Baseball Prospectus wrote an ESPN Insider piece ranking the best prospects moved in this year’s deadline deals. We all know the Astros did well in quantity but you might be surprised how well, at least according to Goldstein, they did in quality. The Astros appear most in the top 10, popping up [...]
Posted in Good Reads, Gripes and Groans on Aug 3rd, 2011
Given what has happened this year with the Dodgers’ Frank McCourt and the Mets’ Fred Wilpon, it seems that potential owners would be under greater scrutiny than ever. And yet, Jim Crane’s purchase of the Astros has so far gone almost completely unnoticed and unreported outside of Houston markets, which often report nothing more than [...]
Posted in Good Reads, Gripes and Groans on Jul 27th, 2011
If you think the Astros have been frustrating this year, take solace in the fact that they haven’t played a game like the one they did on this date 26 years ago. July 27, 1985 — the Astros set a record that still stands by allowing 16 runs, all unearned, in a 16-4 loss in [...]
Posted in Good Reads on Jul 21st, 2011
When I read Buster Olney’s tweet that a source said the Phillies would like to structure offers for Hunter Pence around Vance Worley, one thing came to mind — the Astros have already been taken by acquiring a Phillies pitcher (J.A. Happ in the Roy Oswalt trade); would they be willing to make a trade [...]
Posted in Good Reads, Gripes and Groans on Jul 15th, 2011
You don’t have to be a baseball expert to know that bullpens in the NL Central have been bad. That’s been aided by some crucial injuries, but either way, it’s been well-chronicled that the bullpens int he NL Central have been bad. But I honestly had no idea how bad until I was perusing FanGraphs [...]
Posted in Good Reads, Gripes and Groans on Jul 1st, 2011
On the Baseball Today Pocast, Eric Karabell and Mark Simon mentioned a stat they called “mulligan ERA,” which is essentially where you throw away a horrific implosion start a pitcher has and see what his ERA looks like afterward. They did this in context of the Giants’ Madison Bumgarner, who has a 3.84 ERA that [...]
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