1. Jordan Lyles…remember him?

The player I was most excited about seeing last year remains the player that I’m most excited about seeing this year, but this time for a very different reason. Last year I was excited about seeing something new. I wanted to see if he could live up to the hype. This year, I’m excited to see a player that it seems most Astros fans have somehow managed to forget. A lot has happened since we last saw Lyles performing well. He went down to the minors to finish out the season splitting time as a starter and reliever and in the mean time, we saw the rise of JD Martinez, Jose Altuve, Brian Bogusevic and Jimmy Paredes. We saw the departure of Hunter Pence and Michael Bourn, the departure of Drayton McLane and Ed Wade, and the arrival of too many new people to count. To say nothing of the news the Astros will be moving to the American League.

And after all of that, it seems we’ve forgotten the guy who was basically the Astros’ only real prospect going into 2011. It also hurts that he struggled badly down the stretch. His ERA in August and September was 7.76. But, before he wore out, he was pitching quite well. Even though he went 0-6, his ERA was 4.41. It’s not Felix Hernandez in his rookie year, but it was solid, especially for a guy who was only 20. He put together six quality starts and performed particularly well against division opponents, with a 3.69 ERA in five starts against the Cubs, Pirates, Brewers and Reds.

Lyles has some work to do, improving his work withing the strike zone, keeping his pitch count down and building his strength to endue an entire season, but I am very excited to watch that progress this year and do believe that Astros fans will be reminded why they were so high on him just a year ago.

2. Wandy and Toovie…the little guys

Everyone likes cheering for the little guy. Normally that’s a figure of speech, but for the Astros, they literally have two little guys to cheer for. Wandy Rodriguez improved his road pitching last year but the one thing you could always count on from him (dominating at Minute Maid Park) faltered. He wasn’t bad at home, but he wasn’t unbeatable like he’s been in the past. If those two things can meet in the middle a little bit more, he should have a nice season. And the Astros really need him to have a good season. Their rotation is in a pretty bad way even if Brett Myers and JA Happ pitch like they did in 2010. The Astros don’t have an ace and barely have a number two, unless Wandy is in top form. And it’s not just about saving face. Wandy is 33 years old and projections have the Astros not competing for another five years. Wandy can’t be in their long-term plans so they need him good to win, they need him good to get people to watch games and, most importantly, they need him good to be legitimate trade bait.

Right behind Wandy at second base will be Jose Altuve. He’s listed at 5’7″ and 170 lbs and I’m not sure I’d believe that if he were wearing platform shoes inside cement blocks. But he sure can smack the ball around the park. As with Lyles, he was good early on and the sputtered at the end, but he spent two months showing the Astros what he can do. He’ll need the ball to fall because he never walks, but his hair-trigger with the bat and his ability to get around the bases in a little blur is thrilling. And, as with Lyles, he’s only 21. It’s also great to see a second baseman that seems promising. The Astros have struggled to get someone good and consistent at that position for years, between Craig Biggio’s decline and experiments with Kaz Matsui, Jeff Keppinger and Bill Hall. Imagine if they actually managed to produce a second baseman from their farm system. Crazy, huh?

3. JD Martinez

He really mashed in August before cooling off in September. Though I’m not even sure how much I can blame him for that. Everyone on the Astros cooled off in September. He needs to improve his hitting against right handed pitchers (his OPS against them is .620, compared to 1.119 against lefties) but there’s always time for that. He’s got a sweet swing, he can hit for average and power and he’s got a cannon for an arm. He needs to learn to negotiate the wall out in left field but he’s already a significant upgrade on defense out there over Carlos Lee.

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Ready to play stick ball and make good use of the Crawford Boxes

The Astros announced yesterday they had signed outfielder Justin Ruggiano to a minor league contract and extended an invitation to spring training. And I’ll do my very best to be unbiased about the fact that they just signed a guy that’s a fellow Anderson High School alum.

It’s an interesting signing, considering that the Astros are already lousing with corner outfielders, between Brian Bogusevic, JD Martinez, Jack Cust, Jason Bourgeois and Carlos Lee, if Brett Wallace should manage to re-gain his spot at first base. But, as Brian Hamilton at Climbing Tal’s Hill pointed out, it’s another very nice low-risk, high-reward acquisition by Jeff Luhnow.

The Astros seem to be set in the outfield but not with anyone who absolutely can’t be displaced, with perhaps the exception of JD Martinez. Bogusevic had a breakout year last year and earned a very close look in 2012, but he could easily return to being the AAAA player that he’s looked like for most of his career. Bourgeois and Schafer aren’t setting the world on fire and Lee and Cust really shouldn’t be playing defense in any capacity. So, Ruggiano may just provide depth for the Astros, but he provides some solid depth that can play good defense and provide good on-base percentage. He’ll compete for a starting job but, in all honesty, probably start the season at Triple-A.

Astros County did an interesting side-by-side of Ruggiano to Bogusevic. While the numbers are interesting and while he’s absolutely right that Ruggiano brings good on-base percentage and a lot of strikeouts, he also provides better defense than Bogusevic. As a right-handed hitter, he also provides the possibility of a platoon player to compliment Bogusevic.

I don’t expect this to be a major acquisition for the Astros, but it is worth taking a look at who this is good and bad for.

Bad:

This is worst for Brett Wallace. He was already going to have a hard time unseating Carlos Lee from first base. Now, with more options to keep Lee out of the outfield, it’ll be that much harder. Not that Lee belongs on the infield any more, but that seems to be where the Astros want him and they’re paying him too much to just take his bat out of the lineup. Cust now has the role of the slugger off the bench, so Wallace won’t be that. The more outfielders the Astros get, the more likely it is that Wallace will spend a lot of time in Oklahoma.

It’s also a little bad for Jason Bourgeois. He was already the odd man out of the outfield with Martinez and Bogusevic the likely candidates in the corners and Schafer having the edge on defense for center field. Now, Bourgeois not only has to beat Ruggiano for a roster spot, but he’ll have to continue to impress in limited playing time to make sure Ruggiano stays at Triple-A.

Good:

Brad Mills wins big. The lover of the lefty-righty platoon now has a suitable right handed outfielder to platoon with Bogusevic. He can play Ruggiano against lefties without losing anything on defense and he might not even have to shuffle the batting order to accommodate the change. The fact that Ruggiano has actually done better against right handed pitchers in his career is of no consequence. It never has been for Mills. He’s got his righty-lefty platoon if he should choose it.

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Six years in San Diego, Oakland and Seattle. He's excited to bring this swing to Houston.

The Astros spent last year finally buying into the youth movement and have spent the last few weeks shoring up cheap veterans. In the past, the moves to acquire players like Jack Cust, Chris Snyder, Zach Duke and Livan Hernandez would have been very troubling for the Astros because players like these would have been expected to play key roles on a team going absolutely nowhere and continued to prevent the advancement of young players.

Maybe I’m being overly optimistic to assume that is no longer the case, but I really think that is no longer the case.

The veteran acquisitions began with 33 year-old Cust, acquired by the Astros in a one-year, $600,000 deal with an option for 2013. I wasn’t as down on this move as some others. True — Cust is a DH on a team that doesn’t need a DH for another year. It’s also true that he joins a team that already has a couple of guys that aren’t lighting up the defensive world in Carlos Lee and Brett Wallace. Only one of them can play first base, and I don’t even love the idea of Cust at first. But he gives them a nice option off the bench and what I really like about it is the signal that they’re paying more attention to on-base percentage.

The last few years they’ve been more likely to go after guys like Lee, Miguel Tejada and Bill Hall who never walk. Cust is completely the opposite. He has a career .374 on-base percentage. Since they went to World Series, the Astros have been hard-pressed to find anyone to rival that career total in just a single season. Since 2005, only five Astros have managed an on-base percentage of .360 or better in a season. Four of them (Lance Berkman, Morgan Ensberg, Hunter Pence and Michael Bourn) have departed and the other one — Carlos Lee — was a fluke. His .368 OBP in 2008 was the second-best of his career, one of only five times in 13 seasons that he topped .350 and his OBP hasn’t topped .345 in any of the three ensuing seasons.

It’s abundantly clear the Astros have a serious on-base percentage problem and Cust helps with that. Of course, I’m also saying this with the firm hope that Cust will not win the competition for right field over JD Martinez or Brian Bogusevic. This much-needed service also comes at the cost of a cheap one-year deal and I can never complain about that.

The parade of veterans continued with 30-year old catcher Chris Snyder. This was also a one-year deal that helps their depth at catcher where, with Humberto Quintero and Jason Castro, there are real health concerns with Castro’s ACL and bone spur, and Quintero’s habit of taking a beating behind the plate. Snyder has provided decent offense in the past, but mainly he just provides a much better option than Carlos Corporan, who was completely ineffective both at the plate and behind it last year.

Most recently the Astros have added arms by signing 28-year old Houston native Zach Duke and 36 year-old Livan Hernandez to minor league deals. Again, there aren’t high expectations for these guys and with the rotation mostly set, there doesn’t have to be. It’s always nice to have veterans to fill in for a pitcher in an emergency situation, especially when they come so cheap. Hernandez is a concern because he has always played in very pitcher-friendly parks, so Minute Maid will be a very different experience for him, but if Livan can pitch like he did in 2010 and Duke can pitch like he did in 2009, the Astros would have a couple of solid back of the rotation guys to get them through to some of their younger players being prepared to make that step to the majors.

Or to fill in for J.A. Happ if he has another year like 2011.

These aren’t major moves, but I like them. They’re nice additions for cheap. And when you consider what the Astros have paid in the past for short-term veteran acquisitions like Pudge Rodriguez (1-year, $1.5 mil), Woody Williams (2-year, $12.5 mil), Jose Valverde (1-year, $8 mil) and Preston Wilson (1-year, $4 mil), you have to concede that contracts like these are getting better already. Players like these are ones the Astros would have terribly over-paid for the last six years. The fact that they got these nice additions for market value is already a step in the right direction.

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I'm going to improve the Astros by this much (photo by David J. Phillip/AP)

I wanted to take a moment to catch up on some Astros winter news on which I’ve yet to opine, as well as reflect on 2011 and look forward to the Astros’ last season in the NL in 2012.

With their many moves this fall, the Astros would have been one of the league’s top headliners if they hadn’t spent the last five seasons working themselves into complete insignificance. Despite that, the huge shifts this offseason are indicating real reason for optimism for the first time in a very, very long time in Houston.

The Astros have a new GM in former Cardinals scouting and drafting department head Jeff Luhnow. I am a big, big fan of this hire. With Luhnow’s background in data analysis indicates the Astros are finally moving in the direction that wise ballclubs have been moving for over a decade. Ed Wade was a huge step in the wrong direction, but hopefully this move will begin taking them in the right direction with someone who actually employs advanced metrics to understand the players he’s getting and their real value.

Indications that the Astros are moving toward a more advanced understanding of metrics and the economy of baseball are bolstered by this week’s news that the Astros have been talking to ESPN’s Keith Law about a front office job. I don’t always agree with Law but regardless of whether he gets the job, I love the indication that they’re trying to finally bring this club into the 21st century.

Luhnow also has a strong background in Latin-American baseball, which will help return the Astros to the kind of prominence they had in Latin scouting while Gerry Hunsicker was here. They used to have a great grasp on the wealth of talent in Latin America but that has fallen off drastically in the last seven years, very much to the Astros’ detriment. He was also involved in the drafting of Colby Rasmus and Jaime Garcia, so perhaps he will be able to help turn around the Astros’ draft woes. And the timing couldn’t be better, since they have the number one overall pick in 2012.

As far as players go, this off-season has been as quiet as I expected, though I do like the few moves the Astros have made so far under the direction of Luhnow. His first move was a difficult one for Astros fans to swallow because he dealt one of the Astros’ few good players from 2010, Mark Melancon, but count me among those who think this was a very good move for the Astros.

Astros welcome INF Lowrie, who is undoubtedly impressed by the size of their jumbotron (photo by Elsa/Getty Images)

First of all, as long as you’re losing a ton of games, closer isn’t a very pressing need. Secondly, Melancon was a good closer and I liked him a lot, but he wasn’t Brad Lidge in his prime. He was a good player whose greatest value to the Astros was in his trade value, and the Astros got good value in the trade. They filled their need at shortstop by getting Jed Lowrie, who is expected to perform well in an every day role; and they got 25 year-old right hander Kyle Weiland, who will compete for a spot in the starting rotation and should end up as a solid closer, at the very least.

That’s a very nice haul for a reliever who would only be a setup man on 25 major league teams and gets lasting value for the key player acquired in the Lance Berkman trade that has really turned out to be a bust.

The Astros also offered contracts to their only two arbitration eligible players, J.A. Happ and Humberto Quintero. Star players? Not by any stretch of the imagination. But two guys worthy of bringing back for cheap, and it looks like the Astros can bring them back for very cheap. That’s good value for a pair of guys who are capable of performing beyond their contracts.

That’s pretty much it for their off-season moves. I like them. Nothing that grabs a lot of headlines, but certainly solid moves that continue to move them on the right path.

Speaking of the right path, Ed Wade has certainly found his by returning to the Phillies where he will attempt to improve them without working as a covert agent, parading as another team’s GM while just sending them all of the players they want on the cheap. Good luck with that.

The Astros won’t be a winning team next year. But they are finally making positive moves. I’m still skeptical of Jim Crane, but I like what they’re doing so far under his watch and I’m optimistic about Luhnow. We could be in for another very long season, but at least I’m no longer looking at the next five years in dread and fear.

All things considered, I’m glad to have even that kind of optimism heading into a new year.

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New ownership

Putting on the holiday spirit and putting aside my concerns about Jim Crane, the prospect of a new regime and new success in Houston is thrilling. I’m not expecting a lot of earth shattering moves this winter, but hopefully next year when the front office has gotten its legs under it, when they have a better view of their finances and when the Astros are finally free of Carlos Lee’s contract, maybe we’ll see some movement to fill some of their pressing needs. The good news, if you’re seeing the silver lining, is that with all the needs to fill, the Astros can’t help but upgrade.

Youth movement actually infused with youth

There was a lot of bustle and bluster last year about the youth movement in Houston, but I always thought it was a tad overblown. But, with the departure of Clint Barmes, trade of Michael Bourn, Hunter Pence and Jeff Keppinger, and the aforementioned impending expiration of Lee’s contract, the Astros’ youth movement is for real. We saw flashes from Jose Altuve, Jimmy Paredes, JD Martinez, Henry Sosa, Jordan Lyles and Aneury Rodriguez, though each still has considerable work to do. But the flashes were highly encouraging. They get Jason Castro back next year, who is getting in some makeup work in the Arizona Fall League. And, thanks mostly to trades, the farm system is stocked for the first time in a long time with legit prospects like Jarred Cosart, Jonathan Singleton, George Springer, Jonathan Villar, Brett Oberholtzer and Paul Clemens. Houston is still a long way off from being good, but you have to be thankful that there’s actually a visible path to being good for the first time in a while.

Rock bottom means one way to go

The best thing about seasons like this one is that there’s only one way to go — up. Things can only get better for the Astros from here out, and that will include the number one overall draft pick next year. A 56-106 season is hard to bear, but it does come with a near-guarantee that it only gets better from here.

Warm fuzzies

Because this season means stories like this and songs like this. The song doesn’t actually have anything to do with the Astros, I just love it.

Happy Thanksgiving and happy holidays!

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The Orlando Sentinel reports owners have unanimously approved the sale of the Astros to Jim Crane and approved the addition of two more wild card teams, one in each league. One-third of MLB teams now make the playoffs as baseball strives to be more like the NBA and NHL — interminable playoffs and a generally unwatchable first round.

Jeff Caplan of ESPN Dallas writes that moving the Astros to the AL West was “a decision steeped in logic and a shift that needed to occur.”

Mark Saxon of ESPN LA writes that the Astros going to the AL West could be good for the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim in the short run, but that major market money and competition with the Rangers could end up making the Astros a real headache for the Halos.

Players react to the news.

Christina Kahrl writes on the Sweet Spot Blog that this realignment is consistent with “Bud Selig’s long, successful and reliably Machiavellian stewardship of the game.”

Astros fan and lawyer Kevin W. Yankowski plans a legal challenge of the move of the Astros to the American league on the grounds that the Astros’ lease with the Harris County Sports authority requires the Astros play at Minute Maid Park as a National League team, unless prior consent is given by the Sports Authority.

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The lengthy process has been long-delayed and controversial, and the news doesn’t get any cleaner with the report that MLB would not approve the sale unless Crane agreed to move the Astros to the AL in 2013.

It’s bad enough that MLB would participate in that kind of extortion, refusing to approve the sale based not on questions about the owner or about his ability to run a financially sound club, but based on them refusing to approve the sale until they got what they wanted. It’s bad enough that the Astros were put in this position because Milwaukee was moved to the NL when it never should have been and that this is happening to Houston for no reason other than the time of the sale and the leverage that sale gave the MLB.

But what’s really troubling about this deal is that there was a myriad of issues surrounding Crane that actually should have given the league pause. The issues were reported, though not widely or prominently, allowing Crane’s scandals to somehow escape serious scrutiny. MLB had said that the sale was put on hold while the scandals were investigated, but this latest report would seem to indicate what many have suspected all along — that the real delay was coming because they were trying to negotiate a move to the AL.

It’s shocking that, even with the bad press MLB has gotten this year because of Fred Wilpon and Frank McCourt, that proper vetting of its owners still does not seem to be priority one. That the very real concerns MLB should have about Crane seem to have taken a back seat to their desire to get a balanced 15-and-15 league speaks to Major League Baseball’s very slow learning curve. Far more important right now than the structure of the two leagues should be a desire to avoid more controversy, to avoid getting more egg on its face, to ensure that the owners they’re approving won’t run a team into the ground or humiliate the league.

The issues surrounding Crane deserved serious consideration and should not have been as easy to cast aside as letting it go once he agreed to move the Astros to the AL like they wanted him to.

And none of that even considers how many ways this is bad for the Astros. They lose familiar rivals in exchange for the prayer that a rivalry based on nothing more than geography will blossom with the Rangers (really — how likely is it that a team that has gone to back-to-back World Series will have a rivalry with the worst team in the league any time soon?) The Astros now have to make frequent trips across two time zones to the west coast, playing 9:00 PM games that will hurt television revenues. According to Richard Justice, that’s actually how the $70 million figure was arrived at, as “financial compensation for possible damage to the franchise in terms of lower TV ratings.”

Nolan Ryan had also indicated that playing so many late games on the west coast hurt the Rangers’ television ratings, which makes the same-time-zone Astros a very welcome AL West addition for his club.

The only way this isn’t bad for the Astros is that they’re no longer stuck in limbo regarding their ownership. Other than that, this is a pretty big losing deal for Houston. Again, things that don’t seem to have been taken into consideration at meetings that seem to have been solely dedicated to getting the Astros to change leagues.

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Defensive metrics can be somewhat instructive but still aren’t ready to be the gold standard for distributing Gold Gloves.

Even acknowledging that, however, it doesn’t take a stathead to realize that there are serious flaws once again with the Gold Glove winners. The difficult thing about giving Gold Gloves is that you don’t even have the stats you can use to debate like you can with an MVP or Cy Young award. Those arguments come down to what you value more — RBIs, HRs, on-base percentage, batting average, how big a factor defense plays, etc. They come down to how much weight you want to give to things like what kind of competition they have to face, how much advantage or disadvantage they have based on home ballpark…things like that.

Defense is even harder to evaluate, especially given what we believe we’re beginning to understand better about the game. Errors and fielding percentage aren’t a great gauge because sometimes it just means that you don’t get to those borderline balls that some better fielders might make a mistake on while trying to make an amazing play. I still hold Hank Blalock up as the perfect example of this. In 2005, Blalock had only 11 errors in 158 games, giving him the second-best fielding position among third basemen, behind only Mike Lowell. That put him ahead of the likes of Joe Crede, Adrian Beltre and Eric Chavez.

Anyone think Blalock was in the same class as Lowell, Crede, Beltre and Chavez? Good, because he wasn’t. So, let’s keep that in mind before invoking errors or fielding position.

There has been and will be lots of coverage of this so I just want to talk about the biggest two that I had a problem with — Alex Gordon and Matt Kemp.

Gordon is easily the worst, considering that he’s a converted third baseman who just spent his first year in the outfield. He beat out Brett Gardner, the absurdity of which was covered brilliantly by Mark Simon and Ben Jedlovec. The best argument for Gordon is a positively ridiculous one, and that is that he had 20 assists. There’s almost nothing I can think of that’s a worse determinant of outfielder defensive ability than the assist because while it means the guy has a pretty good arm, it also means that nobody was afraid of his arm and often tested him, and it also means that there are probably a lot of fly balls falling right in front of him.

The most assists Andruw Jones ever had in a season was 20, in 1998 — his first full season. After word got out that he was awesome, he averaged just eight assists per year over the next nine years, and only topped 10 assists twice in those nine years. Is that because he was bad? No, it was actually because he was great. Assists aren’t completely worthless as a defensive gauge, but it’s almost worthless, and using it as a basis for giving a Gold Glove is ludicrous.

My biggest problem with Kemp isn’t that he’s terrible, it’s that his bat seems to have been the determining factor in beating out far better defensive center fielders. Kemp is a good enough center fielder. Good, but not great. What makes Kemp’s selection so bad is that the NL has such talented center fielders with Michael Bourn, Shane Victorino, Chris Young and Carlos Gomez. All of them are phenomenal center fielders and far more deserving than Kemp, with the only argument really working against any of them is the lack of playing time for Gomez.

These two represent what hardcore baseball fans find so frustrating about the Gold Gloves — how often offense seems to play a factor in an award that is supposed to recognize pure defensive skill. The award is supposed to recognize the greatness of players like Adam Everett, Brett Gardner and Michael Bourn but too often goes to players of high offensive talent and marginal defensive talent like Michael Young, Matt Kemp and Alex Gordon.

I just anxiously await the day that statheads take over this award like they did with the Cy Young Award last year when they gave it to Felix Hernandez. The right guy won because the right philosophy prevailed. Hopefully that happens soon for Gold Gloves so it can stop being just a joke of an award.

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Worst to first in one year. Everybody do the celebration limbo!

Astros MVP: Carlos Lee

It pains me to say it, but if it’s any comfort to you, take this as a comment on the team that Ed Wade and Drayton McLane have managed to construct. I refuse to give this award to anyone who didn’t finish the year on the roster (Hunter Pence and Michael Bourn) or to anyone who came up in the middle of the season and played fewer than 90 games (take your pick of minor league promotions), so it goes to Lee almost by default.

He led the Astros in hits, doubles, homeruns, runs and RBIs. He finished only behind Brian Bogusevic and Matt Downs in on-base percentage and slugging and was first in WAR (though a pretty unimpressive 4.6, only two-tenths better than what Bourn did in almost 200 fewer plate appearances).

Though you wouldn’t know it to listen to the commentators, he struggled mightily on defense at first base, but was still able to wrestle the first base job from Brett Wallace thanks to his bat. This really is more of a comment on the team that McWade has built, but still…kudos to Lee on being the best of what is left of the Astros.

Downs does deserve an honorable mention for posting much better than expected numbers as a pinch-hitter and utility substitute. He also struggles on defense but was easily the best bat off the bench for the Astros, posting an OPS better than 1.100 in June and August. He was unstoppable when he got on a roll and made it look at times like he might be able to get a starting job…if only the Astros could figure out where to put him.

It could be...might be...yep, fly out.

Astros LVP: Bill Hall

Normally I would reserve this for someone who killed them all year (leading candidates include Carlos Corporan, Chris Johnson, Brett Wallace and JA Happ…you get a lot of candidates for this on a 100+ loss team), but Hall really did something special in getting the Astros to realize after only 46 games that signing him to a $3.25 million deal was a monumental mistake, even on a team this bad.

He batted an embarrassing .224 with an even more embarrassing .272 OBP. The man who was brought in to provide power to the middle infield knocked just two long balls while striking out 55 times. His defense was also not everything the Astros had chalked it up to be. It was just another of the terrible acquisitions that have become a signature of the Astros the last few years — get a washed up player, set expectations higher than you have any reason to, overpay him and then take less than 100 games to admit it’s an unmitigated disaster.

The bitterness within me really compels me to give an honorable mention to Carlos Corporan for having the worst WAR among position players on the team (-1.3). He had a .188 batting average, didn’t know how to get on base (.253 OBP, 49 Ks with just 10 BBs) and couldn’t hit for any power at all (zero homeruns in 52 games and a .253 slugging, even lower than JR Towles). He has no arm, allowing 43 stolen bases while only catching nine baserunners, and that really is all on him. His throws were terrible. Only three players in baseball with 50 or more starts had a worse caught stealing percentage. He did all of that without even having Towles’s ball-blocking skills. I have no idea what made the Astros stick with a guy who is the same age as Towles, posts Towlesian offensive numbers and has worse defensive skills than Towles. It’s quite baffling.

The secret to my success - a killer curve and a huge noggin

Astros Cy Young: Wandy Rodriguez

Although I must admit it was a terrible prediction to have him competing for the Cy Young, he’s really the only choice for team Cy Young. He led the Astros in wins, quality starts, and WAR, was second in strikeouts and had the best ERA and WHIP among the starters.

Wandy’s road numbers were better than in years past, but that was more than balanced out by him not being his typical self at home. The previous three years, he was 20-12 with a 2.69 ERA at Minute Maid Park, where he held opponents to a .229 batting average. This year, he was just 4-4 at home with a 3.32 ERA and .256 batting average against. That said, he was still easily the best of the Astros starters and one of the few highlights in a year where they had the kind of terrible pitching the Astros haven’t seen since 2000.

Honorable mention to Bud Norris who had a breakout year with a 3.77 ERA. He pooped out a bit at the end of the year but was absolutely sterling in June, going 2-2 with a 2.53 ERA and .183 batting average against, while allowing just one homerun. It’s the year Astros fans have been waiting for him to have based on his stuff. If he can continue to build on that, he could be up for this award in 2012.

I used to pitch, now I hit. Skillzzzz. With a Z.

Astros rookie of the year: Brian Bogusevic

Admittedly, he did far more than I expected based on what I saw in the minor leagues and the first four months of the season. But what he did in August and September is enough to get my attention. In those last two months, playing mostly as a platoon player (because heaven forbid a young lefty in a completely wasted season be allowed to hit lefty pitchers), he batted .312 with four homeruns and 14 RBIs. Given more regular playing time next year (which he should be able to get with Bourn and Pence gone, Lee at first, Bourgeois being kind of a bust and Schafer being kind of a dope…pun intended) he should have a great opportunity to build on his solid finish in 2011.

Astros BP pitcher of the year: J.A. Happ 

"Hey, Mr. Happ, I thought you were pitching today." "I did." "Oh, sorry, I didn't turn the game on until the second inning."

Last year’s big acquisition in the Roy Oswalt trade busted this year, showing all the things that scouts had been saying for years would be a problem for him. He surrendered 21 homeruns in just 156 innings pitched and posted career worsts in ERA (5.35), WHIP (1.54), batting average against (.265) and OPS against (.806). And some of those might have been even worse had he managed to get past the fifth inning once in a while. He had the third-worst pitching WAR on the team, better only than Nelson Figueroa and Brandon Lyon. It was a huge step backward for Happ, who was just one of many pitchers that got shelled this year, something I have a hard time considering a coincidence. When one pitcher on a staff folds, you blame the pitcher. When an entire staff folds, you blame the coaches.

Coolest moment of the year: Berkman wins his first WS

Not truly an Astros moment, but there is a serious shortage of cool moments to choose from, so I’m going with the ex-Stro who, until David Freese’s heroics in games six and seven of the World Series, looked like a Cardinals victory would earn Lance Berkman the WS MVP. He got a hit in six of the seven WS games, batting .423 (11-for-26) with a homerun and five RBIs. And it wasn’t a postseason aberration. In October, he put up a .313 batting average and .413 on-base percentage, knocking two homers and driving in 11 runs (including 3 in that crucial game six of the WS). I’d really love to pick a coolest moment actually from the Astros season, but in a 106-loss season, the honor goes to an ex-Stro. Sorry.

Most embarrassing moment of the year: Bourn traded, Astros get no top prospects in return

It really can’t be said enough — the Astros got cleaned out when they traded their best player to the Braves and go no prospects in return. It was ripped (among others) on this blog, by Keith Law, by Jim Bowden, on the Braves blog Capital Avenue Club and by Baseball Nation. Ed Wade got his head taken off for this trade, just shortly after he’d won good will for appearing to do quite well with the Pence trade. Even with his long list of old veterans signed to bad contracts that would have been his legacy in Houston, this story line may supplant it as his legacy — getting Bourn in the Brade Lidge trade with the Phillies, watching him blossom into one of the best leadoff hitter/center fielder/base stealers in the game, and then trading him to Atlanta for far less than value.

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Not the uniform we expected him to be wearing

First there was new Astro Jordan Schafer, acquired in the Michael Bourn trade with the Braves, getting busted on a felony marijuana charge. Schafer was reportedly driving in Florida with some friends when he pulled up next to an un-marked police vehicle, smoking a joint with his windows down. There really aren’t words to express how irresponsible, terrible and frankly stupid this whole thing is. Bad enough to be busted on felony drug possession, but to be caught because you’re driving under the influence of illegal drugs really takes the cake.

And it’s not Schafer’s first run-in with drug charges. He was suspended for 50 games in 2009 for testing positive for performance enhancing drugs. The Bourn trade was already heavily ridiculed, and that drug arrest definitely doesn’t help matters any.

Shortly after that awful story came the news that the Astros, following a season when they posted the worst record in major league baseball and among the worst hitting and pitching stats, would be making no changes to its coaching staff. Everyone, from manager Brad Mills to bullpen coach Jamie Quirk, stays. Count on the Astros to look at the league’s worst record and decide to stand pat.

I can have sympathy and understanding for the fact that this team was pretty miserable from day one and that it only got worse when the Astros decided to sell everybody that anyone would take. But to think the coaching staff deserves no blame and no accountability is astonishing. Pitching coach Doug Brocail and hitting coach Mike Barnett are new, so I understand sticking with them (even though  I think we have ample evidence that neither should have ever been hired). But, really, isn’t two years of watching Mills’s completely inept in-game management enough to convince you he wasn’t the right guy? How anyone can look at how he manages a game and decide the Astros need another year of that escapes all reason.

He could still be MLB's most controversial owner

And now the most recent news, which will be getting much, much more coverage and conversation in the coming days and weeks — a deal appears imminent that will move the Astros to the American League. The Houston Chronicle Astros Blog reported recently that MLB has been trying to work out a deal with prospective owner Jim Crane to move the Astros to the AL in exchange for $50 million to help Crane and his team of investors purchase the Astros.

So, keeping score — Crane gets $50 million and the Astros lose their familiar rivals, have to deal with the abomination that is the DH, and probably have to deal with a terrible AL West schedule that includes many late games that are bad for fans, bad for players and bad for television revenues.

If this is true, that’s a pretty bad first step for Crane. Nothing he’s doing is making me very optimistic.

Reports are that MLB’s concerns about Crane’s past business dealings have been easing as they have tried to negotiate this deal. Funny how those concerns go away, isn’t it?

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