So, if they curse and drink and screw, but win, what the f*ck can Garner do?
That long-pondered question went mostly unanswered last season as
Houston finished second in the Central, but only because of the incompetence of all non-Chicago teams
, as they finished a mere 82-80. But apparently management had Larry Dierker's immortal song in mind this offseason, because they didn't change
a thing. I'm not exaggerating one bit, either. Not a
single player entered the organization -- no waiver claims, no trades, no signings. The only loss was Tim Redding, cut outright after wasting 60 innings last year, posting a team-worst 6.49 ERA. This is
Tokugawa Iemitsu Japan brought to life in modern day baseball. I can't convey just how much this fascinates the hell out of me. This team hasn't changed anything since May
of last year, when some stupid team from
Chicago claimed the immortal
Mike Gallo off of waivers. "Makes A Fella Proud to be an Astro", indeed!
Their philosophy is both incredibly stupid and the single most interesting thing I've ever seen in this game, more interesting than even the engimatic
Hacktastic One. Now I know why I'm doing these previews!!!
OK, I've composed myself again. This team should be easy to project, obviously. They struggled to score runs last year but excelled at preventing them, so all we're looking for is a reason that may change. I don't see it on the offensive end; the only notable difference is that
Jeff Bagwell and
Jeff Kent are both 38 years of age instead of 37. For the latter, the proverbial cliff shifted last year from somewhere beyond the horizon to noticeably in the foreground, and with that, the perspective of his statistics changed, too. Instead of focusing on his sparkling .185 Isolated Power, his unsightly .284 on-base percentage jumps out at you like a zit on the Mona Lisa.
Jeff Bagwell shares a similar blemish even though he's coming off a season in which he scored 104 runs and jacked 36 long balls, including number 500 for his career.
Bags did that despite getting on base just 33.9% of the time, and reaching via base knock at a career low 25.6% rate. If both players continue to decline (and only a fool would project otherwise), the '
Stros might struggle even to reach last year's total of 684 runs scored, 21st in the league. It's really freakin' hard to score that rarely (trust me!), but there are no stars in this lineup.
Richard Hidalgo,
Jay Lane, and
Todd "The Pariah of Saint Louis"
Hollandsworth compose a fine outfield, an above-average one, even. But none of the three are much more than semi-stars, and the same goes for third baseman
Morgan Ensberg, a criminally underrated player similar to
Robin Ventura in his prime.
So to hope for an improvement in run scoring, you'd have to hope there are some good young players here to offset the old geezer
Jeffs. Instead, you'd find that all of the regulars are in their thirties, with one exception -- catcher
John Buck. But with his wet noodle of a bat, he could be 56 years young instead of 26 and it wouldn't matter. Somewhere,
Brad Ausmus is smiling.
Curiously, he was drafted by the Empire. I didn't know that, and I know everything. Huh.
To win considerably more this year, then, the
Astros would somehow need their pitching staff to allow approximately half the runs they did last season, when they placed sixth in the league in run prevention. I could go into great depth on the virtues of
Carlos Hernandez and
Roy Oswalt and the non-sequitur in this universe called
Johan Santana, but I won't. Suffice it to say that
Pettitte and
Lidge and
Brandon Backe and someone named
Nate Bland are still alive and kicking ass for this ballclub.
Houston's pitching is most definitely championship-quality caliber. Their hitting could have used an upgrade, but am I ever glad they chose not to. It would make for a hell of a story if this plan actually worked, if
Houston managed to rip off 10 more wins this year and get to the playoffs. They'd be sitting pretty, then. How could they not? If ever a beast as team chemistry were to have an effect, it's here. For the sake of the
shogunate,
Harry "The Hat" Walker, and something that's been stirred inside me, I really, really hope my head is wrong about this team. I hope that nearly every bit as much as I hope my head is wrong about the
Pale Hose.
I have found a second team to root for.