Tejada went 3-for-3 with an RBI double and a single to back Roy Oswalt, who was making his first start since returning from the World Baseball Classic.
Roy Oswalt allowed 10 hits and three runs in six innings. OUCH, guess not being on the world platform doesn't give you that adrenaline sometimes. Bring it back next time Roy.
The Astros made two roster moves Friday morning, sending right-hander Bud Norris and catcher J.R. Towles to Minor League camp.
Norris will join the Round Rock rotation, but he will be the first pitcher considered if a need arises in either the rotation or the bullpen in Houston.
Towles was edged out when the club signed Pudge Rodriguez, which moved Humberto Quintero to a backup role.
More in this later.
Aaron Boone underwent open heart surgery Thursday at the Stanford University Medical Center, and early indications are that the procedure was successful.
"I spoke to Aaron's father Bob and he indicated that things went well," Astros General Manager Ed Wade said in a statement released by the Astros. "Certainly our prayers are with Aaron and the entire Boone family in hopes of a full recovery."
Dr. D. Craig Miller was scheduled to perform the surgery, which was to include the replacement of an aortic valve. In medical terms, the procedure that Boone was scheduled to undergo is called bicuspid aortic valve aneurysm surgery, which included an aortic valve replacement.
The 36-year-old Boone revealed last week that he has had the heart condition since he was in college and categorized the surgery as "not an emergency situation."
Boone said he would like to play baseball again but was not sure he would. It is highly unlikely he will play again this year. Boone described the recovery time for the surgery to be "several months."
Courtesy of Alyson Footer.
"Miguel Tejada was sentenced to one year of probation and 100 hours of community service, in addition to a $5,000 fine, for lying to Congress about performancing-enhancing drugs."
Shame on you Tejada, and that gigantic fine should serve you right, all 5K of it.
Paronto left Monday's game with what was originally diagnosed as a right shoulder muscle strain, but after undergoing a series of strength tests the next morning, the right-hander was told he should be OK after a few days of rest. The source of the pain, according to Paronto, is isolated to where the back and shoulder meet.
"I've been playing for 13 years, and this is the first thing that's ever happened to me," Paronto said. "I don't know how to go about it."
Paronto became visibly agitated when the injury first happened, acting more out of frustration than pain.
"I was panicked," he said.
Understandably so. Paronto has had one of the better springs of all Astros relievers, and while he isn't expected to make the club out of Spring Training, he's hoping to finish the month strong. In seven appearances, Paronto has earned three earned runs over 10 innings for a 2.70 ERA.
"I've never had anything like this happen," he said. "I've never been hurt. I've been very lucky with that. Things have been going so well this spring that this isn't a good time for this to happen. You want to have a good showing, even if it's an outside shot."
Courtesy of Alyson Footer
This time, Rodriguez threw the curveball, and all of his other pitches, without any pain.
"I felt it a little, but I could control my curveball," Rodriguez said. "I felt it, but it wasn't bad. I need to work more because today, I missed my location a little bit. I'm going to be OK, I didn't feel any soreness."
Rodriguez is projected to fall somewhere in the middle of the Astros' rotation this year, although manager Cecil Cooper hasn't yet revealed how the remaining four will line up after Roy Oswalt. Cooper did reveal he's considering moving Rodriguez's next start up one day, to Saturday, "to line him up" for opening week.
Face it, Wan-Rod is our number 2 guy this year unless Ben Sheets, Andy Pettitte, Jake Peavy or Roger Clemens want to come this way.
I have been following fellow blogger, Scott Barzilla with astrosdaily.com, for quite some time now. I recently asked him to be the first guest blogger on “In the Astros Blogosphere” feature that I will be entertaining weekly. Scott is an amazingly bright individual who spends his free time with his two year old daughter, playing golf and baseball. He probably has a better collection of Max Bishop memorabilia than you in his closet. Scott has a book coming out in the spring covering his first ten years as a teacher, which is entitled; Combating Ignorance: Inside and Outside the classroom.
Gambling vs. Investing
By Scott Barzilla
I’m sure you think you are getting stuck in a financial seminar, but really I am talking about two ways to build a bullpen. You can either gamble or you can invest. There are general managers out there that are good at both. Believe it or not, it is one of Ed Wade’s strengths. The concept is pretty simple. I’m sure most of you have noticed that bullpen performance tends to fluctuate from season to season. In many respects, bullpen performance is one of the categories that makes predicting the final standings difficult. The reason is that most prognosticators go by what happened last year instead of looking at what might happen.
When you look at the Astros for instance, you will see a very good bullpen. In particular, after Latroy Hawkins was picked up, the Astros bullpen was nearly spotless. Overall, it was easily one of the top five bullpens in the National League. Surprisingly, the Astros were one of the top five or six teams in the National League despite having a roster that looked mediocre or worse. This is one of the many reasons why some optimistic fans have picked them to win while most casual observers see the same mediocre roster. Before we go too far, we need to have a primer course in why relief pitching is so unpredictable.
You can split fans and analysts into three categories. First, you have your simpletons like Joe Morgan. They look at wins and losses. Most fans and analysts don’t fall into that category. They recognize that winning and losing is predicated mostly on luck. The second category looks at statistics like ERA and WHIP. However, much of that is also predicated on luck. The sabermetricians are the third category. We look at statistics called DIPS (defense independent pitching statistics). In other words, you can learn a whole lot more by looking at strikeouts, walks, and home runs allowed than you can at ERA. In particular, another statistic (BABIP) really opens eyes.
Relief pitchers’ relative performance changes more from season to season than starting pitchers because of the sample size involved. In 200 innings, a pitcher’s luck will typically even out which makes using ERA a little more reliable. In 50 innings, a pitcher’s ERA is very dependent on luck. BABIP (or batting average on balls in play) fluctuates wildly from season to season and as BABIP goes so goes ERA. So, a pitcher with a 3.00 ERA might easily have a 5.00 ERA the next season without changing all that much. A good gambling general manager can take advantage of that.
In short, a gambler will sign guys who had down seasons expecting them to bounce back. If you look at BABIP for instance, you will notice that the league average BABIP usually comes in around .300. After you remove walks, strikeouts, and home runs, that is usually where most hitters and pitchers will wind up. If you find a pitcher that came in well above that then you can expect him to improve with even average luck. Some teams (like the Astros last season) came in below that overall. With a good defense, you can expect quite a boost in performance. Naturally, the reverse is true for pitchers with a very low BABIP. The temptation of the gambling GM is the same as the conventional gambler. It is easy to see success and expect that success to continue. Thus, the Astros have the same bullpen coming back. Here is a quick look at their collective efforts.
Jose Valverde
Latroy Hawkins
Geoff Geary
Chris Sampson
Wesley Wright
Tim Byrdak
You might be thinking that ERAs and won-loss records are missing, but you really don’t need them. You know that Jose Valverde is the best pitcher based on his strikeout rate. You know that the two lefties are shaky based on their high walk and home run rates. This of course brings us to the whole art of gambling. The Astros gambled and gambled big on Geoff Geary and Tim Byrdak. Byrdak was an outrageously lucky bargain. The reason the house always wins is because the house knows you are stupid enough to keep playing long odds if your first play is a win. A smart gambler knows when he was lucky and walks away. The rest of spring will tell us if the Astros are smart enough to walk away from Tim Byrdak.
Geary was a gamble, but a calculated one given that he at least keeps the ball in the park. However, there are rumblings that he is on the trading block. If that is the case then the Astros could dodge two bullets and end up with another solid pen. If they keep Byrdak and Geary in place of someone else they could end up being a bad pen.
Investing always sounds better than gambling, but really they are not that much different. The only difference is that investing usually pays off over the long haul. In the short term, they are one in the game. If Ed Wade seems more the gambling sort we can’t blame him too much. Investing in the bullpen involves having live young arms that will tend to put up the kind of numbers that Valverde, Brocial, and Wright are putting up in the strikeout department. Once you get that, you simply bank on improvement as we hope to get from Wright this year. Since Wright is the only pitcher that can be called a prospect, Wade can’t do a whole lot of investing.
The trouble with investing is that those pitchers eventually become arbitration eligible or free agent eligible. So, the hope is that they get it before they become expensive. Wade would like to get to that point, but right now he has to keep looking for bargain players in the hopes they will strike it lucky with their BABIPs. The problem is that Wade has never mentioned BABIP before, so we don’t know if he agrees with the principles I’ve outlined. If he does, you can easily find a dozen or so guys that were bitten by the hit bug last year. Good luck and bad luck rarely repeat themselves two years in a row. Of course, it looks like Astros fans will have to hope that happens in 2009.
Once again, Scott, thanks for the insight and see you in the blogosphere!
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"Astros third baseman Chris Johnson is another young player who might benefit from more minor-league experience. He started last season at Class AA, then was promoted to Class AAA and batted only .218 in 101 at-bats.
The loss of Aaron Boone leaves the Astros looking for a platoon partner for Geoff Blum, a switch-hitter with a .310 career on-base percentage, .287 last season. Blum, like most switch-hitters, generally is stronger from the left side.
The Reds, to the surprise of several scouts, are considering trading infielder Jeff Keppinger, a right-handed hitter. Keppinger would be a perfect fit for the Astros, alternating with Blum and representing insurance for oft-injured second baseman Kaz Matsui.
Juan Uribe could be another possibility for the Astros if he fails to stick with the Giants. Frankly, the player the Astros need is Ty Wigginton, whom they declined to re-sign for financial reasons."
Crazy, that last sentence has been my sentiments all along. Astros really, really need Ty Wiggington back in town. I don't mind Keppinger. I remember picking him up in one of my fantasy leagues last year for a while. He was on a tear until he got some osrt of mild injury (if I remember correctly). Uribe may work but is pretty much an everyday average player. My wants for the Astros would be Teahan or Melvin Mora. Neither one of those guys are out of the question, with the exception Mora is a little bit more expensive but both are above average, barely.
"We should win 90 games, without question," Cooper said this morning. "We have a terrific bullpen. We have one of the best closers in the game. We've got the ace in the National League. We've got three of the best offensive players at their position. We've got, if not the best, then one of the top catchers in baseball.
"I mean, c'mon. We've got what it takes. You're telling me we're not going to win that many games?"
I agree, but 90 wins is going to have to come from the players that he didn't mention. Bourn has to produce, Kaz has to be healthy, Pence has to show more than his sophomore slump, SP3-5 are going to have to win 5-7 games a piece. It's going to take more than Fat Elvis, Roy O and Lee to win.
I am glad to see he is so optimistic about this years team. Let's see in 13 days huh?
