not a chance, unless that one thing is to secertly swap teams with the Yankees or something , or magically acquiring Hanley Ramirez.

Meant to say decent young rotation starting with Lyles, Norris, & Wandy

If you’re tied to only one move though, it has to be upping the draft/IFA budgets(ideally taking the money you spend on guys like Feliz and Lyon and redirecting it). Break slot and draft high upside talent. Be a player in the international marketplace. Build up the farm system so you can compete in the future. The organization has shown it will spend to retain it’s own talent and will make a big move on the FA market, but you need that young cost controlled talent coming up to keep the process churning.

Someone in the Jack Z mold.

…wandy and oswalt at the deadline. that would restock the system quite a lot.

After 4 years living in a quasi-contention limbo, Astros needed a purifying effect that only a total disaster season can bring. They need to lose as many games as possible, so that Uncle Drayton can finally approve a complete fire sale, and so they can draft Rendon with first pick in 2011. Problem is, Berkman, Lee and Oswalt all have no-trade protection. Berkman will waive it only for Rangers and Oswalt would consider Southern/Midwestern NL teams and Lee apparently has no interest in waiving it at all, IIRC. I agree Pence and Wandy shouldn’t be kept around either. They are both good players that can get you some prospects, but not building block types. And Wandy is on the wrong side of 30, at that. Cashing in on him is a must.

Overall, their system is terrible and something has to be done about it. Castro is a good catching prospect but long way from an elite Santana/Posey type. He is in a 60-80 range in my top 100. Lyles should be a nice mid-rotation arm but he’s not a top 3 prospect on a good farm. Mier is promising but so far down the pipeline, where possibility of flaming out is still very high. And after those three, it’s a huge drop-off. Yikes.

It will be interesting to see what will they do in draft this year. They own #8, #19 and #33 picks just in the first round. McLane is a Selig suck-up and refuses to pay over the slot bonuses and they will probably go cheap again. Still, they should make their system a little bit stronger through this year’s draft too.

Bad as their lineup is it obviously not THIS bad. And they have some decent young arms. Wait it out and see where you are in June. If they’re still terrible then, Wandy should be the first to go. Drayton won’t deal Berkman or Oswalt and Lee’s contract makes him unmovable.

Is that suggestion valid, John?

this year, let alone the coming years. they should just go young and hope their farm system comes through. they need to draft better, and stop overpaying, and overplaying mediocre players like Geoff Blum and Jason Michaels. the fact these guys are on their 40-man roster alone speaks volumes.

fat, happy players will perform better;) Then they’d have the payroll to compete with the really big market teams.

I think you’ll do more long term damage running around trying to make a bunch of panicy deals than if you just try to build a good team from here on. For the most part I think you should forget about trades….you’re trying to get a great deal…the other guy’s trying to get a great deal…somebody’s gonna get screwed. And since you’re dealing from a position of desperation it’s probably going to be you.

Sabremetrics is becoming a highly refined science (art?) Why not make use of it?

I live in Houston and have nothing against the Astros in particular, but I’ve pretty much sworn off major league baseball - anybody’s major league league baseball. We go to several professional games a year…MINOR league games. Corpus Christi, Frisco, & Round Rock all have comfortable, state of the art stadiums. The parking is cheaper, the traffic is easier to deal with, the tickets much cheaper, the viewing angles & proximity to the field vastly superior, and our wives enjoy the games much more because of the between-innings entertainment, etc.

Besides, I find A & AA baseball highly entertaining. I have to look really hard to be able to notice a difference in the level of play between AA & the majors. And even when I do think I see a difference, I’m not really sure that I’m not just fooling myself.

I have nothing against Lance Berkman or Roy Oswalt or Carlos Lee. If I was as good as them and someone offered me $14,000,000 a year, I’d sure take it. But, on the other hand, I’m not going to pay $20 to park my car on the wrong side of downtown Houston, walk a loonngg way to the stadium, and pay $50 for the same tickets that I would pay $10 for in Corpus Christi after a $4 parking fee for a game that I will enjoy just as much, probably more, with a much happier wife, plus a fireworks display after the game. And it gives us an excuse to get out of town, usually with another couple who appreciate minor league baseball (we know lots of them), for a really nice weekend.

I really think that if a lot more fans did what we do, and attend minor league, independent league, and college games the high major league salaries and ticket prices would start to come down.

When is the next year the Astros will win 80 games?

My vote is 2013.

Where he is loved and hated for good and bad reasons. But he really needs to stop making a habit out of raiding the Phillies dumpster (Bourn, Feliz, Myers). Speaking of Feliz, what sense does it make to take a guy who’s only value is his glove at 3rd and move him to first base?

Wade hasn’t made all the right moves but he made a very good one in bringing in Bobby Heck to run the farm system. The last two drafts have been much better than before. They are currently culling the farm system of Tim Purpura’s poor quality work. As a fan of their Appy league team, I can tell you that from 05-07 the Astros got very, very little out of the draft.

They need to keep investing in their international program (Asia & Dominican). They need to continue to draft well and promote aggressively. This problem was here when Wade arrived. It will take some time to fix it.