2008 Astros preview

“Hi, my name is Michael. I’m a Houston Astros fan.”

My therapist says that all sports fans are delusional. Every spring I believe that this is going to be our year. “Yes, of course,” he responds, “and when was the last time your Houston Astros actually won a World Series?” When I answer, “Well, never, but…” he always gives me the clinical definition of “insanity”.

My therapist also says sports fans are all moderately bi-polar. The highs are typically euphoric, the lows always exaggerated. Like my insomnia and general anxiety after the 2006 season when an 82 win Astros team missed the playoffs. He responded by asking me, “Even if your team had made the playoffs, who would you have trusted to get those tough outs late in a game? (As you can tell, he’s not your average psychologist. In fact, he’s also a recovering Astros fan.) I know just saying the words “Brad Lidge” will open up a whole other can of post traumatic worms. So I just shrug.

As part of my treatment, this year I’m not going to tell Houston fans that this is our year. I’m not going to say that things are going to get better next year, or the year after. Instead, I'm going to do what I've been fighting for the last couple years: give in to my cynicism and bitterness. So here are my seven reasons the Astros aren’t going to win this year.

If you're a fair-weather Astros fan, you may want to avert your eyes, or else grab a life vest. Because by the time we're done, you'll be looking for the quickest exit from this sinking ship.

1) You don’t have to be a statistician to recognize this trend. The last four years, the Astros have won 92, 89, 82, and 73 games. In 2007 our starting rotation was Roy Oswalt and a bunch of guys with names like Woody and Wandy with ERAs over four and a half and more losses than wins. Our offense finished thirteenth in the NL and other than Hunter Pence was made up of a bunch of veterans on the decline. So we brought in

2) Ed Wade to fix the problem. First, I need to talk about the Astros GM from 1995 to 2004, Gerry Hunsicker. During his tenure, the Astros made the playoffs five times and were rarely involved in trade rumors, but somehow often swooped in at the last minute to land a big name player like Randy Johnson, Jeff Kent, Carlos Beltran, Andy Pettite, or Roger Clemens. He also oversaw a farm system that produced Lance Berkman, Roy Oswalt, and Bobby Abreu. Any baseball fan in Philadelphia will tell you that Wade was the GM whose Philly teams missed the playoffs for eight straight years. They’ll also tell you how he traded Curt Schilling for Vicente Padilla and Scott Rolen for Placido Polanco. They might also mention the David Bell signing if they’re not already frothing at the mouth.

3) Ed Wade’s first big move to stop our downward spiral was to trade for Miguel Tejada the day before the Mitchell report was released. This is like buying a horse and buggy ranch the same day Henry Ford is planning to unveil his new Model T factory. Or sinking your entire life savings into the Russian stock market when there’s a big political rally taking place in Berlin. If the Astros had waited 24 hours until Tejada was officially linked to Deca-Durabolin and human growth hormone, they could have had him for pennies on the dollar. Instead, we traded Troy Patton, our 2007 minor league pitcher of the year, and Luke Scott, who had the fourth highest OPS on the team, for a "31 year-old" shortstop with limited range and a slowing bat from a country known for falsifying birth certificates.

4) Don’t look down, because there's not much help on the way. In 2007, the Astros minor league teams were 26^th overall in winning percentage. And we aren't doing much to replenish a barren farm system by giving away first round picks to sign free agents like Woody Williams and then losing our next picks because we refuse to budge from Bud Selig’s slotted bonus system. In 2007, the first player the Astros signed was the 171st overall pick. Our fourth round pick decided to go to the University of Arkansas on a golf scholarship. Seems like we should have done enough research to find out what sport he wanted to play before wasting a pick on him.

5) Not only are we failing on the big things, we’re also behind the ball on the little ones. Every year teams bring a bunch of guys to spring training as non-roster invitees. These are players who’ve fallen on hard times and can be had for the bargain basement price of a couple meaningless at bats. Smart teams like the Cardinals bring in players like two time MVP Juan Gonzalez to see if they still have anything left in the tank. Can you say big upside and little risk? The Astros, on the other hand, bring in players like Branon Backe, who once had ten wins in a season. Oh wait, nevermind. He’s actually our number three starter.

6) The Cardinals manager Tony LaRussa has been to the playoffs a dozen times and is willing to try innovative tactics like turning failed pitchers into hitters (ala Rick Ankiel) and batting his pitcher eigth to put more runners on base for Albert Pujols. The Astros manager Cecil Cooper is hitting Michael Bourn and Kazo Matsui at the top of the order to see if teams really need baserunners to score runs.

7) And finally, the Pirates’ ballpark is named for a bank. The Brewers and Cardinals’ stadiums after beer companies. Meanwhile the Astros’ field carried the title of the business involved in one of the largest corporate fraud cases in history and now is named for an orange juice company. If you were a free agent, where would you want to sign?

Hello, my name is Michael. And I have a problem.