It appears that San Antonio’s flirtation with the Florida Marlins is dead, according to this My SA.com article. Apparently, the Marlins’ management has been ignoring San Antonio officials since mid-April after Bexar County Judge Nathan Wolff set a May 15th deadline for the Marlins to commit to relocation.
Meanwhile, Maury Brown over at the Hardball Times chimes in with this analysis in which he concludes that current financial conditions strongly mitigate against relocation of any Major League Baseball franchise:

Relocation only comes with a stadium tied up in a shiny bow. Given the fact that more and more municipalities are latching on to the facts that I outline, they see that providing heavy public subsidy as not favorable, nor possibly needed. With that, MLB clubs will, most likely, continue to reference relocation in one manner or another, and work to try and get funding in their current markets, the relocation threat ever present.
So, for you fans of the franchises that have been discussed here today, remember: your team, at least for the time being, isnít going anywhere. Not, at least, when markets are, for the time being, not offering up enough to make it attractive. As I said, clubs may be threatening, but the gunís not loaded.

This is my first periodic review or the Stros’ season in my third straight year of blogging the club, and the first 10% of the season has has initially justified my generally rosy pre-season outlook. The club has burst out of the gate with a Major League-best 11-5 record and, with the exception of the relief pitching, every other part of the club has been performing at above-expected levels so far.
As regular readers know, I’m a stathead with regard to analyzing baseball, so here are the key stats of the Stros’ hitters (pdf of hitting stats here) and pitchers (pdf of pitching stats here) through the first 16 games, courtesy of Lee Sinins‘ sabermetric Baseball Encyclopedia:

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Although the Stros have been one of Major League Baseball’s best clubs over the past 12 years of the Biggio-Bagwell era, what is not as well-known outside of baseball circles is that the Houston area has become one of the leading sources of young baseball talent in the nation.
Most folks already know about Coach Wayne Graham and Rice University’s outstanding baseball program, which won the College World Series in 2003. However, not as many folks realize that the University of Houston and its fine baseball coach Rayner Noble also have an excellent program, which this season is competing neck-and-neck with Rice for the Conference USA regular season title and — along with Rice — is likely to receive a spot in the upcoming NCAA Baseball Tournament. Finally, one of the local high school programs in my hometown of The Woodlands, about 30 miles north of downtown Houston — The Woodlands High School baseball program — is currently the number one-ranked high school baseball program in Texas and the United States by Baseball America.
With that backdrop, the Chronicle’s Richard Justice profiles UH pitcher Brad Lincoln, who Baseball America currently ranks third among college players and is likely to be one of the top 10 picks in the upcoming Major League Baseball draft. Lincoln is 7-1 with a 1.68 ERA this season, has allowed just 70 baserunners in 75 innings and has 92 strikeouts compared to only 18 walks. Lincoln is just the most recent in a long-line of outstanding pitchers developed at UH by Coach Noble, who was a fine pitcher in his day before a Major League career was doomed by an arm injury.
But not mentioned in the Justice column is that Kyle Drabek of The Woodlands — the son of former Cy Young-award winning and Stros pitcher Doug Drabek — is also currently projected as a top 10 pick in the MLB draft. During the current high school season, Drabek has already thrown four shutouts, two no-hitters and two one-hitters, and did not allow an earned run through his first 36 innings this season.
I think it’s safe to say that baseball is booming in Houston.

This Maury Brown article over at Hardball Times provides a good analysis of Major League Baseball salaries for the 2006 season and, as usual, the results are interesting.
The league average team payroll for 2006 is $77,556,890, up $4,708,716 from 2005’s $72,848,173 league average. The Stros had a $15,772,503 increase from 2005 (a 20.54% change) to $92,551,503, which is eighth among MLB teams. 19 of the 30 MLB clubs are spending more money this season on player salaries than last and only the Marlins and the Rockies are spending considerably less among the clubs that are spending less on salaries this season than they did last season.
Although their payroll is down a bit, the Yankees at about $195 million are still spending almost $85 million more than their nearest competitor (the Red Sox) and are only $7 million short of the entire combined payrolls of the Marlins, Devil Rays, and Rockies. The median salary ó the point at which an equal amount of players fall above and below ó rose to a record high of $1 million from $850,000 in 2005, and the median salary on the Stros is $940,000.

My younger son and I were able to slide down to Minute Maid Park last night to attend our first Stros game of the season and the hometown club came through with a victory behind (or, should I say, in spite of?) Wandy Rodriguez.
As regular readers know, I’ve been a Stros season ticket holder for 20 years now, and my family and I enjoy going to games very much. For many years, I have split the 81 home games with two friends with each of us taking 1/3rd of the games, which allows me in most seasons to see each National League team one time. But even with just 27 games, I find myself giving away a substantial number of the tickets each season to friends and business associates — my family and I simply do not have time to catch all 27 games.
With that backdrop, this post from Richard Samuelson over at the Claremount Remedy made me chuckle:

On my commute this morning, I was listening to ESPN radio. It being Opening Day, and they were discussing season tickets. “What’s it like to attend 81 games a year?” “Grueling, yet fun” was the answer.
They interviewed one guy who has attended 75 Angels games the past couple of seasons, and another who caught 80 Reds games the past couple of seasons, before moving to Florida. Then they spoke with a guy who has been to every Orioles home game in the past four years, and is starting another season today.
“How do you have time for so many games,” the ESPN guy asked?
The answer, of course: “I work for the government.”

This earlier post noted that the Tampa Bay Devil Rays have been the train-wreck of Major League Baseball for the club’s entire existence. Now, this Landon Thomas/NY Sunday Times article explains how former Houstonian Andrew Friedman — son of longtime Houston attorney J. Kent Friedman — is taking an innovative approach as Devil Rays general manager in attempting to make the ballclub competitive in the brutal American League East Division. Interestingly, the article notes that the Devil Rays best player is another native Houstonian — outfielder Carl Crawford — but does not even mention (even in a picture!) another former Houstonian who was recently hired by the Devil Rays to help Friedman: former Stros GM Gerry Hunsicker. Hunsicker’s star sure has dimmed since leaving Houston, hasn’t it?
Meanwhile, this San Antonio Express article provides the latest on San Antonio’s effort to lure the Florida Marlins (previous posts here and here):

[Bexar County Judge Nelson] Wolff said he has received 36 non-binding, oral commitments from area businesses to rent suites. That information, he said, will be passed on to [Marlins owner Jeffrey] Loria on Monday in Houston, where a San Antonio contingent led by Wolff . . . will watch the Marlins’ season opener against the Astros as Loria’s guest.

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It’s Opening Day today in Houston as the Stros take on the Marlins this afternoon at Minute Maid Park, so it’s time for my annual preview of the Stros upcoming team and season (last season’s preview is here). Let’s first review what happened over the 2005 season and the off-season:

First, the improbable ride to the 2005 World Series.
An off-season snarky week in Strosland and Richard Justice’s continued petty criticism of Drayton McLane and Tim Purpura.
Why Milo Hamilton is wrong when he claims that Willy Taveras should have been National League Rookie-of-the-Year.

Comparing bad off-season deals and Roger Clemens, player agent.
Reviewing the top ten Stros minor league prospects.
Acquiring Preston Wilson may upgrade leftfield, but he’s no slugger.
Why Gene Elston should still be the Stros play-by-play announcer and the Stros connection to the latest Hall of Fame inductee.
The muddle over the disability insurance policy on Jeff Bagwell (here, here, here, here and here), the greatest player in Stros history prepares for the Hall of Fame, and something about steroids that Stros fans may soon be hearing about.

So, with that backdrop, the Stros begin their quest to make the National League playoffs for the seventh time in the past ten seasons as they close out the remarkably successful Biggio-Bagwell era. I was one of the few to predict that the light-hitting 2005 club could contend for yet another playoff berth, although even I wavered during the early part of the season and even later in the season. But after a horrible 15-30 record in their first 45 games, the 2005 Stros were a remarkable 74-43 for the remainder of the regular season to lock up the playoff berth with only three less wins than the 2004 club that came within a game of the World Series.
Most experts are again predicting that the Stros will decline during the 2006 season. Essentially, the contrarian view of the Stros is that inexperience in starting pitching, combined with the Stros’ overall lack of hitting and hitting prospects in the high minor leagues, will finally catch up with the Stros and cause them to finish closer to a .500 record than the 90-95 wins that are usually necessary to sew up a playoff berth (Baseball Prospectus’ Joe Sheehan has the Stros finishing 80-82). Although I understand the contrarian view, my rose-colored glasses view of the Stros is that the club has enough to make at least one more playoff run at the end of the Biggio–Bagwell era in which the Stros have posted a winning record in five consecutive seasons and 12 of 13 since 1993.
This season’s club will likely be better than last season’s club from a hitting standpoint, although that’s really not saying much. Last season’s club ended up at a -26 team runs created against average (“RCAA,” explained here) for the regular season (12th out of the 16 National League teams), which means that the 2005 Stros scored 26 fewer runs than an average National League team would have scored during the season.

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As noted earlier here, objective research does not support the current conventional wisdom that widespread steroid use in Major League Baseball is largely responsible for the home run records that were set over the past decade. Nevertheless, while continuing to ignore or refine such research, Major League Baseball announced yesterday that former U.S. Senator George Mitchell will lead an investigation into alleged steroid use by Barry Bonds and other players.
The Chronicle’s Richard Justice thinks that the investigation will put primarily Bonds in the crosshairs of investigators, but I’m not as sure that Bonds will end up being the only icon tarnished by the investigation. For quite some time now, some pundits on the steroid issue have alleged that the Stros and star slugger Jeff Bagwell were at the center of the steroid use in Major League Baseball and that Bagwell was even indirectly involved in Bonds’ decision to take steroids. Accordingly, don’t be surprised if the investigation implicates Bags and other Stros.
Given the conclusions to which generally uninformed people jump in regard to steroid use, it will be unfortunate if Bags’ reputation is dragged through the mud in this process. Just remember that steroids did not make him the greatest slugger in Stros history or Bonds one of the greatest sluggers in Major League Baseball history.

The Chronicle’s Stros beat writer, Jose de Jesus Ortiz, reports today that the insurer of the Stros disability insurance policy on slugger Jeff Bagwell has denied the Stros’ claim that Bagwell’s arthritic right shoulder has rendered him disabled under the terms of the policy. Previous posts on the Bagwell disability claim are here and the post from the past weekend on Bags’ impending retirement is here.
The insurer’s position is not particularly surprising. Although Bagwell cannot throw a baseball well enough to play Major League Baseball in the National League, he was in the same condition last September when the Stros activated him to pinch-hit in the final regular season games and the playoffs. Consequently, the insurer contends that nothing has changed since Bags was physically capable of playing last fall and, thus, he continues not to be disabled.
On the other hand, the Stros are contending that the fact that Bags was able to handle partial duties in the fall (i.e., bat, but not throw) fails to establish that he is not disabled now. The Stros contend that Bagwell’s disability was not finally confirmed until January 12, 2006, when orthopedic expert Dr. James Andrews examined Bags, according to Stros’ counsel, Wayne Fisher:

“He was throwing the ball at 35 mph at what distance he could throw. On Jan. 12, we know total disability began, because Dr. James Andrews, a world-renowned physician, told him. That was the first time any physician had ever said that to Jeff. If Connecticut General Insurance Co. can tell us what person in that insurance company knows more about whether Jeff Bagwell was totally disabled on Jan. 12 than Dr. James Andrews, I’ll be very interested in cross-examining him.”

Fisher is a first-rate plaintiffs lawyer and an old friend of Stros owner, Drayton McLane. The success or failure of these types of claims are notoriously dependent on the policy provisions, particularly those pertaining to the definition of disability and the litigation forum. If the policy requires arbitration of the claim, then my sense is that the Stros have a tough case. On the other hand, if Fisher can get the insurer into state district court in Harris County, then the home field advantage definitely favors the Stros.

As predicted by this earlier post, first baseman Jeff Bagwell — the greatest player in the 46-year history of the Houston Astros franchise — announced today that he would begin the 2007 season the disabled list and that his arthritic right shoulder probably will not allow him to resume his certain Hall-of-Fame career.
While some consider it sad that Bags’ baseball career is drawing to a close, I prefer to appreciate the opportunity that I had to watch this extraordinary player on a daily basis over the past 15 years. Fearsome slugger, superb defensive player, excellent baserunner — Jeff Bagwell was the entire package. A job well done, sir.

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