as the proverbial turd in a punchbowl. ‘Stros are cruising behind Roy O. and lead the Giants 4-1 through 7. Then, the Giants get a couple of bloop hits and Bonds cranks a homer to tie it up. Then, Dotel comes in for the top of the 9th, promptly hits a batter, the Giants sacrifice him to second, Dotel wild pitches him to third, and a sacrifice fly brings him home. Biggio and Everett — at the top of the Astros’ order and two of the poorer hitters in the starting unit –go out meekly in the bottom of ninth, and Bagwell fans to end it.
The ‘Stros have questionable enough hitting to be having poorer hitters such as Biggio and Everett batting at the top of the order.
Andy Pettitte tries for a better result in Game Two of the series. Stay tuned.

The Astros (or “the Stros” as they’re known locally) open the 2004 Major League Baseball season this evening at 6 p.m. in Minute Maid Park against the San Francisco Giants. Ace Roy Oswalt will pitch for the ‘Stros and Kirk Rueter will hurl for the Giants. A NY Times article on the ‘Stros is here.
The mainstream media’s coverage is typical Astros’ propaganda, echoing the club’s theme that the off-season acquisition of Roger Clemens and Andy Pettitte make “this the Astros’ season,” whatever that means.
In reality, while the Astros’ pitching staff is strong, the rest of the team has some big question marks. My sense is that the ‘Stros will struggle to score enough runs this season to be a championship caliber team. They have huge holes in the hitting lineup at catcher (Brad Ausmus, one of the worst hitters in baseball), shortstop (Adam Everett good field, no hit) and centerfield (Craig Biggio, probable Hall of Famer, but over the hill). Of their better hitters, one has a bad wrist (Jeff Kent), one has had one good season out of the last three (Richard Hidalgo) and one is beginning his sixth straight season of declining production (Jeff Bagwell). With the exception of promising OF Jason Lane (who should be starting in front of Biggio in CF), the bench players are uninspiring. That leaves solid young hitters Lance Berkman and Morgan Ensberg, who probably will have to have spectacular seasons to pull up the others on the club who will likely be declining.
To make matters worse, Astros’ manager Jimy Williams’ batting card has the light hitting Biggio and Everett batting one and two, while the far better hitting Berkman and Ensberg are listed at sixth and seventh. Go figure.
The bottom line: the ‘Stros have solid pitching with questionable hitting, below average depth, and a bull-headed manager. Not exactly a prescription for a championship season, but I’ll be following developments with interest, anyway.

His lawyer is publicly claiming that Barry Bonds has become a target of the criminal investigation into illegal distribution of steroids in the Bay Area.

Giants fans are not happy about the new name for what was formerly known as Pac Bell Park.

The Astros traded left-handed pitcher Jeriome Robertson yesterday to the Cleveland Indians for two minor league outfielders. Although Robertson was in the starting rotation for the Astros last season, he was expendable this season because of the Astros’ off-season acquisition of Roger Clemens and Andy Pettitte, and the re-emergence of Carlos Hernandez, who was injured last season, but is a better prospect than Robertson.
The Chronicle article on this deal is a good example of the poor reporting that the mainstream media provides on professional sports in general. Essentially, the Chronicle took the Astros’ press release on the trade, rearranged a few words, and then published it as a story. Consequently, the story relates that the Astros’ extraordinary pitching depth gave them the opportunity to pick up two promising outfielders in exchange for a solid starter pitcher in Robertson who led the Astros’ staff last season with 15 wins.
Now, let’s talk reality. Robertson is a marginal talent who won 15 games last season mostly because the Astros happened to score an above-average amount of runs in the games he pitched. His real pitching statistics were well below average for a National League starting pitcher. Here’s what the more objective Baseball Prospectus 2004 has to say about Robertson:

“Author of a 15-9 record despite allowing nearly 14 baserunners per nine innings, Robertson was rated the sixth-luckiest starter in the majors according to Michael Wolverton’s Support-Neutral W/L Report at BaseballProspectus.com, and such luch rarely lasts (new teammate Andy Pettitte was the luckiest–uh-oh). The Astros did not expect much more than an ambulatory fill-guy after shuttling in Robertson to replace the departed Shane Reynolds, and that’s really all they got. Though thought of as a groundball pitcher, his GB/FB rate of 1.16 ranked him a shade below the median NL starter. If he’s to keep his rotation spot as a finesse lefty, he’ll need to induce more dribblers to take advantage of Adam Everett and keep the ball as far away from centerfielder Biggio as possible.”

Baseball Prospectus is more optimistic on the 22 year old Willie Taveras, one of the minor leaguers that the Astros picked up in the deal:

“Speed on the bases, grace in the field, and patience at the plate, you could say Taveras has several things going for him. It’s enought to get him listed as the best prospect on Kinston [Cleveland’s minor league A team], but he was available in the Rule 5 draft. There, he was snagged by the Astros, where he might stick in their “Biggio’s Legs” roster spot.”

Luke Scott, the other minor leaguer involved in the deal, is a 25 year old who split time between Cleveland’s class A and AA teams last year. A 25 year old playing class A ball is not much of a prospect. In fact, Baseball Prospectus does not even list him as a prospect, which is not a good sign.
Accordingly, despite the Chronicle misleading report, this was not much of a deal. The upside on Taveras more than makes up for the nominal loss of Robertson. But don’t expect much from Robertson at Cleveland or from either of the minor leaguers at Houston, at least this season.

The Astros announced a deal yesterday to pick up utility infielder, Mike Lamb. As usual, the Chronicle article portrays the deal as another key move by Astros’ general manager Gerry Hunsicker to bring in a strong left-handed hitter that will shore up the depth of the team. On the other hand, the incomparable Baseball Prospectus 2004 has this to say about the newly-acquired Mr. Lamb:

Mike Lamb 3b/1B Bats:L Throws: R Born: 09-Aug-75 Age 28
[statistics deleted]
The organization (the Texas Rangers) continued to sour on Lamb in 2003. You’ve heard the story hundreds of times before: A pretty good hitter who can’t quite stay far enough right on the defensive spectrum to justify a major league spot. Players like this are drawn by force of nature to the Sacramento River Cats.

Amid the mainstream media’s mindless analysis of Major League Baseball in general and the Houston Astros in particular, Baseball Prospectus provides an objective, and less than encouraging, analysis of the Astros’ bench players for the upcoming season:

We’ve put off discussing the Astros’ bench options this spring since the outlook is, in a word, depressing. They basically have Jason Lane and a bunch of guys who are, um, alive. Technically, anyway. But it’s time we got on with it.
Long-Time Farmhand, First-Time Backup: Speaking of the undead, someone has to be on hand in case Brad Ausmus is ever out of the lineup. With John Buck failing to develop at all, Raul Chavez has been tabbed for the duties this year. Unsurprisingly, PECOTA figures Chavez would likely out-hit Ausmus, but the latter’s glove and organizational track record results in zero chance that he’ll be pulled from the lineup until (and even if) Buck is ready.
Scrubs in the Infield: With Jose Vizcaino is entrenched as the fifth infielder for another year, and no obvious plan for the sixth spot, the competition would seem wide open, but most of the apparent candidates were eliminated from the get-go. Chris Burke and Tom Whiteman need to play every day at New Orleans to see if they’ll finally amount to something, so have no business rotting on the big club’s bench. David Matranga, who spent time in Houston last year, has long since been outrighted off the 40-man roster. That pretty much boils the situation down to Eric Bruntlett, who would most likely ride pine at either level, and the carcass of John Valentin, who was brought in to light a fire under a youngster to be named later, but has managed just a single in 21 at-bats this spring. Expect Bruntlett to emerge as a victor, as there’s no reason for Valentin to force someone through waivers, even in an organization this veteran-focused.
Outfield Depth: As mentioned above, Lane will server as the fourth outfielder, inspiring fantasy players everywhere to hope for an injury to Craig Biggio. Since the internal options for fifth outfielder are even worse than for the sixth infielder, Orlando Palmeiro was hauled in despite an uninspiring glove and a projected .240 EqA. Was it really that important to give him $750K instead of keeping Colin Porter or Henri Stanley around to play for the minimum? It seems impossible to believe, but given the insistence on re-upping guys like Ausmus and Vizcaino, it seems pretty clear that the front office is using an evaluation system even more peculiar than the A’s defensive system.

In this related Chronicle story, Astros’ owner Drayton McLane publicly denies the persistent local rumor that he is negotiating to sell the club to Houston restaurateur Tilman Fertitta, CEO of Landry’s, Inc.

In this interesting piece, Will Young relates his evening with John Dowd, the Washington, D.C. lawyer who is the author of the report for the Commissioner of Major League Baseball that concluded that Pete Rose had bet on baseball games while managing the Cincinnati Reds. Nothing earth shattering here, but interesting reading nonetheless. Mr. Dowd’s opinion that Commissioner Selig is attempting to find a way to reinstate Rose is, if correct, highly troubling.

The Astros‘ main rival in the National League Central Division–the Chicago Cubs–will announce today that they have signed Greg Maddux, a certain future Hall of Famer and one of the best pitchers of the past two decades in Major League Baseball.
Assuming everyone stays healthy, the Cubs and Astros can throw the following pitching rotations at each other:
Cubs
Mark Prior
Kerry Wood
Greg Maddux
Matt Clement
Carlos Zambrano
Astros
Roy Oswalt
Roger Clemens
Andy Pettitte
Wade Miller
Tim Redding
Wow!

Bob Ryan‘s calm personnel analysis in the Boston Globe reflects that the Yankees’ acquisition of Alex Rodriguez over the weekend does not necessarily mean that the Yankees’ lineup this season will be significantly better than the Red Sox.
For the most part, Ryan’s analysis is reasonably accurate, although he is wrong in suggesting that the Red Sox’s Pokey Reese is better than any Yankee alternative at second base. Although many people watch baseball, far fewer understand (even some in the baseball business) what attributes make a truly good baseball player. Reese is a poster child for the tendency of unknowlegeable fans to equate flashy fielding (which Reese can do) with quality production as a player (which Reese has rarely done). Reese’s main contribution to teams on which he has played is to make an unusually high number of outs.
Meanwhile, Mickey Herskowitz provides his usual sound insight on the A Rod deal, which includes the rather foreboding observation for Red Sox fans:
As a potential bonus, the Yankees will have A-Rod available in the event Jeter gets hurt. Not many clubs could envision losing a Derek Jeter and improving themselves at shortstop.