Daily Archives: August 10, 2006

Stros 2006 Review, Part Seven

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clemens following through2.jpgAs the Stros pass the 7/10’s pole and turn on to the stretch run of the 2006 National League regular season (previous 10% segment summaries are here), there is good news and bad news.
First, the good news. For the first time since the first 10% segment of the season, the Stros actually finished their most recent 10% segment — their seventh of the season — with a winning record.
The bad news is that the Stros’ record for that seventh segment (9-7) is not indicative of the type of rally that the this year’s club needs to become a realistic contender for the National League wild-card playoff berth for the third season in a row.
Nevertheless, the Stros continue to muddle along on the fringes of the NL playoff race. Due to the fact that there are not any really good NL teams this season except for the Mets, the 55-58 Stros remain only 3.5 games behind the Reds in the NL wild-card playoff race and only six games behind the slumping Cardinals in the NL Central race (the 59-55 Reds have pulled to within 2.5 games of the 61-52 Cards in that race). So, the Stros are still within striking distance in the NL wild-card race and could even contend for the NL Central lead if the Cards and Reds both collapse down the stretch. But that latter scenario is highly unlikely and even getting to 85 wins on the season — which will probably be the minimum wins necessary to win the wild-card playoff berth — would require that the Stros go 29-19 over the remainder of the season. Given the Stros’ traditionally strong pitching, that type of finish is certainly not impossible, but there has been little indication during this season to date that this particular Stros club is going to be able to pull it together sufficiently to make that kind of run.
As predicted in the previous post in this series, the return of Clemens (2.32 ERA/14 RSAA) and Brandon Backe (3.69 ERA/3 RSAA) — as well as the banishment of Buchholz (5.96 ERA/ -16 RSAA) and Rodriguez (5.22 ERA/-7 RSAA) to AAA Round Rock — has improved the Stros pitching staff’s aggregate runs saved against average (“RSAA,” explained here) to 32, which has vaulted the Stros to 6th from 13th among the 16 NL pitching staffs.
Unfortunately, despite the explosion in last night’s game, the Stros’ chronic hitting woes are diluting the effect of the pitching staff’s improvement on the overall club’s performance. After idling around National League-avereage in runs created against average (“RCAA,” explained here) for most of the season, the Stros hitting overall declined dramatically over the past 16-game segment, falling to an aggregate RCAA of -33, the lowest of the season to date and 12th among the NL clubs.

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Cheerleading for the Texans

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mouldscin.jpgAs regular as the sun rising, the Chronicle sports staff reverts to hometown cheerleaders during each pre-season training camp of the Houston Texans, chloroforming readers with puff pieces such as this Richard Justice column on new Texans wide-receiver, Eric Moulds.
For the first three seasons of the Texans, the training camp stories all lapped up the optimistic theme that the team was making steady progress behind the well-coordinated plan of owner Bob McNair, GM Charlie Casserly and head coach Dom Capers that had led the expansion team to the brink of being a playoff contender. Unfortunately, that theme fell rather flat last season as the bottom fell out for the Texans during a horrifying 2-14 season. It was rather comical to watch as Chronicle sportswriters John McClain and Justice went from fawning praise of the Texans during the pre-season to acerbic criticism just several weeks later during that awful season.
Given last year’s disastrous season, the Chronicle’s overall theme this pre-season is a bit different — the team has overhauled management and personnel, and the new, better-organized coaching staff and the new players who the Texans have brought in are moving the Texans in the right direction again. Maybe so, but there is no meaningful analysis in Justice’s column on Moulds that would lead an objective observor to conclude that the receiver is a significant upgrade over the seemingly serviceable Jabar Gaffney, the former Texans receiver who Moulds replaced.
Compare Justice’s fawning piece on Moulds with the following pre-season analysis by the folks at Football Prospectus, who base their evaluations of players primarily on objective criteria rather than subjective considerations:

Moulds has been an average receiver at best for several years now; even back in 2003, teammates such as Bobby Shaw outranked him in DPAR (“points above replacement-level player”). But the national media still considers Moulds an elite talent because the Bills throw him 150 passes per year, and he still has one or two 9-catch, 120-yard games each season, usually when the Bills are being beaten handily. The new Bills brain trust finally figured out that Moulds’ best years were behind him, and they did everythign but throw his cleats into a trash dumpster in their effort to get rid of him this spring. Moulds is a top candidate to fall off the map in 2006.

In short, based on objective criteria, Moulds’ decline in productivity has been masked by the fact that his former team threw to him frequently, albeit ineffectively. Thus, objective analysis suggests that the Texans overpaid for Moulds and that he will not be any better than a replacement-level player. Justice’s column might make you feel better about Moulds for awhile, but my sense is that most serious followers of the Texans and the NFL prefer the cold, hard facts to the type of subjective blather that the Chronicle regularly fees us during the Texans’ pre-season camp.
By the way, for current information on the Texans, check out the Chronicle’s new blog, Stephanie Stradley’s Texans Chick. Stephanie is an unabashed Texans’ fan, so she is unfailingly optimistic about the team and its players. However, she does pass along quite a bit interesting information and analysis on the Texans and its players that is not available from the Chronicle’s other sources. I recommend giving Stephanie’s blog a look.