What have we done...

[redbaron]

to make our minor league system so weak? Why are so many other teams bringing up future superstars and we seem to be developing nothing but mediocre players..........with the exception of Hunter Pence......that have little or no chance of ever contributing at thd major league level. It seems that we seem to be content with trading off our best prospects for players who are in the walk year of their contract. We give up prospects for a rent-a-player deal and then don't try to re-sign the player we traded for. We have given up valuable prospects for guys like Randy Johnson, Carlos Beltran, and Aubrey Huff and then lost all of them. We have given away Freddie Garcia, Carlos Guillen, and John Buck. We let Johann Santana go in the Rule 5 draft. What idiots are making all of the decisions that are destroyng our farm system? All we seem to have in our farm system are a bunch of guys hanging on just to fill our rosters.

[astrobuddy]

1 name ..... Gerry Hunsicker. You all pine for this guy, but I say he left because he saw the state of the minors and knew what was coming and got while the getting was good.


We didnt give up squat for Huff.

Johnson, Beltran and Santana were all Hunsicker deals. Remember, Hidalgo and Abreu? Also Hunsicker.


But in fairness, you make all of those deals over and over. Especially the Randy Johnson trade.

Berkman
Oswalt
Lidge
Pence

I would say the Astros have had their fair share of "superstars" come up from the minor league system.

[sadoug]

Sometimes it is wonderful to not have a long memory....Put yourself in my place, AB...I had to watch Joe Morgan traded for lee maye...to make room for Maye, we traded john Mayberry for Jim York..( the team we could have had!!!!!)...moving on...we trade kenny Lofton and keep Brian Hunter....we traded Abreau for...for...I dont even know who we got for him....We ship traveras and keep Scott

Admittedly, we did trade Glen Davis for Harnish, Shilling, and Steve Finley...but they are gone and who did we get for them?

Frankly...were it made illegal to trdae, we would be the biggest winners in the game.

[tbone421998]

We didn't trade Abreau, we lost him in the expansion draft when we kept Hidalgo and Derek Bell over him.

On the other hand, we got Bagwell for Larry Anderson in 1990. Here's a good website for our all time transactions. www.astrosdaily.com

[redbaron]

That's also the website that's operated by the sorriest breathing maggot on this planet.

[astrobuddy]

I have a very good memory.

Willy T and Scott ? Apples and Oranges. The Rockies didnt need a corner guy. Too many people think you can just trade who you want and trade off your trash for other teams star players. You cant. A good trade hurt both teams. You have to trade something to get something. I would love to trade Ensberg for David Wright, but the Mets arent doing that deal are they?

So whats your point?

[hembo36]

bet they would like to have guillen and garcia back

[sadoug]

hard to have a civil discussion with you AB....no...make that impossible...do you think everyone is stupid?...what in hell are you talking about?...I was making the comment that I think we keep the wrong players on many occassions...you act like I think we could trade Ensburg for A Rod straight up....David Wright?...do yourself a favor and simply back away from the crack pipe.

[tbone421998]

the sorriest breathing maggot on this planet.

I understand that JB and totally agree with you. However, it does have some hard to find information. Not asking you to go there just letting people know about a resource.

[Coach]

sadoug said:

hard to have a civil discussion with you AB....no...make that impossible...do you think everyone is stupid?...what in hell are you talking about?...I was making the comment that I think we keep the wrong players on many occassions...you act like I think we could trade Ensburg for A Rod straight up....David Wright?...do yourself a favor and simply back away from the crack pipe.

I was going to say the same thing after reading his reply to your post but I didn't want to get accused of picking on AB....

[astrobuddy]

HUH? What isnt civil about my response? I know what your point is. I just dont agree with it. What I said makes perfect sense if you arent stoned or drunk. Your are crying about Morgan ( which was a bad trade, but wasnt by anyone with this team) and sh*t you dont even remember correctly and then you claim I am on crack?

Funny....

You are picking on me Coach. We should just fight and get it over with it already.

[chandler44]

A big part of it is being a victim of your own success. When you compete year in and year out (well, pretty much every year anyways), it hurts your system in several ways. When you finish with good records, you get worse draft picks. When you put a team out there that's competitive, it makes it more palatable to trade prospects in a win-now type situation. 10+ years of low draft picks and traded prospects will strip a system to nothing.

Combine that with poor personnel decisions, like drafting the wrong players, drafting good players and listening to the commish office on how much to offer them (Drew Stubbs), and not offering FA arbitration so that you can get compensation picks, and you have a recipe for disaster. We have some guys down there that could be pretty good, but as a whole, the system is very thin, especially on top. We need several years of very good drafts in a row to replenish things. Trading some of our marketable players now would help also.

[sadoug]

ok..I am sorry AB...perhaps I just didnt understand...these flat screen computers do have a way of letting folks get the wrong impression.

I will start again...I was talking about past trades and how they didnt always work out.. I especially think we have kept and traded the wrong outfielders and have for a long time.

I dont care nor see the relavence of whether Scott or Traveras is a corner outfield guy or not...fact it that had absolutely nothing to do with what I was talking about. One hits near 300...the other 230 or so...that IS almost apples and oranges.

What was it I didnt remember correctly?...

But I guess the biggest thing I dont understand about you is your continuing ability to state amazingly obvious facts as if you were the only person they occurred to and you had to explain to us lesser lights.

* no one has ever been unanimously elected to the Hall of Fame

* "you are crying about Morgan( which was a bad trade, but wasnt by anyone on this team)"

duhhh...ya think?...36 years ago and the same folks are not still with the team?....wow!

You are right about one thing...I am still crying about that trade...it kept us from a world series.

[hembo36]

I dont disagree with that in whole, chandler, but the lack of talent in this organization isnt from low draft positions because we were so competitive but rather because of bad trades and a BS'what can we do now' mentality...Next to maybe the expos, this organization has given away perhaps the most talent in the last 15 or so years.. Abreu, lofton, garcia, guillen etc...i mean the biggest claim to fame this team has is getting Bagwell..Thats one trade in forever.....

The point is the 'do it now' approach backfires more than it works. if they were patient we would be in contention now...

[jamesa46]

sadoug said:

Sometimes it is wonderful to not have a long memory....Put yourself in my place, AB...I had to watch Joe Morgan traded for lee maye.

The Astros traded pitcher Ken Johnson to the Braves for leftfielder Lee Maye - (Arthur Lee Maye and The Crowns - Vocal group)

Morgan was traded to the Reds for first baseman Lee "The Grouper( or just plain "Mo") May and 2nd baseman Tommy Helms. The Reds also got pitcher Jack Billingham and outfielder Cesar Geronimo in the deal.