After six long grueling months of Astros Spring Training, suddenly it's September. Can anyone really say that the games this season have seemed like anything but months and months of training camp? When our team is eliminated by the beginning of September, the outcomes of the games are not really important. When most of the players have spent more time in Corpus and OKC than in Houston, there's more of a sense of "Spring is in the air..." than anything else.
You might have noticed that my blog postings this year have been remarkably free of my Spring Training photos. The Astros are playing a team full of youngsters, most of whom don't appear in the thousands of Astros pictures I've taken. Three reasons:
1. I didn't make it to Florida for Spring Training this year to see the latest crop of minor leaguers get their cup of coffee -- first time I missed since 2004.
2. Some of these kids were still low minor leaguers when I was at Spring Training last year, and not all of them were considered top prospects. Who was really watching J.D. Martinez a year ago? Jose Altuve started the year playing A ball - has he
ever appeared in a Spring Training game?
3. Many of these guys came to us in trades during the season, so I wouldn't have seen them in Kissimmee anyway. At least not in Astros jerseys; some of them might have been there playing for the other teams. More likely they were in the other teams' minor league camps.
Seriously: Who would have guessed that our lineup would have changed this much since opening day?
1. Schafer (Braves) or Bourgeois (AAA), CF
(Bourn to the Braves)
2. Altuve (A/AA), 2B
(Bill Hall to the Giants)
3. JD Martinez (AA), LF
(Lee to 1B)
4. El Caballo, 1B
(Wallace to the minors)
5. Paredes, 3B
(CJ to the minors)
6. Bogusevic (AAA), RF
(Pence to the Phillies)
7. Barmes, SS
(Sanchez to the minors)
8. Quintero or Corporan (AAA), C
(Towles to the minors)
And the starting rotation? We started the season with Wandy, Myers, Happ, Norris, and Figueroa. All but Figueroa (now Pirates) still pitch for the Astros, but don't expect to see Wandy or Myers back next year. They're likely post-season trades. By next year, Norris may be our "ace," along with some combination of Happ, Lyles, Clemens (Paul), Cosart, Sosa, Harrell, Wright...?
I hope this is not coming across as negative -- that's certainly not my intent. I'm really glad that the Astros have finally faced the truth and have embraced "rebuilding" as a team theme. I'd rather watch the young players go through growing pains than to see random combinations of veterans year after year. How great is it to see Martinez (no prospect buzz) with RBIs in nearly every game? Who doesn't love Mighty Mouse Altuve? I hope the Astros will continue to collect prospects (including our 2012 first pick!) for a brighter future.
On a related note, among the rare surviving veterans on the team, Carlos Lee has gone on a late season hitting spree -- going 15 for 27 over the past week. Too bad he didn't have a solid power year, so that there might have been any chance of dumping him and his mega-expensive contract on some AL team that wouldn't expect him to field.
All season the Astros.com headlines have read like today's "Wandy Aims to Get Astros on Track in Finale," in some strange fantasy that our starting pitcher can somehow rescue them. Enjoy watching Wandy -- the last member of the pennant winning 2005 team still around -- in what may be one of his final starts for the Astros.
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