the j. botter weblog

Paul DePodesta, a front office assistant for the San Diego Padres and former general manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers, now has a blog.

Like so many others, DePodesta first came to my attention in Moneyball, when he served as the Assistant General Manager to Billy Beane on the Oakland A’s. Paul is a brilliant baseball mind, and his blog will no doubt be an interesting read.

Man, what a night in sports. Or at least in baseball and football, as the Indians clinched their division series with the Yankees with a 6-3 win that wasn’t as close as the score appears, and the Dallas Cowboys made an incredible 9 point comeback in the final 20 seconds to beat the Bills on a 52 yard field goal by Nick Folk.

I actually wanted the Yankees to win the game. As much as I hate the Yankees, and they are indeed the Evil Empire, I love watching New York vs. Boston more. With the Astros out of the picture, there’s nothing I love more than Yankees vs. Sox in the playoffs, and I was hoping to see it one more time before A-Rod packs up his stuff and moves to Houston to play for the Astros (yeah, right). And it’s not so much that I don’t like the Indians; I just don’t care. There’s nothing about them that makes me want to root for them. I realize they’ve got history and they’re the underdog against the Yanks (and the Red Sox), but I just can’t make myself care.

Plus, I was 100% correct on my earlier predictions (as far as teams involved in the next series goes, at least), and I wanted to see that continue.

From this point forward, I’m pulling for a Rockies/Red Sox World Series. Colorado has been a great story, the best in baseball right now, and I’m hoping they can continue the magic carpet ride all the way to a ring.

On another tangent — George Steinbrenner is an idiot if he fires Joe Torre. I know it’s a given that he’s probably going to replace Torre with Donnie Ballgame, and it’s a given that Steinbrenner is an idiot anyway. It’s just a shame to see someone who has won FOUR WORLD SERIES RINGS get fired because his team can’t get past the first round of the playoffs…despite the fact that they are in the playoffs every single year, a position most teams would kill to be in.

I don’t want to call 2008 a rebuilding year for the Astros, but it’s going to be that way. They’ve got so many guys with so much promise that it would be a crime not to have them on the everyday roster next year; Josh Anderson will definitely be the starting center fielder next year (with Pence moving to right), and from everything I’ve seen, J.R. Towles should be the starting catcher, with Brad Ausmus backing him up.

It’s apparent, at least to me, that there’s going to be some growing pains over the next two years or so. Personally, I’d rather bring the young guys up and get them some every day experience instead of keeping with Astros tradition and stuffing them in the minors until they are 30 years old. If these guys are the future, and I believe they are, then we need to let them play. Anderson and Towles, especially, are two guys who need to be starters next year, and Cody Ransom has looked pretty good as well.

Free agency is a bit of a wash this year. I think everyone expects the Astros to go after Torii Hunter, but I’d rather they just leave him alone and leave Anderson in the lineup. In his small sample of work since coming from the minors, he’s batting just under 500 and has done great work with the glove in center. Keeping him out there will enable you to move Pence to right, which leaves Luke Scott out of the picture; I like Luke and he’s probably one of my favorite people, but it’s obvious that his days as a starter are probably numbered.

First base is and will always be Berkman.

At second base, I believe you have to give Chris Burke a shot at being the every day guy, but what I’ve seen of him so far hasn’t looked promising. I think that Cody Ransom should be ready for an early call up next year, because I don’t think Burke is going to last there.

Shortstop will probably be Adam Everett, although I’m hoping they’ll bring up Brooks Conrad and give him a look. Everett is the best defensive shortstop in the game, but his bat is an absolute black hole. Of course, if you’re getting rid of the black hole bat at catcher by replacing Ausmus with Towles, then you could probably be okay in keeping Everett specifically for defensive purposes.

Third base is Ty Wigginton, which leaves Mike Lamb going somewhere else in free agency. I think Wiggy will be a 30 homer, 100 RBI guy at some point over the next three years, and I love the trade that brought him here.

Catcher should be Towles. He set an Astros club record with 8 RBI’s in a single game last night and has 11 RBI’s in his limited time in the bigs, while Eric Munson has been around all season long and only has 15 RBI’s. Start Towles and keep Ausmus behind him for guidance. Heck, make Ausmus an assistant manager.

As far as pitching goes…well, it’s going to be rough. I envision a lineup of Oswalt, Backe, Patton, Rodriguez and Williams next year, and that’s not the best lineup in the world. I think if you keep Patton in the lineup, then Wandy is expendable, which means Matt Albers or Dennis Sarfate could take his place. Sarfate throws some serious, serious heat and looked great against the Cardinals tonight. There’s just nothing out there on the free agency market that would be any good, so we should just use the farm system and stock it up from there.

Cecil Cooper will probably be the manager of the club, and the only way I would argue against that would be if Tony LaRussa wanted to come to Houston. I don’t see that happening, though, so we should just keep Coop. He’s done a good job with what he has to work with thus far and deserves to have the interim tag dropped from his title.

So, yeah…Drayton can call it whatever he wants, but 2008 is going to be a rebuilding year, and I’m totally fine with it. I’d much rather them gear up to be a major NL force in 2009 and beyond than to go out and sign big free agents (of which there aren’t many anyway) and try to win next year. Keep Anderson, Towles, Sarfate and Ransom in the majors and give them a shot at helping Houston become a homegrown powerhouse.

The legendary 5′6″ shortstop was the oldest living member of the Hall of Fame. He was supremely flashy and a precursor to players like Derek Jeter, except he was actually a good shortstop — he posted a career fielding percentage of .930.

A Storybook Ending: Rick Ankiel, the former star pitching prospect who was demoted to the minors in 2000 because of uncontrollable wildness, returned to the Cardinals last night as an outfielder and hit a three-run bomb to lead the Cardinals to a 5-0 win over the San Diego Padres. The last time a pitcher turned himself into a power-hitting outfielder was 1918, and that pitcher’s name? Babe Ruth. Ankiel is in good company, and he’s expected to get plenty of playing time, which should help to revitalize the slumping Cards.

Via With Leather: A complete listing of baseball player entrance music from Wikipedia.

Notable: The only two Astros on the list are Carlos Lee and Brad Lidge. Lee uses “This Is Why I’m Hot”, while Lidge used to have “The Game” by Drowning Pool, but hasn’t used it since being demoted from the closer role the first time. I’d update the Wikipedia entry, but the few times I’ve tried to do that in the past, I’ve had people jump all over me for daring to make an edit, so I’ll just let it be.

Well, the 2007 Houston Astros season began much the way that the last two have ended: with Brad Lidge giving up a homer in the ninth inning and blowing a save.

Lidge shouldn’t be the closer anymore. I’m surrounded by family and friends who want to keep giving him chances, and I realize this is just opening day and it’s only one blown save, but it’s the first game of the season and he’s already blown a save in a game that the Astros otherwise played extremely well in. Roy Oswalt was an ace in every sense of the word after the first inning of play tonight, and he deserved to get the win. Brad Lidge just can’t shake the ghost of Albert Pujols that has been hanging off his back for the past two years, and at this point I’m not certain he ever will.

I’d much rather they put the guy in a middle relief position and let him work his way back into the closer spot than to keep him out there and keep letting him blow games. I understand it’s the first game of a very long season, but it seems to me that every single game is going to count in a big way for this Astros team, and they can’t afford to let him rebuild his confidence on the job.

I’m so glad baseball is back.

I’m playing in a fantasy baseball league this year for the first time in a long, long time, and since I’ll probably be posting quite a bit about my team, I thought I’d open things up with some notes on the draft and my team as it currently stands.

OFFENSE

C- Jorge Posada
1B – Albert Pujols
2B – Jeff Kent
3B – Garrett Atkins
SS – Derek Jeter
OF – Hideki Matsui
OF – Corey Patterson
OF – Nick Swisher
UTI – Carlos Delgado
BN – Mark Teahen
BN – Tadahito Iguchi
BN – Scott Podsenik
BN – Adam LaRoche

PITCHING

SP – Chris Carpenter
SP – Roy Oswalt
SP – Rich Hill
RP – Huston Street
RP – Trevor Hoffman
BN – Chris Ray
BN – Roger Clemens

Obviously, I had the first pick in the draft, so I took Pujols. I’d be incredible dumb to take anyone else.

Overall, I’m really happy with my team. I’m working a trade right now to bring in another power hitter in exchange for Podsednik, but I don’t know if it’ll happen. I’m especially happy with my pitching staff, especially having both Carpenter and Oswalt as regulars, and I’m hoping Clemens does decide to play at the end of the year, as I don’t plan on trading or releasing him just because he’s only playing half a year.

Opening day is Sunday, and I’m pumped.

I'm headed to Round Rock, which is about 45 minutes away, to see Roger Clemens pitch his final minor league tuneup game before returning to join the Astros next week.  I was pretty excited about getting to see Roger pitch in such an intimate environment, but if reports coming out of Round Rock are correct, they're expecting an absolutely massive crowd tonight.  Granted, it won't be as large as an MLB crowd would be, but it'll probably shatter any current standing minor league attendance records.

After the game, I'm going to try and make it to the theatre to see Nacho Libre.  The flick has gotten mixed reviews, but then again, so did Napoleon Dynamite, and I love that movie.  I hear that if you enjoyed Napoleon and are the type to randomly go around quoting that film, you'll probably like this one, which means I'll love it.  Plus, Jack Black as a luchadore? You just can't go wrong there, man.