Houston Astros fire GM Ed Wade and President Tal Smith, not too surprising considering new owner Jim Crane promised changes and the team is clearly not in any shape to compete in any division. This is probably something to do with roster moves made in the recent past. Wade traded Lance Berkman, Michael Bourn, Roy Oswalt, and most recently Hunter Pence. That is a lot of good players to trade away and not have rebuilt anything. The Astros do have some solid prospects, but is it worth being a non-factor in baseball for the past few years. The Pence trade brought in some very good young talent and the other trades helped bolster the organization’s prospect strength as well, but how do you trade away Oswalt and Pence to the Phillies without getting top prospect Domonic Brown in return. Brown is a 24 year old outfielder that is just about ready to make major contributions to a big league team, someone that could have been a major piece to the Astros future, but Wade whiffed on acquiring him. Not to say the Phillies and other teams have dominated the Astros in trades recently, but the Astros sure haven’t dominated anyone in that regard either. If you give up top players to a team looking to contend, you should be in the driver’s seat and get top prospects. The Astros need to find a GM who wants to win, and wants to win soon. They need a guy who is going to make moves, develop these prospects they have, or ship them off for ready talent. But they are moving to the AL West in 2013 and it should be a fresh start for them to compete again. They should not have to be sellers at every trade deadline, I welcome the day they will be buyers.
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