Houston, We Had A Problem

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.

What A Tool by John Kruk

Sorry for the terrible video quality, but this is the best I could find. Anyway, this is hilarious and I had to post it, even though I'm sure a lot of people have seen it. I had seen it before, but not with my boy John Kruk's superb commentary. He makes this vid great. He roasts this guy, as it should be. I mean who is scared enough of a baseball to bail on his girlfriend, well I'm assuming that's who she was. Then again that might not have been the case by the time the game was over. Well, John Kruk is the man, this girl needs to find a man, and this dude needs to grow a pair.

Changes

Dun nun nun, nun nun nun, nun nun nah, that’s just the way it is. Baseball’s making moves. If you live under a rock, here’s what’s been going on. Houston Astros are moving to the AL West, which will make all 6 divisions have 5 teams. I like it, it makes baseball slightly more balanced, and I’m for this change, because it’s creating balance without changing the game completely. The playoffs are now expanding to have 5 teams in each league get in, basically the top two wild card teams will have a play in game is how I understand it. Also they are allowing teams from the same division to meet in the division series of the playoffs. I’m not too big a fan of the new playoffs. Why allow the runner up in the playoff race to get a chance to get in, they are the RUNNER UP, for a reason. I say if you don’t get it done in the regular season you don’t make the post season. I actually really enjoyed the 2011 playoffs and its format. Allowing divisional opponents in the division series, in my eyes just lets the same matchup happen even more often than it already does. Why not keep it the way it is and have teams that don’t play each other as much get an opening round series, then if it becomes inevitable, with a spot for the World Series on the line, let divisional foes duke it out. Interleague play also will be extended from April into September, I don’t really detest this rule, but the one thing I have against it, is I want the world series to be fresh, two teams that haven’t played each other in a while, which this may (unlikely but still possible) do away with. Teams might meet a month prior and the element of surprise and having to really think about what might happen could be disbanded. I realize that this is kind of necessary due to the odd number of teams that will now be in each the AL and NL, due to the Astros move, so for that reason I am for it. I think the Astros moving and balancing the divisions outweighs the drawbacks to a full season interleague so long as a team still plays a considerable amount of games in their own league as opposed to playing a LOT more games vs. the other league. The Astros move is set to take place for the 2013 season, and the along with it the interleague play I could only assume, however, the 5 team playoff is likely to take place as early as this upcoming 2012 campaign. Overall I say these are some good changes, and appear to be very likely to occur, and be successful. I applaud Bud Selig and all the others who have made these changes, they may not be perfect, but as a whole, I think they improve the quality of the game.