Astros

WTF? How on earth can we have such a sorry excuse for a baseball team coming from houston? When this season started, my excitement level was skyhigh, regarding the new acquisitions to bolster Houston's anemic offense. Well, the offense has been producing at an astounding rate (well, astounding for the Astros), but our pitching has been nightmarish. Even resident ace Roy Oswalt has been less than stellar. With that in mind, it's time to take a good hard look at what Ed Wade has done with this ballclub, and re-evaluate what exactly this team in building towards.

What does Houston have in the minors to bring into the fold in the upcoming years? It doesn't seem like that many prospects are knocking down the gates to come out of Round Rock and bust up the NL Central. What is strange is this teams absent mindedness about creating any sort of coherent plan. Even their in state counterparts, the Texas Rangers, have stockpiled young players to build their offense up. The Astros have little pitching available in the majors, and even less in the minors. The solution? Blow this mock of a team up and start from scratch.

Even with his subpar play, Roy Oswalt could attract great value on the open market. Astros fans might not be willing to part with our ace, but the fact is even a 20 game winning Oswalt wouldn't help push the team over the edge - they're not even 1/2 way up the hill. The new mode in the majors seems to be unloading hefty contracts for aging players to stockpile young talent - there's no reason Houston can't do this.

As we near the trade deadline this year, Wade and owner Drayton McLane need to take a serious look at their roster and where they realistically think it can get them. Once they do this, it might not seem so far fetched to start shopping the likes of Oswalt, Carlos Lee, Miguel Tejada, Ty Wiggington, and Mark Loretta. Those assets can fetch quite a few young players, who the Astros can elevate up towards the end of this year and the start of next. While the Big Puma (Lance Berkman) and Hunter Pence may shy away from such a strategy, in the long run the city and team could benefit from another potential trip to the World Series with young talent by 2010.