This afternoon I was watching the SVP Show (which by the way is my favorite of all the day time espn shows) on espnnews, and baseball analyst/expert/ guy-who-really-does-know-what-he’s-talking-about Buster Olney was being interviewed. Olney mentioned something that didn’t seem possible to me: the highest paid Houston Astro left from their opening day roster is Jed Lowrie. That’s right, the former Red Sox utility infielder, who’s making all of $1.15 million this season (which would rank him 19th among Boston’s players if he was still here).
The Astros are in the midst of an 9 game losing streak, and own an MLB worst 34-65 record. They just shipped out their highest profile pitcher, Wandy Rodriguez (who’s making $10.5 million), for a bunch of no names to the low budget Pittsburgh Pirates, if you can believe that; who for the first time in about 20 years are actually buyers as the trade deadline approaches (they’re currently 55-42 and leading the N.L. Wild Card race).
It was the 3rd major payroll dumping trade Houston has made this month, (Carlos Lee’s $19 million salary to Miami, and J.A. Happ and Brandon Lyon, $7.85 million combined to Toronto) while receiving what Olney describes as mostly “C- prospects” in return. He compared their current state and apparent ownership philosophy to that of the fictional Cleveland Indians in the movie Major League (which by the way is one of the all time great sports movies, and probably worthy of several other blogs on it’s own. “This guy here is dead. Cross him off then!”).
Also I have to mention that I do love those terrible retro uniforms (see above pic), even though it brings back bad memories of the 1986 playoffs (before the Red Sox gave the World Series to the Mets, New York beat a Houston squad in the NLCS that wore those jerseys).
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About Mark Vandeusen