The Astros have extended the contract of GM Ed Wade through 2012, reports MLB.com’s Brian McTaggart. The official announcement is expected later today.
Wade is entering his third full season as Houston’s general manager. His most notable pickups include Michael Bourn, Jose Valverde, Miguel Tejada, LaTroy Hawkins, Ivan Rodriguez, Matt Lindstrom, and Brandon Lyon. You can find his full trade history here, courtesy of Brendan Bianowicz.
Under Wade, the Astros are exactly .500 with a 166-166 record. Before becoming Houston’s general manager, he held the same position with the Phillies for eight years.
The worst GM of all time
Not really even close. He isn’t good but no where near the worst.
Interesting. Ed Wade is a great guy but the last few off-seasons, he’s spend money like a big market team when the Astros really aren’t. They are financially drained because of huge contracts such as Carlos Lee, Matsui, Berkman, and I don’t think people really liked the 15MM dollar Brandon Lyon deal.
Wade has done a fairly good job, he hasn’t overloaded us with huge contracts and has quietly began to rebuild the farm season. Given the working conditions under Uncle Drayton, he has done a good job. He has the Astros on the right track to be a competitor in 2-3 years.
He hasn’t overloaded you guys with huge contracts?
Carlos Lee is getting paid 100MM over 6 years. I’m not sure I’d consider that a good contract.
Ed Wade wasn’t the GM when they signed Lee.
Oh, thats right. Sorry!
Carlos Lee was signed under Poopura in 2006, wade was hired in 2007.
You are right. Good point. But this is really the time where Ed Wade needs to pull a Neal Huntington on the Stros. They don’t have much of a minor league system and they really need to rebuild and re-stock that farm system. P signed all of those players to bad contracts and now it is on Ed’s plate. The Astros don’t want to be ranked last in terms of organization rankings.
They are rebuilding the farm. If you look at the prospects from the last two years, the Astros have a decent farm system. The problem is they have virtually nobody from 2006 or 2007. Purpura set the organization back heavily, but they are recovering. That being said, Wade is still wasting money on guys like Lyons, but the Astros are building towards a goal, and with the 8th, 19th and 33rd picks in the draft, they will continue building.
I completely agree with you about the 2010 draft. They should go for pitching and speed. Deandre Smelter comes to mind.
I don’t agree about the Astros having a good farm system.
Lo
Castro
Manzella
Gaston
Mier
Those 5 highlight their system but after that, there isn’t much to be excited about. They will get back once the big contracts are gone. But Wade does have a lot on his plate.
You didn’t mention Jordan Lyle, who is arguably our best prospect and one of the best pitching prospects in the game.
Wade is far from a genius, but he’s not even close to the worst GM of all time, either. These crap signings like Lyon, Hampton, etc. are definitely frustrating to witness, but he’s pressured by the owner to create a competitive team each year with little money to spend and a horrendous farm system. Ideally he wouldn’t make these signings, but ultimately, as long as he commits to building for the long term and doesn’t hand out any contracts that handcuff us in the future then it doesn’t really matter. I can suck it up and grind through the next few years of mediocre players as long as a clear direction is established by 2012.
I wouldn’t even consider Lyle top 30 pitching prospects in the game.
While I haven’t liked much of what he’s done- I haven’t hated all of it either. The one issue that I see is that Houston keeps trying to not explode it’s roster and rebuild, but is doing more of a soft-rebuild. I assume that is a directive from the owner, however. Personally though, I’d rather have my team blow up their roster for a year or two and get good value and be legitimately competitive on the 3rd or 4rth year rather than languish at the middle-bottom of the division for 4 years or more with a slow rebuild process.
The Astros over the last couple of years remind me of the Orioles earlier in the 2000’s: “Too legit to quit.” They can’t give up on one season, so they hold on to vets that will be valueless or FA by the time they’re competitive. I would have been more impressed if Wade had spent the last couple years moving guys like Lee and Oswalt for some prospects/ML ready talent. By now, they’ve already missed any chance to get value for Lee and the second Oswalt has a bad season he’ll have zero trade value too (while he would have had great return a couple years ago).
I actually did like the Hampton pickup though, in principal. He was likely to pitch poorly, but if he pitched well he might have been a nice trade chip. I think it’s important for teams that are not likely to have good seasons to take chances on guys like that and be able to stockpile talent for future seasons. You can argue Hampton wasn’t the best bet, but the principle was sound.
Hahaha sweet. This means the Astros will still suck for the next 3 years.
its no coincidence that this contract ends the same year as brandon lyon’s haha.
It’s always nice to see people fail upwards.
The Astros need to turn the team around and rebuild. They need to pretty much just start from stratch.
They have to trade away everybody.
Glad to see the Astros still want to compete with the Mets and Royals for worst run organization year in and year out.
I wonder who will be out of the Astros organization first. Lyon or Wade. My money is still on Wade, but now it should be pretty close.
Wow, I guess Drayton McClane didn’t think the ‘Stros had hit rock bottom yet. They’re just good enough to fool themselves into thinking they’re good enough to contend but aren’t really going anywhere.
Omg seriously guys, the whole rebuilding thing is getting old. Everyone and their mother knows this team needs to rebuild…you aren’t coming up with some revolutionary idea to help the team improve.
Having that said, I don’t mind the deal simply b/c our farm system is improving under Wade, slowly but surely. He seems to have had a pretty good drafts the last two years; give em about two more of those and the system should be back to respectable again. I’m not a fan of his free agent signings, but if they aren’t gonna rebuild then they’ll tide us over until the kids can reach the majors. Are they rebuilding the slow way? Yes. Is that extremely frustrating? Yes. But progress is being made
Hey, at least he’s no Bill Bavasi !
Is it just coincidence that Wade left the Phillies right before they became good, and the Astros have been bad since he got there?
I was actually thinking the exact same thing.
Phillies won because Wade held on to the right guys. He was under much pressure to trade Utley/Howard and other upcoming prospects.
first off, rebuilding will never be an option as long as McLane is the owner of this team. and while i give Wade crap, he has done a good job surrounding himself with the right people. bringing in Bobby Heck was the best thing for this entire organization. Wade’s doing the best he can – minus that horrendous Lyon signing – with the team he inherited.
i don’t have a problem with a 2 year extension but after 2012 there better be an improvement
Bud Selig got an extension. Omar Minaya got an extension. Dayton Moore still has a job. Mark Shapiro was promoted. Now Ed Wade gets an extension. Is Major League Baseball bizarro world? I thought you were supposed to be fired when you perform poorly.
No, you get bailed out. Just like the real world…
No, you get bailed out. Just like the real world…
For the worst Astros’ GM ever, you need to go back to a guy named Spec Richardson. He’s the guy who traded away Mike Cuellar, Rusty Staub, and Joe Morgan, among numerous others who all became good after he left.
Cuellar went 139-75 over the next seven seasons. Staub was thought to have a career-ending ankle problem; he played 17 more seasons and drove in another 1096 runs.
I forgot what that Morgan guy did, but I think it was significant.
and they still suck. and they will through 2012 with ed wade as their gm. the only good acquisition that he has made is bourn.. lyon was ok, but the rest… i mean c’mon, pudge and tejada are all washed up. the astros have been just about as successful under wade as the Phillies were. for those of you who dont know what that means, in simpler terms it means they still suck with no end to their misery in sight as long as he is there. have fun at the bottom of your division houston fans
nah, Lyon was not a good signing. He signed him for more than a year. That’s bad.
Common trend here… mediocre relievers. Bourn was a great pick-up though.
The worst GM of all time award would go to Tim Purpura.
Why would you extend your GM, if the team is up for sale?