Tyler Kepner of the New York Times has some odds and ends from around the baseball universe; let's take a look at some of the highlights:
- The trades of players like Lance Berkman and Roy Oswalt signify that the Astros have finally moved on and are looking ahead. Wandy Rodriguez is the only remaining player who played in the 2005 World Series with the club.
- General manager Ed Wade refuted speculation that he prefers to trade with the Phillies, the team for which he served as general manager from 1998-2005. Instead, he simply says that the Phillies provided the best offers to improve the Astros. Wade has traded both Oswalt and Brad Lidge to Philadelphia.
- Wade praises first-year manager Brad Mills for keeping the Astros focused after a 17-34 start to the season. Houston went 17-12 in August and has recently swept both the Phillies and Cardinals.
- Edwin Jackson is happy to be in Chicago on a fresh start. “It’s like a new season,” Jackson said. Earlier today we heard that Daniel Hudson, one of the players the Diamondbacks received in the deal, is experiencing similar enjoyment in Arizona.
- Kepner points out that the pitchers acquired from the Yankees in recent years haven't panned out for the Pirates. Ross Ohlendorf has experienced some success, but Jeff Karstens and Daniel McCutchen have both disappointed. All three came to Pittsburgh in the trade for Damaso Marte and Xavier Nady. It's worth pointing out that the other component of that trade was Jose Tabata, who has played very well in his first taste of the big leagues this year.
You are wrong. Wandy Rodriguez is still on the roster and he was part of the 05 Houston Astros.
Good call, thanks for the heads up. Should’ve double-checked that after I read it in the article. Looking at their roster, Wandy’s the only one, correct?
I don’t believe he got in a game, but I wanna say Humberto Quintero was the backup C on the WS team. Could be wrong though…
Brad Mills links to the Jays pitcher
It probably doesn’t hurt that Wade knows (well, knew, at the time of the Lidge deal) a lot of the prospects in the Philly farm system. And he probably has friends in the scouting department that he still has in his address book.
Steve, thanks for pointing out that Kepner fails to mention Tabata in that deal. I feel like this isn’t the first time I’ve read about how the Yankees supposedly dumped all these scrubs on the Pirates, and meanwhile they don’t mention Tabata, nor do they mention that Nady and Marte did nothing but stink and/or get injured for the Yankees during what would have been their Pirate-controlled years.
Look at the Astros roster the last few years – so many players he drafted/signed/traded for from the Phillies: Myers, Happ, Michaels, Bourn, Figueroa, Coste, Kata, Geary, Tomas Perez, Wolf. Majewski and Feliz are former Phillies free agents, and he aggressively outbid the Phils for Lyon this offseason. He needs to take a step back and realize most of the guys “contributed” to underachieving Phillies teams in the first half of the decade.