Sunday, March 2, 2008

A Preview A Day Keeps the Winter Away, #2

For the month of March I will be doing a season preview, with a new team each day, going in alphabetical order by team so I can save the Yankees for last, because I am, in fact, that devious.

As this is a Yankees' blog, the previews for AL East teams will be more detailed than those of AL Central and AL West teams, and any AL team previews will be more detailed than NL team previews, save maybe for the Mets. Each preview will involve consideration of how much 'threat' a team is to the Yankees, for fairly obvious reasons.

Up Today: The Houston Astros





It's hard to believe that just a few years ago, in 2005, this team was in the World Series, though when considering that Roger Clemens and Andy Pettitte were on the team at the same time, it makes a little more sense.

There are a few new faces in Houston this year, including:

Miguel Tejada, who has enough legal problems now to make Clemens look saintly.

Shawn Chacon, remember him?

Jose Valverde, from the NL Champion Rockies Diamondbacks,

and Kaz Matsui from the Rockies.

(There are a couple of other new faces, like Ty Wigginton, but I can't for the life of me remember if they joined the Astros in the off-season or before)


Lance Berkman, longtime main-stay in Houston has now excised a greater life expectancy than the other B-guys, Craig Biggio and Jeff Bagwell, but has oblique issues and will be sidelined until later in this month.


Threat to the Yankees: Green--Proceed Normally.

In the dead-heat NL Central last year, the Astros were the only team that never had a realistic shot at winning the division, and that's not likely to change much this year.

Of course, given that it is the NL Central, anything is certainly possible, but even if the Astros surprise everyone (and I mean everyone) and do make the playoffs, it's not likely that they'll beat any of the teams in the West (Arizona, Colorado, San Diego all come to mind) or whoever wins the East.

The biggest threat they'd pose to the Yankees would be if they decided to release Roger Clemens...(I can hear Suzyn Waldman now, GOODNESS GRACIOUS)

[EDIT: The Yankees DO play Houston this season, but, even so, they do not pose a significant threat at this point]


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By some sort of miracle, my group meeting got pushed back till tomorrow, which means I can watch baseball today. This has me giddy with delight.

I will once again post notes when the game concludes. Pettitte, White, Hawkins, Farnsworth, Bruney, Henn and Veras are all scheduled to pitch. I imagine Pettitte will get a rather large ovation.

2 comments:

  1. Jose Valverde was a Diamondback last year, not a Rockie, and they got Wiggington at the deadline last year, from Tampa Bay for Dan Wheeler.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks, I'll edit. Why did I think he was from colorado?

    ReplyDelete