Tim Purpura Should Be Ashamed of Himself

Lots of noise has been made over the signing deadline of midnight for the 2007 draft class. After lots of hair-pulling and teeth-gnashing, most of the key players from the first round ended up signing (~~I said most, sorry Kansas City~~ turns out Moustakas signed at just about the last possible second after all, thanks to srmueller in the comments for the heads up). Lost in all the fuss was the Astros' awful draft.

Tim Purpura and his front office actually managed to not sign a pick higher than a fifth rounder this year. They lost their first and second round picks by signing Carlos Lee and Woody Williams, then failed to sign third rounder Derek Dietrich or fourth rounder Brett Eibner. Says Purpura in his own defense:

"It's tough to sign high school kids because they have so many options and so many opportunities," general manager Tim Purpura said.

THEN WHY WOULD YOU DRAFT THEM, GENIUS?!? If you don't have picks in the top two rounds, why would you draft kids that might have better options in the next two rounds? Excuse me, let me gather myself for a moment.

Seriously, if this happened anywhere outside the baseball world, everyone remotely responsible for this would be fired. But it's baseball, so people will probably just shrug their shoulders and move on with life. Don't let that shrinking deficit between Houston and the top of the NL Central fool you, I'm not sure anyone in their front office even knows what color the stitches on a baseball are.