Footprints in the Snow: Houston Astros

Footprints in the Snow is FanHouse's look at the paths to be forged by MLB teams this winter as they look ahead to 2009.

Everyone expected the Astros to be awful in 2008 and indeed, they were out of the playoff race by more than ten games as July wound down. Oddly, Ed Wade decided to reload at the trade deadline and acquired Randy Wolf and LaTroy Hawkins. Somehow, they very nearly sprinted from Pirate territory at the bottom of the NL Central to a wild-card berth. In the end, they were derailed both by Hurricane Ike and by just not being good enough.

That's put them in an interesting situation. The general feeling is that they're going to try and reload around this team and make another run at the playoffs in 2009. That's a potentially disastrous plan, but rebuilding around middling veterans and just missing the playoffs is what general manager Wade is known for. This is an important off-season for the Astros. They're not nearly as close to contending as people think they are and what they do this winter could set the course for the team for the next several years.

Who's leaving?
The only eligible free agents are Wolf and Hawkins, but Wade has seemed pretty committed to trying to get both of them to stay in Houston.

What do they need?
I guess it depends on who you ask. Some people look at the Astros and see a team that outplayed their Pythagorean record by nine games last year with a minor league system almost completely devoid of talent. Accordingly, those people would almost certainly advocate that the Astros need to rebuild their system. Unless a team is planning on spending in the neighborhood of $120 million on payroll, it's nearly impossible to compete without some kind of talent coming from the minors.

On the flip side, there are others that will argue that the Astros barely missed the playoffs last year, and they did so playing without Carlos Lee for the last six weeks of the season. The people that see it this way will argue that the Astros need someone in the back of the rotation behind Roy Oswalt and Wandy Rodriguez. Randy Wolf pitched well in his 12 starts in Houston last year and Wade will likely try to keep him They could use a shortstop, as Miguel Tejada's career as a useful player both on offense and defense is over. And they need to figure out whether or not J.R. Towles is their catcher of the future or if they need to sign someone. Brad Ausmus is simply no longer an option.

What should they do?
I know that a lot of Astro fans are going to disagree with me here, but they need to blow this team up and start looking down the road. The 2008 Astros were a team of middling veterans with a real star or two that seriously overperformed last year (they were outscored by 30 runs). If they go out and dump a lot of money into free agnecy or deplete themselves even further with trades, they're in serious danger of being the 2009 version of the Mariners.

Rebuilding is a hard pill to swallow, but how much would Roy Oswalt be worth to the team that loses the Jake Peavy sweepstakes? Or Lance Berkman to the team that loses out on Mark Teixeira? Or Carlos Lee to the team that loses out on Matt Holliday? The Astros don't really need to trade all of these guys, but shipping off even one of them could help replenish a badly diminished minor league system that needs all the help they can get right now.

What will they do?
The exact opposite. Wade's behavior at the trade deadline last year makes it clear what his intent is. He's going to do his best to reload this team, no matter what it costs. I'd bet he makes at least one splashy, hugely expensive, and most probably awful signing like Jason Varitek or A.J. Burnett or Edgar Renteria. They'll probably try to trade to fill in another offensive hole because as much as they seem to like their offense, they only scored 712 runs last year. This strategy might work, but it probably won't. The deadliest combination for a middling baseball team is the combination of a year in which the team overachieves and a GM bad enough to recognize that his team isn't as good as they played. The Astros have both ingredients and when you throw in that they're very overmatched by both the Cubs and Brewers in their division, I think they have a real recipe for disaster on their hands this offseason.