Train Wreck

Sometimes professional athletes will have what is called a "career year," where everything falls into place and the athlete puts up numbers well beyond what is expected.

So what do you call the opposite of a career year?

Maybe we could ask the 2002 Astros.

I was just having a visit with my boss over lunch a couple of days ago, and we were discussing the fact that every Astro, with the exception of Julio Lugo, is having a season well below expectations going in. Even Berkman, who started so strong, is not having the kind of season he had last year, despite the nice home run numbers he put up early in the season. It extends to the coaching staff. Jimy Williams, who I thought (and still think) was a fine hire, has made some odd decisions along the way as well. And let's not ignore the owner, whose unwillingness to spend money (except for aging underachievers but fan favs like Biggio, Bagwell, and Reynolds) has not helped. It's like every part of the team is in a grand funk.

I was going to write much more about it, but then I found that John Lauck, who's become a daily read during this terrible season, had already covered the topic on his Astroday blog:

As has been noted in the press and on television, most of the Astros are below their year-by-year averages in all the major offensive categories, a development that could not have been anticipated except perhaps for Bagwell and Biggio. Yet, part of Bagwell's decline has to be traceable to that bad right shoulder. I think, when the season is over, we're going to find out, either directly or through inference, that it has been hurting him severely. The other declines have been harder to fathom, especially in their collective sense and their cumulative effects. It is sad to say and, in a way, almost helplessly funny to admit in print, but the truth is, none of these guys can hit. But they all may be working under circumstances too complex for any of them to control. If you remember the movie or have read the book called The Perfect Storm, you'll have a glimmer of what I'm getting at. Take two superb athletes who are, neverthless, entering their mid-thirties; saddle one of them with a debilitating injury. Now take away from the team these guys play for a superb-hitting right-fielder and a 3B who contributed 92 RBI last season. Move to RF a hitter who had the best year he's ever going to have two seasons ago, and move to LF a strong but slow young man who seems unable anymore to catch up to fastballs he whacked out of the park twenty times in 2000. Plug in after that anyone you like at 3B, anyone at all. None are likely to do what the 3B of 2002 did. When you add all of these extraordinary factors together, you have something that is as devastating and as statistically-perfect as the storm that wiped out the Andrea Gail and her crew was meterologically-perfect. (That is, in both cases, conditions could not have been worse.) You have, in other words, The Perfect Slump. It is team-wide; it is chronic; it will last the year. One could argue, of course, simply that the fear that has dogged Gerry Hunsicker since 2000--that he may have overestimated some of the talent on the contemporary Astros--has a basis in reality that is only now becoming clear beyond dispute, but it is also possible, even probable (although this will not be a thought comforting to many) that we are not likely to see a team with this much measurable talent slump as badly as this one ever again.

With the Astros about to be swept tonight and St. Louis starting to play as well as expected, this season is over. There's no hope of the Astros playing at the .660 or so clip needed to win 90 games over the rest of the season, or the .700 or so clip needed to catch St. Louis if they win closer to 100 games.

The question is, what do you do if you're Gerry Hunsicker? Rebuild around the young pitchers and move some of the high-priced talent (knowing that Biggio and Bagwell can veto trades)? Move some of the mid-level talent that teams in contention might want (Blum? Zaun or Ausmus? Merced? Nelson Cruz?) for prospects? Or stay the course, make some moves in the offseason, and hope the underachievers rebound next season?

I don't have a good answer right now, and prefer to look over the roster and salaries a little more carefully before posting anything.

But really, it's all just a prelude to Texans, Cowboys, and Sooner football, albeit an ugly one. And likely to get uglier -- at some point, this team is probably going to quit, at which point it will resemble the 2000 version of the club.

[Posted at 21:33 CST on 06/19/02] [Link]