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June 27, 2008

Fantasy Focus

Deep in the Heart

by Jeff Erickson

The Astros and Rangers both play in big media markets, but they don't often catch the attention of the national baseball media, aside from the odd instances of a scrub pitcher (with apologies to Todd Jones) assaulting his general manager. They have one World Series appearance between the two of them, and are among the teams well ensconced in baseball's middle class right now. They just finished up six games against each other in interleague play, splitting them down the middle.

But these two teams are heading in opposite directions. The Rangers began the painful process of rebuilding in earnest last year with the Mark Teixeira trade, and have already promoted a couple of their top prospects, with more on the way in a pretty rich farm system. The Astros, on the other hand, decided to make another run at contending in the perceived weak NL Central this offseason, trading for Miguel Tejada and Jose Valverde, while signing Kazuo Matsui to a multi-year deal. The Tejada trade cleaned out an already weak farm system, one that got very little in the draft in a well-publicized fiasco in 2007.

Let's take a look at some of the bigger issues facing each team, and the fantasy inferences we can draw from those issues.

Houston Astros

Starting Rotation: Heading into Thursday's games, the Astros' pitching staff in ranked 24^th in the majors in pitcher VORP. While Wandy Rodriguez's eight-inning, nine-strikeout gem on Thursday will most likely improve their ranking a little, their starting pitching has been a collective disappointment. The biggest culprit has to be their ace, Roy Oswalt, who is at career-worst levels in ERA (4.77) and WHIP (1.399). Oswalt's strikeout rate has been in decline the last three years, but it's actually up a tick; the problem is that he's giving up homers at a far greater rate than at any time in his career. The 18 homers he's allowed already match his career high for a season. It's that factor that has me worried about him over the second half. Even though his last two starts have been pretty good, don't trade for expecting a return to vintage form; I don't think he's an especially good buy-low candidate.