behind the dugout

With the recent announcements today from both the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros I found myself wondering what was worse. Were the Nationals worse off with a bunch of guys who had no big league experience or the Astros who have an ace but a rag tag group of injury prone or other wise long relievers filling out their rotation.

The Nationals today announced that former ace John Patterson had been released leaving the team while Cecil Cooper went ahead and announced the first four members of his rotation.

While Manny Acta hasn’t been as forthcoming as Cooper only annocying that Shawn Hill, Jason Bergmann and Tim Redding had made the rotation it’s safe to assume that Matt Chico who was the workhorse of the staff and possibly even John Lannan will fill out the final two spots. Of course with Odalis Perez still in camp the team could choose to go with the veteran to start the season in order to give Lannan, their minor league pitcher of the year, a few more starts in the minors.

The Astros skipper is spending his first spring as the man in charge and things don’t figure to be easy on him. Saddled with an older team that just isn’t very good Cooper will have to hope that aging pitchers hold up and injuries stay at a minimum if the Astros want to avoid another losing season.

With all that being said I’ve went ahead and put together a table showing the likely rotations (order likely to change for the Nationals) for the two teams and their stats from last year.

My initial question was what was worse an inexperienced staff on a team that doesn’t figure to score many runs or an aging broken staff on a team that could be struggling to stay out of last.

Shawn Hill is the veteran of the Nationals staff and he’s likely to miss the first couple of weeks due to injury. Of the remaining members only Matt Chico pitched more then 150 innings and only Tim Redding has more then 30 starts for his career and it’s been five years since he last pitched a full season.

The group of Chico, Lannan and Bergmann represent three of the pitchers who have worked their way though the Nationals minor league system. The trio is young and will be under the teams control for quite some time and while they may not get the love from those baseball scouting sites the talent level is certainly there. The biggest problems the Nationals face is getting enough talent though their system in the coming years to put a winner on the field, else they could find themselves in a decade of rebuilding the likes that Montreal never saw.

Recent reports today suggest that Odalis Perez is now being considered for the rotation and may force one of the youngsters back to the minors. Lannan seems likely to be sent to Triple-A to start the year but given the recent track record of Redding and Perez it’s almost a sure bet he will receive playing time with the big league club before the year is up.

The Astros on the other hand don’t have much in terms of talent at starting pitcher with the trade of Troy Patton and Matt Albers to Baltimore. I’ll go ahead and note that Patton will be out for the year with shoulder surgery and Albers may be more of a long reliever/fifth starter then originally thought.

One thing the Astros do have going for them is the presence of Roy Oswalt. A 30-year-old ace who has notched 112 wins and has an impressive 3.07 ERA in his seven year career. In a way I feel bad for Oswalt. He’s been a darn good pitcher throughout his career. When the Astros were a playoff team a few years ago everyone praised the duo of Roger Clemens and Andy Pettitte even though Oswalt picked up 20 wins in 2004 and 2005.

I could talk about Oswalt for hours so we’ll continue looking at the remaining members of the Astros rotation.

Brandon Backe who has made 13 starts in the last two seasons falls into the number two spot, while Wandy Rodriguez a lefty with a nifty curveball but with a lack of consistency will pitch third. One area of concern is that he started the first half with a 3.87 ERA but had a 5.54 ERA in the second half.

Shawn Chacon who operated mainly out of the Pittsburgh Pirates bullpen last season and hasn’t been effective as a starting pitcher since the second half of 2005 will work out of the fourth spot. Woody Williams hasn’t been given the fifth starters spot but considering he’ll be making $6 million this year it’s unlikely the Astros will go in another direction.

The only three pitchers on their staff that figure to have a future with the club are Oswalt, Backe and Rodriguez. Considering the constant injury concerns of Backe and the frustrations of Rodriguez it’s likely that only Oswalt who is signed though 2011 will spend more then two years in the rotation. The Astros do have 25-year-old Fernandeo Nieve rehabbing after a visit to Dr. Andrews. He could return to the club in July.

Looking at the number’s it’s easy to see that the Nationals have the younger rotation but the Astros do have the edge in experience. The ERA’s are close and considering the Nationals pitchers threw over 200 less innings it’s almost a toss out.

The Nationals have accepted rebuilding and after years of playing in Montreal it’s something that is familiar to long standing members of the franchise. The team went from being towards the bottom in terms of minor league talent to the top in the matter of one summer thanks to an aggressive draft. Still much of the talent is years away.

The difference between the two teams is that the Nationals seem to understand they need to rebuild while the Astros seem oblivious. The Astros believed they could contend last season and while the offense has gotten better it’ll be tough for this team to finish higher then third in the NL Central. Sure the team could make a playoff push but that would require almost the whole rotation to out preform career norms. The lineup should be fairly well with a decent mixture of veterans and youngsters. Still their’s little reason to be too excited about this team. They’re just not that good and there’s not much help on the way as the team had one of the weakest drafts losing it’s first two picks and failing to sign their third, fourth and eight round picks due to failed contact negotiations.

Considering what the two teams have it’s easy to understand why the teams are going with the starters they’ve selected. The Nationals simply have no talent at the upper levels and the Astros simply have no minor leaguers ready to make the jump to the majors. The attempt at development of the pitchers on the Nationals may or may not work out. The Astros may surprise and contend this year. It’s up in the air.

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The Spurs took an 18 point lead into halftime tonight against the Bulls. I’m a little nervous. Well, more nervous then one should be when their team has an 18 point lead over an Eastern Conference team. (one that isn’t even going to the playoffs!)

Thankfully the team ending the game with a 102-80 win. The losing streak is over and this is one night we don’t have to watch them drop further back in the West.