Offseason Review: the Houston Astros

From riches to rags: Chris Carter was traded from the 2013
AL West champs to the inevitably doomed Astros

There are plenty of scandals and controversies talked about in the baseball world.  Steroids, the one game playoffs, the Hall of Fame and so on.  The Houston Astros may have set a precedent by being the first team ever to catch flack for intentionally being bad. After trading Jed Lowrie to the A's for a set of prospects and DH/1B Chris Carter, the Astros total salary shrank to just over $14.5MM dollars, which for comparison's sake is $2.5MM less than Derek Jeter will make in 2013.  Suffice to say the expectations for the Astros first year as an american league team are dismal.

That being said, the overhaul needed for the Astros to find their way back in to relevance needed to be so thorough that the front office essentially needed to dismantle and rebuild their whole lineup and rotation in piecemeal fashion.  2013 is essentially locked down as awful for Houston, and that's ok.  The Astros got the first overall pick in 2012, will again in 2013 and if all goes as expected this season, they will take the first pick in 2014 as well.  Who does this remind you of? How long ago was it that the Washington Nationals were considered a joke?  Keeping that logic in mind, the Astros are doing what they need to do.  It's going to be ugly, but it's going to help.