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Last year, You Can't Predict Baseball came up with bold predictions for the year. We had a lot of fun coming up with them, and then laughing at how hilariously wrong they were at the end of the year. This year, we're bringing these predictions to SweetSpot, along with explanations for some of them. Keep in mind, these predictions are supposed to be bold, but not insane -- even we know the Orioles aren't going to the playoffs in 2012.

Los Angeles Angels: Kendrys Morales stays healthy all year.

Houston Astros: Bud Norris is top five in K/9 in the NL. We figured something good had to happen to the Astros, right? Norris actually has a pretty nice career K/9.

Oakland Athletics: Yoenis Cespedes is their starting center fielder by Memorial Day.

Toronto Blue Jays: Brandon Morrow makes the jump to elite starting pitcher. He's struck out more than 10 batters per 9 innings two years running, though his ERAs have remained ugly. We think this is the year his results finally match the stuff, especially considering his declining walk rate.

Atlanta Braves: Julio Teheran has more wins than Tim Hudson.

Milwaukee Brewers: Rickie Weeks leads the team in home runs. He was fourth on the team last year, with 20. In front of him were Corey Hart with 26, Ryan Braun with 33, and Prince Fielder with 38. Fielder is gone, and for this prediction we'll assume Braun will miss a third of the year due to a suspension. It's not too bold to think Weeks could pass Hart in 2012.

St. Louis Cardinals: Carlos Beltran outproduces Albert Pujols from last year. Albert Pujols was great last year, but not quite best-player-of-his-generation Albert Pujols. If healthy, it's not absurd to think of Beltran outproducing Pujols' 5.1 WAR in 2011.

Chicago Cubs: Matt Garza isn't their best pitcher. It'll be Ryan Dempster, who had great peripherals but bad results last year.

Arizona Diamondbacks: Aaron Hill will be good again. He was great with them in limited time, and Arizona's park is quite hitter-friendly.

Los Angeles Dodgers: James Loney will be a top-three first baseman in the National League. Many thanks to Mike Scioscia's Tragic Illness for somewhat alerting us to this one. We just decided to take it semi-absurdly far.

San Francisco Giants: Madison Bumgarner is their best pitcher. In terms of ERA, he already wasn't very far behind Matt Cain and Tim Lincecum, and his K/BB ratio eclipsed theirs by quite a bit.

Cleveland Indians: They'll have the best pitching in the American League Central. We're banking on Ubaldo Jimenez, making a major comeback to something closer to what he was in 2010, and the rest of the staff displaying the good that they did in 2011. We're also counting on the Tigers' starters not being very impressive behind Justin Verlander, which is bold but not quite insane, and the pitching of the White Sox, Twins and Royals not being able to keep up with Cleveland's.

Seattle Mariners: Jesus Montero catches 100-plus games. The Mariners probably aren't going to compete, so why not try and play him where he'll accrue the most value?

Miami Marlins: Despite all their new acquisitions and the hype, they still finish fourth in the NL East. When you think about it, this one isn't so crazy. If Josh Johnson isn't healthy and maybe even if he is their pitching still trails that of Philadelphia, Washington, and Atlanta; even with Heath Bell, we don't think their bullpen is as good, either. Their offense might be better than some of those teams', but the Marlins were quite a bit below league average offensively last year and we're not sure how much Jose Reyes is going to make up for that.

New York Mets: Mike Pelfrey is the worst starter in the NL. Pelfrey's been pretty terrible two of the past three years, and now they're moving the fences in at Citi Field. He was far better in his huge home stadium, but we're guessing with the moved-in walls he'll be significantly worse at Citi. Here at YCPB, we actually don't think the Mets are going to be quite as dire as many are saying, even if they do come in last place in the NL East - but Pelfrey won't be a bright spot.

Washington Nationals: Stephen Strasburg has a 17-strikeout game.

Baltimore Orioles: Matt Wieters is the best catcher in the AL. A lot of people are so obsessed with Wieters not matching the hype that they didn't notice he became a plus offensive performer last year, to go along with very good defense. His taking the next step isn't that bold as predictions go, especially if Joe Mauer has to move off catcher.

San Diego Padres: Luke Gregerson is a top-three closer in the NL.

Philadelphia Phillies: Cole Hamels is their best starter. And this isn't meant to be a slight to Roy Halladay or Cliff Lee, but considering their ages and the fact that Hamels is pretty darn good himself, plus a possible boost from a contract year...

Pittsburgh Pirates: Charlie Morton is their All-Star.

Texas Rangers: Yu Darvish isn't their best starter -- but he's still good. And we think he'll be pretty good, we just think Derek Holland will become more consistently good, or Matt Harrison will put up numbers like his 2011.

Tampa Bay Rays: James Shields will have no complete games. Predicting someone to have no complete games might not seem bold, but it is when it's a guy who was known as "Complete Game James" last season. Shields did have 11 complete games in 2011, an almost unheard-of number these days, but he had no complete games in 2009 or 2010.

Boston Red Sox: No one hits 30 home runs. This might seem crazy when you consider their great offensive numbers last year, but only one player on their team hit 30 home runs and it was Jacoby Ellsbury with 32.

Cincinnati Reds: Brandon Phillips is the best second baseman in the NL.

Colorado Rockies: Jamie Moyer will have the best HR/9 on the staff.

Kansas City Royals: They reach .500. While their pitching won't be great, their offense will take a big step forward this year. Combined with the rest of their division being the Tigers and some dumpster fires, it's not that difficult to see it happening.

Detroit Tigers: They score fewer runs than they did in 2011. Yes, that’s even with Fielder. It's not improbable that Jhonny Peralta, Alex Avila and Delmon Young regress quite a bit from their numbers with Detroit last year, and that Prince Fielder's production "only" makes up for the offensive loss of Victor Martinez in 2012. They'll still have a very good offense, though.

Minnesota Twins: Joe Mauer hits 15 home runs.

Chicago White Sox: Robin Ventura gets ejected more times than Ozzie Guillen. Look at the state of the White Sox. We'd get ejected too.

New York Yankees: Hiroki Kuroda leads the team in ERA.

You Can't Predict Baseball is an affiliate of the SweetSpot network.

Joe Janish over at Red Leg Nation did a good job compiling the ZiPS Projections by Dan Szymborski to figure out the projected NL Central standings for 2011. I'm not going to give you a homerific projection of the Astros' season. I've got a pretty good record of being excessively critical of the Astros, and I'm certainly not turning around on that to say they're going to the World Series or anything absurd like that.

But don't you have to question the methodology of anything that places pretty much any team behind the Pirates?

The pessimist in me is perfectly willing to buy Szymborski's breakdown that compares the Astros to the Orioles in the way they keep getting just enough wins to convince management that the team doesn't need to go in a drastic new position. He's right that it's a slow downward spiral and I've been saying as much for years.

But, even granting that it is true, there are a number of reasons to think the Astros will not finish behind the Pirates.

First of all, the Astros have history on their side. In 17 years of sharing the division, the Astros have never finished behind the Pirates. They have had some scares in recent years, but the Astros never finished last in the division and have never finished behind the Pirates. History can change at any moment and that's the beauty of sports, but I'm looking at a Pirates team whose best full-time starter (Ross Ohlendorf) posted a 4.01 ERA last year, and I'm not seeing any reason to think the pattern of the Astros beating out the Pirates is going to change this year.

Secondly, the Astros' offense should get better this year. Nobody's going to confuse them with the 1927 Yankees or even the 2004 Astros, but there's plenty of reason to think the Astros will be better with the bats in 2011. They added Bill Hall and Clint Barmes. Chris Johnson will probably take a step back from his surprising rookie campaign, but there's no reason to think that Brett Wallace and Jason Castro won't see improvement, and no reason to think that Carlos Lee and Michael Bourn can't rebound and hit more like they did in 2009. They were a team in flux last year, and even with their complete offensive futility, I'll let you take a stab at one of the two teams that finished behind the Astros in virtually every offensive category. Did you guess? Yeah … it was the Pirates.

Thirdly, the Astros have pitching. You can knock their offense from here to October, and maybe their pitching even overperformed a little bit last year with a resurgent season from Brett Myers. But Myers, Wandy Rodriguez and J.A. Happ lead a solid rotation (3.30 ERA last year for those three) and the bullpen is coming together with great young guys like Fernando Abad, Wilton Lopez and Mark Melancon, with Brandon Lyon anchoring the closer's spot. Again, nothing that will compete for the World Series, but certainly good enough to finish ahead of the Pirates and maybe even enough to surprise other NL opponents.

I don't write this to proclaim the virtues of a team that might be just this much better than the lowly Pirates. I write it to say that this statistical finding doesn't pass the smell test. I'm sure that Dan Szymborski has put a lot of thought and work into his equations, but when those equations come out with the standings shown by Red Leg Nation, it might be an invitation back to the drawing board. Or, at the very least, a reminder that all the stats in the world will never tell us what we often know just by looking at what's in front of us.

Austin Swafford writes Austin's Astros 290 Blog, a blog about the Houston Astros. You can follow him on Twitter.

Here's what Craig Calcaterra wrote -- but didn't publish -- before we got the news that Roger Clemens will be indicted today:

After a nineteen month investigation, an announcement is expected soon -- possibly as early as today -- that a federal grand jury is poised to indict Roger Clemens for lying under oath to Congress when he denied taking performance-enhancing drugs. The specific charges are not yet known, but they likely involve, at the very least, multiple counts of perjury.

--snip--

And now, after months of collecting evidence, the grand jury is poised to issue an indictment. In lay terms: a formal accusation that a crime was committed. As I have wrote previously and will continue to note as the case proceeds towards trial, an accusation does not necessarily make a conviction likely, especially in a perjury case, especially in this perjury case. Many of Clemens' statements are exceedingly difficult to square with known facts and common sense. At the same time, many of the witnesses against Clemens already face credibility issues, Brian McNamee chief among them. Even if you believe, as I am inclined to, that Clemens was not truthful during his Congressional testimony, convicting him of perjury will be no easy feat.

But that is what trials are for and a trial in this case, if one ever occurs, will not take place for a very, very long time. In the meantime, Roger Clemens has a date with federal agents, a finger print ink pad and a mug shot photographer. Because he is about to be criminally charged.

Yes, Congress has more important things to worry about.

But no, you shouldn't lie to Congress.

Roger Clemens probably never should have been asked (or ordered) to testify before Congress. Every day, Congress wastes thousands of man-hours grandstanding and sticking its collective nose into small issues while ducking the big ones (and man, are there some big ones).

But when you stand up in one of those hearing rooms and raise your hand and swear to tell the truth and then you don't ... Well, there really must be some serious consequences. I don't want to see Roger Clemens behind bars. If he got up there and told a bunch of lies, though ...

After explaining why the Lance Berkman deal can't be announced until tomorrow, Joel Sherman explains that Berkman hardly fits a crying need for the Yankees ...

However, his price both in dollars and/or prospects has fallen so low that the Yankees moved to acquire the switch-hitter.

--snip--

When it comes to position players, the Yankees actually preferred either a supplemental type who either plays the corner infield (to rest Alex Rodriguez on occasion) or bats righty and plays the corner outfield (to put Curtis Granderson on the bench against most lefties). Berkman is neither of these.

--snip--

Berkman would essentially fill the role the Yankees had envisioned for Nick Johnson, regular DH and occasional fill-in first baseman for Mark Teixeira. He is a veteran bat with plenty of playoff experience and is pals with Andy Pettitte.

Berkman is having his worst season at .240 with 13 homers and 49 RBIs. But in his past 18 games, Berkman has hit .274 with six homers in 64 at-bats. He also is the kind of patient hitter the Yankees always like, and they would be hoping that the intensity of a championship hunt would energize him for a strong finish.This is purely a "because we can" move. The Yankees already lead the American League in scoring, Marcus Thames has been solid as their righty-hitting DH, and there's no shortage of veterans who can use the occasional rest. Particularly with a playoff spot almost locked up already.

But the Yankees have more loose money than a Saudi prince, and a Berkman/Thames platoon will look pretty good in October (the switch-hitting Berkman's been significantly better in his career against righties than lefties). So why not?

The deal is finally done, and before I had time to jot down my first thoughts I happened across Calcaterra's. His big finish:

This deal is a coup for the Phillies. They got a starter who would slot in as a number one on a great many teams and they got him for very little, both in terms of money and in terms of talent. Happ is a decent pitcher, but he's certainly not a special talent. He's a fly ball-prone lefty who, in Houston, will give up an awful lot of home runs into the Crawford Boxes. Gose and Villar are not special talents.

The Phillies have dug themselves a bit of a hole in the NL East, but they've been climbing out of it slowly but surely over the past week. Getting Roy Oswalt just gave them a big boost. If they make the postseason, the 1-2-3 of Roy Halladay, Oswalt and Cole Hamels will be the toughest in the National League.

That line about climbing out of their hole "slowly but surely" is something of an understatement -- the Phillies have won seven straight games and finally called up Domonic Brown and added Roy Oswalt to their rotation? I don't know if any team could do more in one week to bolster their chances. It's been a great week for the Phillies, and a lousy week for the Braves and the Reds and the Padres and every other team vying for a postseason berth.

And of course what's really amazing is how little the Phillies had to give up. For J.A. Happ and a couple of marginal prospects, the Phillies get Roy Oswalt for (at least) two months this season and all of next season, and it'll cost them only $12 million (if they don't exercise their 2012 option for $16 million) ... because in addition to Oswalt, the Astros are also sending along $11 million.

It's hard to believe the Astros couldn't have done better than this ... But then again, if they could have done appreciably better, wouldn't they have? It's not like the Mariners absolutely cleaned up when they traded Cliff Lee (though they did better than the Astros, for sure). It looks like teams are just terrified of veteran pitchers with big salaries, even when those salaries are perfectly commensurate with performance.

And there's nothing wrong with Oswalt's performance. He's a reasonable Hall of Fame candidate who's hardly living off past glories; his numbers this season are right in line with his whole illustrious career. He's still one of the better pitchers in the National League, and that doesn't figure to change anytime soon.

Finally, another word about the Astros. No, this doesn't look good now. But let's give it a year or two before passing final judgment, shall we? No, James Anthony Happ isn't likely to become the next Jamie Moyer (and even if he does, it'll be three or four teams from now). And no, neither Jonathan Villar nor Anthony Gose qualify as top prospects.

But both those guys are just 19 and they are prospects. My initial impression is that this is a great deal for the Phillies and a blah deal for the Astros, but the presence of two teenagers means every opinion is provisional.

And finally (I mean it this time), another word about the Phillies. Remember when everyone was saying how foolish they were for trading Cliff Lee last winter? Well, they traded Cliff Lee because they thought they could stock their farm system without seriously damaging their chances for another National League pennant.

Be honest ... Did you think they were wrong at the time? I didn't. I had the Phillies winning their division this year, and so did almost everybody else.

It didn't quite work out that way. So they've adjusted, and instead of having a great chance of winning with Cliff Lee in 2010, they've got a great chance of winning with Roy Oswalt in 2010 ... and in 2011.

Is there a smarter, more effective front office in the National League right now?

From Jon Heyman's rundown of pitchers who might be available:

3. Roy Oswalt, Astros, SP. This, says one GM, is a "problematic'' trade. It appears no team, not even the Yankees or Red Sox, wants to spend the $25 million left on Oswalt's deal through next season. Plus, some GMs say they are under the impression Oswalt wants his $16 million option for 2012 picked up, which could be a deal killer for many, if not most, teams. And while the Astros have signaled they might be willing to contribute toward that amount, they'd want big-time prospects back to do so. Then there's the matter of Oswalt's no-trade clause. "I hear he only wants to go to a couple teams,'' one GM said. Oswalt demanded a trade but isn't making it easy.

Yet another object lesson in the hazards of the no-trade clause. The money's one thing; if someone offered the Astros a couple of solid prospects, they could justify sending a few million bucks along with Oswalt. It would nice to have that option, anyway. But that no-trade clause gives all the power to the player, which is fine when you're winning but pretty annoying when you're losing.


The Astros are losing. And they should be annoyed.

All that said, is $25 million through 2011 really so out of line? Is $16 million in 2012 really so unreasonable?

According to FanGraphs, Oswalt was worth $14 million last season, and is heading toward $18 million this season. That's $16 million per season. Granted, you might not be able to justify those salaries if you're running an American League team, and you might not be able to justify spending that money and giving up two prospects. I'm just saying that Oswalt's contract really isn't outrageous, and that exercising the 2012 option wouldn't be a terrible risk.

Bernardo Fallas on a game that might remain in the memories of Astros fans for a long, long time:

If this was Roy Oswalt’s farewell performance as the Astros’ ace at Minute Maid Park, he made sure to make it one to remember.

If it was an audition for the handful of scouts on hand tracking their teams' potential trade target, he made sure to leave them reassured.

Oswalt pitched a one-hit shutout in impeccable fashion, and Lance Berkman took care of the offense with solo home runs in Thursday’s 2-0 series-sweeping victory over the Pittsburgh Pirates.

The win left Oswalt one shy of tying the franchise record of 144 held by Joe Niekro.

--snip--

If this was to be Oswalt’s last outing as an Astro at Minute Maid – a very real possibility given the fact he has asked that the team trade him to a contender, and several teams including the Los Angeles Dodgers and Philadelphia Phillies had scouts in attendance as the July 31 trade deadline approaches – it was a memorable one for the more than 20,000 in attendance.

If the rotation holds, Oswalt won’t pitch at home until July 27 against Chicago – provided he is still with the Astros.

Call me sentimental, but I'd sure like to see Oswalt win just twice more and pass the lesser Niekro. Seems small comfort to the fans, but small comfort's better than no comfort.

Still, the large comfort, when it comes, will come when the Astros return to their winning ways. And if trading Oswalt before he's able to break a team record hastens that return, it simply must be done.

The Astros just called up two young players from Triple-A! It's a youth movement! Let the rebuilding begin!

As Aaron Gleeman points out, not so fast:

[Jason] Castro was the 10th overall pick in the 2008 draft, but was considered an "overdraft" immediately and has hit .287 with a modest 16 homers and .411 slugging percentage in 215 pro games. He has good on-base skills and should be a solid enough player, but Castro certainly doesn't project as a star, let alone someone whose arrival is capable of creating "a watershed moment in the franchise's future."

[Chris] Johnson has even less chance of developing into a building block-type player, because he's almost 26 years old and has hit .282 with a .321 on-base percentage and .459 slugging percentage in 172 games at Triple-A. He was off to a strong start there this season and giving him a chance to supplant the washed-up remains of Pedro Feliz at third base makes plenty of sense, but Johnson's upside is somewhere between role player and mediocre starter.

The Astros also called up outfielder Jason Bourgeois, who's fast but is 28 and until this spring had never played in the minors like anything more than a fifth outfielder.

This is mostly about Castro, the Astros' first draft pick during Ed Wade's tenure as general manager. Wade's reputation is due almost completely to drafting and development; he was running the Phillies when they drafted Chase Utley, Jimmy Rollins and Ryan Howard. With the Astros' losses piling up, it must be at least moderately heartening to promote a 2008 draft pick to the majors and get him into the lineup.

But I think Gleeman's right, as Castro just doesn't qualify for the pantheon of great young catchers. His .411 career slugging percentage as a professional isn't impressive, but it's actually even less impressive than that; his slugging percentage above Class A is just .370. He's young and he's a catcher and there's probably some development potential there ... but if Jason Castro is the best prospect the Astros unveil this summer, the rebuilding process will be off to a slow start.

This might not have made SportsCenter last night, but there was a really, really interesting play in last night's Astros-Royals game:

The Royals had trouble against Myers early, even after benefiting from a rare overturned call.

The play came with one out in the fifth inning, when Betancourt hit a soft liner to shortstop with [Mike Aviles] on second. Second base umpire Mike Everitt initially ruled that Geoff Blum caught the ball on a fly and got the final out by doubling up [Aviles] at second.

After meeting behind the mound, the umpires changed the call, saying the ball hit the ground before Blum fielded it, and sent both teams back onto the field. [Aviles] was put on third, and Betancourt was called out -- even though Blum never threw to first.

Crew chief Tim McClelland told the Royals that the decision was to correct the missed call on the field and that it was assumed Blum would have thrown out Betancourt at first. Blum was awarded an assist, and first baseman Lance Berkman was given a putout despite never touching the ball.

By what authority might the umpires possibly do such a thing?

Well, as near as I can tell, by the authority of Rule 9.01(c), which simply says: "Each umpire has authority to rule on any specific point not covered in these rules."

In this case, crew chief Tim McClelland had a tough choice to make, one everyone had determined that the wrong call had initially been made. He could let the call stand, which obviously would have been unfair to the Royals. He could have called everyone -- Aviles at third base, Betancourt at first -- safe, which obviously would have been unfair to the Astros. So instead he did the least unfair thing, assuming that Aviles would have been safe at third base -- he was off and running, and it was a soft liner behind him -- and that shortstop Blum would, if not immediately informed of the out, still have had plenty of time to throw out Betancourt at first base.

It's this last bit that we might question. What if Blum took too long to realize he hadn't made a clean catch? What if he'd thrown low, or high, or wide? Official scorers prohibited from "assuming the double play" ... so why should an umpire assume a good throw from shortstop?

Because the umpire is under no such restriction (rightly so, in my opinion), and it was the fairest course available to him. After last October, I'm not real confident in Tim McClelland's eyesight or his reflexes. But his judgment seems sound.

Carlos Lee is not at all the same player the Astros got when they signed him for the 2007 season. His slugging percentage dropped 80 points last season and is just .292 so far this season. He is a liability on the basepaths and had the lowest range factor of any starting left fielder last year. He has also hit into 21 double plays last year and is on pace for 30 this year. All of this comes in addition to hitting .200 this year with a .530 OPS. Lee is unlikely to magically improve at the age of 33.

The real problem is the contract. If Jeff Keppinger was hitting that way, he would be benched without hesitation. However, Lee is in the fourth year of a six year contract that is paying him $18.5 million each of the next three seasons. Not that most teams would take him, but it is worth mentioning Lee has a no-trade clause in his contract and does not seem interested in leaving Texas.

Houston is in a real bind. Who needs a declining outfielder in his mid-30s who can't play defense? The only teams that might take a chance on such a player -- the Royals and Nationals -- would surely be rejected by Lee. A handful of AL teams might take a chance on him as a DH, but it’s hard to say which might be suitable for Lee, and even harder to say Houston would get the kind of value they're looking for.

It’s the same issue Buster Olney wrote about last week with Lance Berkman and Roy Oswalt -- the Astros would probably have to eat a lot of Lee’s salary to get some good prospects, or hand his salary to the buyer and not get much talent in return.

The best thing the Astros have going for them is that they are clearly not going anywhere this year. The Astros have two outfielders who are posting very good numbers at Triple-A Round Rock. Brian Bogusevic has a .336/.397/.513 line with nine doubles, four homeruns and 17 RBIs. Jason Bourgeois is .316/.393/.411 with three doubles, two homeruns, 13 RBIs and 12 stolen bases. Both have some issues that probably prevent them from being ready right now. But perhaps they get up there and surprise. That's the nice thing about not having anything to lose -- you can see if these young guys have some real promise for the future.

Bourgeois, in particular, would provide a very nice complement to Michael Bourn, who is the only real speedster the Astros have right now.

It is time for the Astros to see about the future. They should release Cory Sullivan and make Lee the highest-paid pinch hitter in the game while they see if Bogusevic or Bourgeois has anything to offer. Maybe if Lee becomes dissatisfied enough on the bench and plays well during some DH opportunities in interleague play, he might reconsider accepting a trade.

Worst record in the National League? Houston. And now they're going to lose their only player with more than two steals:

Houston Astros outfielder Michael Bourn has been suspended two games for making contact with umpire Alfonso Marquez during a game against the San Diego Padres.

Major League Baseball made the announcement Tuesday. Bourn also was fined an undisclosed amount for his actions during the 2-1 loss Saturday.

Bourn thought he beat out a bouncer leading off the ninth inning, but first base umpire Marquez called him out. Bourn ripped off his helmet and Marquez ejected the center fielder.

It wasn't a great deal of contact ... but it was contact, and that can't be tolerated.

First Bourn ripped off his helmet, but he got ejected after punching the air and (presumably) dropping some verbal bombs (video here.

You can't blame him for being frustrated. His team's struggling, and in the ninth inning of a 2-1 game he came oh-so-close to doing exactly what his team needed.

What's most interesting about the whole sequence is that while Bourn looked safe (or maybe tied, which is the same thing) with the naked eye, the replay suggests that Marquez got the call right.

So Bourn was wrong twice; he was wrong for bumping the ump, and he was wrong about the call. Two games seems a small price to pay.

Nevertheless, he has appealed the suspension. Because, you know, it wasn't fair.

Zachary Levine on the Astros' position battle that shouldn't be:

And the final rose goes to ...

In a spring training without a whole lot of drama — even the first round of cuts featured hardly a newsworthy name — the battle to be the Astros' starting catcher is the season's hottest reality show.

Fighting to win the hearts of general manager Ed Wade, manager Brad Mills and the rest of the Astros brass, J.R. Towles and Jason Castro have both put up sexy numbers and are doing everything they can in the other phases of the game to land the opening day spot.

“Those guys have both played real well,” Mills said. “We're still evaluating and seeing how things are going. We still have a few weeks to go yet before we have to make those final decisions, and I expect it will come down to really almost near the end.”

At the plate, it's the most obvious.

Towles, 26, has been the Astros' hottest hitter and most pleasant surprise of spring training. He still has to prove himself in the regular season, where he is a .188 hitter, but for now, he's 11-for-20 (.550) with five doubles and a triple.

Castro, the Astros' top pick of the 2008 draft and top hitting prospect in the high minors, is not far behind. The lefthanded hitter is 7-for-15 (.467) with a double and three walks.

--snip--

Between now and the end of spring training, Mills will give all three catchers time and use them as designated hitters when possible to increase their at-bats and clarify who would make the more effective starter and who is likely headed to Class AAA Round Rock.

Yeah, three catchers. The third is Humberto Quintero, who served as the No. 2 catcher last season -- hitting almost exactly as awfully as No. 1 Ivan Rodriguez -- and is slated for the same duties this season.

Leaving Quintero aside, is this really the best way to run a baseball team? Getting three catchers into the lineup whenever possible and hoping that the most talented of them happens to finish March with the highest batting average?

Towles has struggled in the majors. He's not been the healthiest of players. But he's hit well in Class A, he's hit well in Class AA, and he's hit well in Class AAA. If he's healthy, he'll eventually hit well in Class AAAA (a/k/a the National League). Meanwhile, Castro is a wonderful prospect but he's got only 63 games of experience above A-ball and wasn't all that impressive in those 63 games.

If Castro's playing Gold Glove-quality defense and the Astros don't have anybody else, then sure: Pudge Rodriguez skipped Triple-A when he was only 19, and that worked out well enough. But the Astros do have somebody else, in fact a pretty good somebody. There's simply no reason to rush Castro before he's done anything special in Double-A.

Bernando Fallas on what's next for the Astros' best player:

Astros first baseman Lance Berkman knows this is a make-or-break season.

If he doesn't play well, that means the Astros likely will struggle. And it could mean he's playing elsewhere next season.

“I may have to, whether I like it or not,” Berkman said Wednesday as the Astros’ held their first full-squad workout. “It may come down to a situation where if things don’t go well they don’t pick up my option, then I probably won’t be back.

“If they don’t pick it up, I’ll probably take my ball and go home.”

--snip--

Berkman is coming off a subpar season, batting a career-low .274 for a full season with 25 home runs and 80 RBI.

“It was definitely toward the bottom of my statistical performance in years past,” said Berkman, who missed time because of injuries last season. “Batting average was definitely down, but if you want to go down a list of numbers, heck, on-base percentage was OK, and the home runs and the RBIs for missing a month weren’t too bad. It just wasn’t a very good year.”

Essentially the only difference between Berkman's 2009 and his 2007 (when nobody complained) was 20 games. Give him three more weeks in the lineup in 2009 and he hits 30 homers and knocks in 90-some runs and we're not having this conversation.

Not this exact conversation, anyway. There's still a worthwhile conversation to be had about the Astros' 2011 option, which is $15 million but with a $2 million buyout, which means they'll have to decide if Lance Berkman in 2011 is worth $13 million. The Lance Berman of 2007 and 2009 was worth $13 million almost exactly; the Lance Berkman of 2006 and 2008 was worth twice that.

So as annoyed as Berkman might be, the Astros have every reason to let things play out, see what the Lance Berkman of 2010 tells them about the Lance Berkman of 2011. Considering the recent market for sluggers in their mid-30s -- Berkman turned 34 two weeks ago -- he'll have a great financial incentive to play well this year (which isn't to suggest that he needs any extra incentive; most players don't).

From 2000 through 2009, 60 major leaguers totaled at least 5,000 plate appearances. Omar Vizquel created the fewest runs: 602. Alex Rodriguez created the most runs: 1,391. Three other players -- Todd Helton, Albert Pujols, and Manny Ramirez -- created more runs than Helton, who created more runs than Vladimir Guerrero and Chipper Jones and everyone else.

But how often is Berkman mentioned in the same breath as those others? First he was overshadowed by the original Killer B's, and then by the Astros' descent into irrelevance.

That doesn't mean Berkman is irrelevant. He's been an outstanding player for a long time, and in addition to five 100-RBI seasons he's also scored 100 runs in five seasons (and yes, those count too, even for power hitters). Thanks to a late professional start, because he went to college, Berkman hasn't piled up the big counting stats yet and probably won't reach 2,500 hits (stupid walks!) or 500 home runs (stupid line-drive doubles!), and thus probably has very little chance of getting into the Hall of Fame. But if he puts together another five or six good seasons, some of us will be making our best cases for him.

(Glove slap: BTF's Newsstand)

As a friend suggests, this is the winter's best takedown of a signing so far:

Ed Wade is the GM equivalent of a bad SNL sketch. The first time he overpaid a middle reliever, we figured out that he didn’t really know how to build a roster. Now, when he gives Brandon Lyon a 3 year, $15 million deal, we just shrug our shoulders and say, “Yeah, that’s Ed Wade for ya.”



Lyon

Seriously, $5 million a year for the next three years for Brandon Lyon. We’re not talking about overpaying for a premium bullpen guy. Lyon is a generic middle reliever, the kind of guy who could be replaced by a minor league free agent or a Rule 5 draftee. His career FIP is 4.23, which is below average for a relief pitcher. He doesn’t even have magical FIP-beating properties – his career ERA is 4.20.

But, hey, he got hit lucky last year (.229 BABIP) and that allowed him to strand a bunch of runners (80.8% LOB%), so his 2009 ERA is a sparkly 2.86. To Wade, that matters, because he’s still analyzing like it’s 1999. Don’t worry about the fact that his career BABIP is .305 or that his career LOB% is 71.4%, and that the entirety of his low ERA in 2009 was luck – pay him like the best reliever on the market anyway.

I'm glad Dave Cameron said it instead of me ... but, yeah.

The Astros actually play in a pretty solid market, in the top dozen or so anyway. They've got a relatively new ballpark. Owner Drayton McLane did finance roughly a third of the stadium's construction, for which he deserves credit. But the bottom line is that the Astros play in a bigger market, and are presumably wealthier, than the Cardinals, the Brewers, the Pirates, and the Reds. In fact, the Astros should enjoy huge financial edges over all or most of those clubs.

The No. 1 argument against Ed Wade's competence is not this ridiculous contract. The Astros should be able to blow $5 million per season on freely available talent like Brandon Lyon and still win. The No. 1 argument against Wade's competence is that the Astros have been outscored by 232 over the last four seasons, and there's no reason for optimism about 2010 or beyond.

The Indians got their man, but in Houston the story is that the Astros didn't get theirs. Richard Justice:

Manny Acta was the guy they wanted. The Astros liked everything about him. His presence and personality. How he forged relationships with players. His ability to run a game.I said from the beginning that there was no right answer in this search for a new manager. Manny Acta would have been terrific, but then so would Phil Garner, Bob Melvin, Tim Bogar, Jim Fregosi and a dozen or so others.

But the Astros settled on Manny Acta. Ed Wade and Tal Smith went through the list and the interviews and decided he should be the guy to lead the Astros through an important period in their history.

There's no use surgarcoating what happened these last 48 hours. Drayton McLane refused to offer Acta a three-year contract. He offered two, and even when the Cleveland Indians offered three, he held firm.

--snip--

He operated the Astros that way when they made the playoffs six times in nine years, and he's operating them this way now. I believe in my heart of hearts that his heart is in the right place, but he has some odd thoughts about putting a team together.

He'll allow his people overspend on some has-been player, but veto spending on draft picks and managers.

Now the Astros will move on. They've got some tough spinning to do when a manager finally is hired.

It's not just that the new manager won't be their first choice. It's that the Astros lost their first choice for a relatively small amount of money.

If you don't trust your baseball people to choose your manager, you should get new baseball people.

If you think it's silly to give a manager a three-year contract but don't mind throwing $100 million of your ill-gotten gains at Carlos Lee, you probably need to have your head examined (though of course something similar might be said of half the owners in the majors).

It's not likely that failing to hire Manny Acta is debilitating, because it's not likely that Manny Acta is a great manager. I mean, it's certainly possible. It's just that there aren't many great managers -- to the questionable extent such a beast might be identified, anyway -- and so the odds of any particular manager being great are small indeed.

What's debilitating is a sense of the organization, both within and without, that the owner and his top lieutenants aren't on the same page. Whether that characterization is fair or not, often the perception becomes the reality.