I'm looking for a Roy Oswalt news bumper that's as catchy as "Crisis in Kosovo"

Slatow Last?

And what do the Astros want for him?

cj beatty didn’t miss the train

:=8)

we need him to replace Franklin

of those four players.

Although a Greene, Boggs trade would not be totally unlikely either.

He’ll be a young ’un in the stands. But in connection to a baseball diamond, no.

Doesn’t really make any sense. If they traded for Oswalt than payroll would have to be extended. No other options really. I just don’t see this trade working at all. Ed Wade wants the prospects and doesn’t want to give salary relief also. That is a deal breaker for us.

As Dan notes above, it seems that the $16MM option for 2012 is something that Oswalt is flexible on. If he will agree to a trade without our exercising it, then we owe him $16MM in 2011, a year in which we also owe Pujols only $16MM. In 2012, both will be free agents.

“Bill DeWitt basically saying, ‘$120 million? Well, you kids have been awfully good this year,’”

just take the money saved from ballpark village.

I welcome our new walking overlords?

I want no part in seeing Oswalt “walking” if he is a Cardinal?

Bernie goes on the Oswalt work out program, which is walking from Huston to St. Louis, and loses 70 lbs? (Fat jokes are too easy. Sorry Bernie)

hmmm….

I got nothing really.

Just fire up the Caterpillar.

if he passes on the 2012 option.

People are scared about giving up our last two #1 picks. (I’m not, but I understand it.) People are also scared one of these young players could be Jamie or Motte or Boggs. The only one I’d be okay with of those two going away is Boggs. Even though there is evidence that he could be a better reliever than Motte.

But you just described that absolute best case scenario for us. If we’ve offered those players and it hasn’t been accepted, Houston clearly wants more than that.

if that means he can duck a trade for Oswalt because his value is too low

The increasing likelihood of signing austin wilson, possibly giving the cards another blue chip.

plus some endowment effect creeping in.

The nearest analgoue is probably the Holliday trade (which I was against at the time). Of course many of the reasons I was against it turned out not to be correct -
1. I thought Wallace could play 3b (I’ve since seen him actually try to play 3B, and he looked horrendous, so his value went way down)
2. Holliday exceeded my expectations last year. And Derosa ended up hurt, so we really did need him.
3. Mortenson was my favorite pitching prospect so I probably overrated his actual ability.

In any event, I’m in favor of the Oswalt trade (depending on what we give up….)

We should start by dangling something just stupid like K-Mac and Boogor Skip and assuming that gets a no (which it should but it’s worth a try to see how much Oswalt has him in a corner right now and how much K-Mac makes him drool because it is Wade after all) then you offer something fair like K-Mac and Jay or Craig and if he still says no you just walk away

That’s my only view into the world of the Twits.

“Oswalt is dead and I’m gay!” made me laugh the hardest

Stupid, stupid PR.

Aside from that, a year’s supply of HGH costs 10-20k, which is more money than most minor leaguers make in a year!

It helps with recovery from injury. Due to quality of life concerns for professional athletes, I think professional sport leagues should be trying to bring it into the fold, monitored by doctors. What’s more, this test is completely unreliable.

probably going “should i pick him off, should i not… ah, what the hell, i’ll pick him off”

Would that get it done?

can be one of the guys. He is really our only hope at an above average 3B we have in the system right now. Any two of KMac, Craig or Jay, Boog or Greene, or Boggs or Motte is reasonable. Listed in order of preference. If we could somehow give them Skip instead of any of these guys that would be great!

MOOBIES!

you can’t have a temporary shift in philosophy if you’ve got $20 in your pocket and 200 miles to go. you’ll be sitting on the side of the road with your thumb in the air till Tyler Greene picks you up in his windowless van.

business plans are necessarily long-term; short-term decisions have to fit to the plan, not the other way around. now, if bgh says above, the plan is to win now, then that’s another kettle of fish.

I don’t think that you can temporarily change your philosophy and not expect some sorts of repercussions from that change down the line. You can’t have your cake and eat it too — you have to make a choice as to what’s most important to you at this time and then use that strategy. If you try to split the middle, which seems to be what you’re suggesting, that’s a recipe for failure. If we trade for Roy Oswalt, I think we also need to make a move for a middle infield upgrade as well. If we’re going all in, push all the chips to the middle of the table and then live with the results of that. Don’t go half ass at it by using one strategy to get Oswalt and reverting to building from within. I think if you employ the win-now, you have to be ready for 2 or 3 lean years later on. I think a lot of people play lip service to that, but I can tell you this: I was around here for 2007 and 2008, and few at VEB (including myself at times) were happy with a mediocre ballclub, even though that’s what we were in 2006 and won the World Series.

I agree that you can definitely make a case for this trade (or the Haren trade, which is less unlikely), even I can make a case for this trade depending on the option year and the players involved. But what you can’t do is assume that this trade doesn’t involve copious amounts of risk on the part of the team, which will be giving up young, cost-controlled talent for old, cost-prohibitive talent, and will essentially be going into hock in terms of payroll to make this deal happen.

My biggest problem with this trade is the target and the strategy of our current roster management. While I think that Oswalt definitely helps us (you’d be fucking crazy not to think that) I think the the players we’re giving up may actually be more valuable to our ballclub in the near future (be it Boggs, Motte, Miller, Descalso or Lynn — I would not include Allen Craig or Jon Jay as I don’t think they have positions here and have more value as trade pieces), and that I think we could make a deal that involves much less talent going out while having a significant impact on our current team.

In the short term, I think that getting Uggla and Westbrook would be a better move for us and I think getting both of those players would cost about the same in talent from the Cardinals. I think upgrading our middle infield would be a much better marginal gain for us than upgrading our starting rotation, which is currently the best in the National League by ERA, even with Penny and Lohse disabled.

Honestly? I think the Rays have been stupid for not dealing a couple of prospects to give them the offensive upgrade they need at the top of their lineup (Adam Dunn, Josh Willingham, Corey Hart — all those guys would help them, especially Willingham). I think they should have gone after Cliff Lee harder than they did. Why? Because they can’t afford to keep the band together after this season, and they have a talent rich farm system that could get them really good players that would push them over the top now. Why don’t they do it? Because they know the playoffs are a crapshoot and they’d rather try to win a lot every year than push it all in and go for broke. They made the WS with that strategy 2 years ago, so they stick with it.

i wonder if they told him to start packing for houston