Astros acquire LHP Scott Kazmir from Oakland

[Angel Oracle]

Maybe this will get Stoneman to put down his xbox controller and make some deals soon.

As much as Stoneman helped with the 2000s success, he still faaaar too often took the "Snore, tic toc, tic toc, Snore." approach in July.

[The Dude]

http://www.baseball-reference.com/minors/player.cgi?id=mengde000dan

http://www.baseball-reference.com/minors/player.cgi?id=nottin000jac

Couple of emerging prospects...young

Thanks for the links mulwin. Nottingham is a typical Beane acquistion(high OBP). Mengden looks like a decent pitching prospect based off his stats. Seems like a good trade for both sides for a few months of Kazmir. Edited July 23, 2015 by The Dude

[Angel Oracle]

Angel Oracle will complain about the crumbs left on the sheets after a night of nailing Kate Upton.

I expect fresh sourdough crumbs after that. 

[Chris]

so what is the Astros rotation now?

 

Keuchel - Kazmir - McHugh - McCullers - Feldman / Velasquez?

 

pretty decent, but besides Keuchel not really instilling fear in me yet..

[yk9001]

Wasn't Kazmir the pitcher who some long-ago poster said he used to play xbox with?

[Stradling]

Whereas pitchers like Fernando Rodney openly blamed Butcher, young pitchers like Skaggs and Heaney have actually Butcher unprompted endorsements in the media. Now I'm not as sure which narrative to believe.

Go ahead and try really hard which side you want to agree with. Do you want to believe Fernando Rodney or Skaggs and Heaney? Seems like an incredibly difficult decision.

[ettin]

Kazmir has been extremely effective against RHH's this year to date. However vs. LHH's he has been very lucky so far to date. A K%-BB% rate of 9.8% vs. LHH's will come back to haunt him soon enough. Not to mention his home/road ERA's are not pretty either. This is just more impetus for the Angels to go out and acquire a LH bat so that if and when we face Kazmir again we fill our lineup with more lefties.

[Stradling]

Wasn't Kazmir the pitcher who some long-ago poster said he used to play xbox with?

Yes

[The Dude]

Wasn't Kazmir the pitcher who some long-ago poster said he used to play xbox with?

Lol...I remember that, something about weed and xbox if I recall correctly.

[gurn67]

Now we just have to figure out how to substitute Butcher with the Astros' pitching coach and turn Kazmir into Steve Blass again.

[bloodbrother]

Kazmir in Oakland this season - 1.36 ERA, 0 HR

Kazmir on the road - 3.92 ERA, 7 HR

[ten ocho recon scout]

Wasn't Kazmir the pitcher who some long-ago poster said he used to play xbox with?

stoneman posts on here?

[ettin]

Angel Oracle will complain about the crumbs left on the sheets after a night of nailing Kate Upton.

Quite frankly AO can complain about anything he wants to complain about if he actually nailed Kate Upton. I'd be duly impressed and give him carte blanche to rage about anything he wanted to rage about.

[zenmaster]

I still prefer our starting 6 over the Astros starting 5. No worries here. If they got Price & Cespedes I'd be a bit worried.

[TroutField]

He beat us the last time we faced him, on June 21st.

7.1 IP, 1 ER

And his three starts in July:

19.1 IP, 0.47 ERA. Looking good lately.

Yeah I was going to say the last start against is was good but other than that has done awful against us. I'm on my iPhone so I don't think I can look those kinds of stats up on fan graphs. Wow didn't realize how good his numbers were lately. Still don't think it's enough to push them past us. Just my opinion, we will find out.

[TroutField]

Lol...I remember that, something about weed and xbox if I recall correctly.

Don't remember the weed part. I remember him saying he plays Xbox with kaz all the time, they were close friends and Kaz was going to drop the hammer down. Of course we all knew how that went

[stevestevens]

This is a post by an A's fan from another message board that he just posted.  It was in discussion on this trade but more about Beane in general.

 

Beane is off his rocker - I'm surrounded by A's fans who are 'on-strike' against

going to A's games because of what Billy Beane has done in the last 12 months:

- For two years (June 2012 to June 2014), the A's had the best record in the baseball. 
- As of July 3, 2014 (when Beane's first major trade occurred), the A's had the best record in MLB by FIVE games and were on pace for the best run-differential in baseball in almost 25 years.
- Every major contributor was under contract through at least the end of 2015, except for SS Jed Lowrie, but it just so happened that the A's had one of the Top 5 prospects in all of baseball (Addison Russel) waiting to replace Lowrie.

In short, the A's were the favorite for the W.S. in 2014 and were perfectly set-up for 2015.

Since July 3, 2014, the A's had the worst record in MLB through mid-May 2015 (they've been decent for the past 30 games). What happened in between:
- Billy Beane has traded away 7 all-stars (including Josh Donaldson, an annual MVP candidate) and each of the A's top-4 prospects 
- In return, the A's have received a decent young starting pitcher, an error prone third baseman, the most error prone short-stop in MLB, arguably the worst bullpen in baseball, Ben Zorbrist, and one top-tier prospect.
- This all appeared to be to cut-costs, but then Beane signed Billy Butler ($11 million per) and Ike Davis ($7 million per), giving the A's the same payroll that last year's best-team-in baseball had.


So Billy Beane inarguably made the team worse. The minor league system is worse. And the payroll is the same. So what was the point?

[fan_since79]

Yeah I was going to say the last start against is was good but other than that has done awful against us. I'm on my iPhone so I don't think I can look those kinds of stats up on fan graphs. Wow didn't realize how good his numbers were lately. Still don't think it's enough to push them past us. Just my opinion, we will find out.

 

I was cherry-picking a little because he wasn't so great before that. Still having a solid season.

[aznhockeyguy]

This is a great trade for 'Stros based on what I've read so far.  The C prospect is probably going to replace Vogt in the not so distant future.

[Chris]

is the bloom off the Billy Beane rose?

[floplag]

the thing i like most about this is that it sets the baseline price for rentals pretty low.
as for Kaz in Hou, they already had pretty darned good pitching so this is nt that big a deal to me as their starters era was still in the top half of the league and 6th in the AL.   Better, yes, but not largely so

[HeavenlyHalos]

 

This is a post by an A's fan from another message board that he just posted.  It was in discussion on this trade but more about Beane in general.

 

Beane is off his rocker - I'm surrounded by A's fans who are 'on-strike' against

going to A's games because of what Billy Beane has done in the last 12 months:

- For two years (June 2012 to June 2014), the A's had the best record in the baseball. 

- As of July 3, 2014 (when Beane's first major trade occurred), the A's had the best record in MLB by FIVE games and were on pace for the best run-differential in baseball in almost 25 years.

- Every major contributor was under contract through at least the end of 2015, except for SS Jed Lowrie, but it just so happened that the A's had one of the Top 5 prospects in all of baseball (Addison Russel) waiting to replace Lowrie.

In short, the A's were the favorite for the W.S. in 2014 and were perfectly set-up for 2015.

Since July 3, 2014, the A's had the worst record in MLB through mid-May 2015 (they've been decent for the past 30 games). What happened in between:

- Billy Beane has traded away 7 all-stars (including Josh Donaldson, an annual MVP candidate) and each of the A's top-4 prospects 

- In return, the A's have received a decent young starting pitcher, an error prone third baseman, the most error prone short-stop in MLB, arguably the worst bullpen in baseball, Ben Zorbrist, and one top-tier prospect.

- This all appeared to be to cut-costs, but then Beane signed Billy Butler ($11 million per) and Ike Davis ($7 million per), giving the A's the same payroll that last year's best-team-in baseball had.

So Billy Beane inarguably made the team worse. The minor league system is worse. And the payroll is the same. So what was the point?

 

 

Ouch. Very puzzling to say the least. The Samardzija for Russel trade was so bad for them.

[nikkachez]

Now it's a question of what they do after this. Houston could be pretty intimidating after a move for a big bat. Didn't trade away any tops prospects either.

[Homebrewer]

Since Beane is in the mood to trade within the division, how about snagging Zobrist to play LF?

Shouldn't cost much, since he would be a true rental.   

[Guest]

Billy Beane is the worst GM other than Ruben Amaro. The guy isn't as clever as he thinks.