Legal Commentary

The stress of selling snake oil

By Tom Kirkendall

In my annual preview of the Stros' season, I made the following observation about the then newly-acquired Stros pitcher, Shawn Chacon:

"Chacon was an inconsistent starter for six seasons before washing out with the Yankees and Pirates in 2006 (-24 RSAA -- ouch!). He revived his career last season with the Pirates as a setup man, so what do the Stros do? Insert him back into the starting rotation. This is unlikely to turn out well."

You can say that again.

Boys will be boys. Chacon was not a happy camper after being banished fromthe starting rotation to the Stros' bullpen last week, so his outburst is not all that surprising. It's not as if Chacon (-3 RSAA; 5.04 ERA) has pitched appreciably worse over the course of the season than Brandon Backe (-1 RSAA/4.82 ERA), who inexplicably enjoys a secure spot in the rotation with nary a hint of a demotion. Indeed, Backe and Chacon's career numbers are not much different -- they are both below National League-average pitchers. Backe has pitched a tad better lately, but beware of small sample sizes. Sure, the Stros demoted Chris Sampson from the rotation earlier in the season, so there was precedent for demoting Chacon. But Sampson had pitched appreciably worse as a starter than Chacon, and without any demonstrably better starters on the pitching staff or in the farm system, I can understand how Chacon thought that his demotion was at least premature under the circumstances.

It's not particularly surprising that first-year Stros GM Ed Wade flew off the handle, either. His attempt to retool the Stros into a playoff contender on the fly is looking more like an unmitigated disaster by the day. Wade made four major off-season acquisitions and none of them have panned out. CF Michael Bourn (18 RCAA/.305 OBA/.331 SLG/.636 OPS) has been one of the worst hitters in the National League among regular players this season.  Expensive 2B Kaz Matsui (-6 RCAA/.336 OBA/.342 SLG/.678 OPS) is continuing his legacy of never playing more than 114 games in any one of his five seasons in Major League Baseball, while SS Miguel Tejada (-4 RCAA/.329 OBA/.459 SLG/.789 OPS) has continued the decline in production that began three seasons ago in Baltimore. Even the barely above-average performance of closer Jose Valverde (2 RSAA/4.34 ERA) has paled in comparison to that of the closer that Wade ran off, Brad Lidge (12 RSAA/0.87 ERA). Add in the fact that the Stros' hitters -- other than slugger Lance Berkman -- have generated an astounding 93 fewer runs this season than an average National League team would have created using the same number of outs as the Stros' hitters have used and it's easy to understand how Wade is feeling the heat these days.

The reality is that Wade and the Stros have been selling snake oil this season, but the suckers are thinning out. This Stros club is a seriously bad baseball team and it doesn't have the Craig Biggio Farewell Tour to distract the paying public from the club's glaring inadequacies. As noted in this most recent season review, it's well past time for Stros management to quit attempting to patch together a winner from year-to-year. Now is the time to focus on development of a rebuilding plan that has a better chance of re-creating the sustained success that the club enjoyed during the Biggio-Bagwell era.

Rebuilding is not as snazzy as selling snake oil, but it's honest and much less likely to provoke the frustrations that boiled over in the Stros clubhouse on Wednesday.

Full post as published by Houston's Clear Thinkers on June 27, 2008 (boomark / email).