The Houston Astros are 12 GB of the Cubs in the division and 10 GB of the Cardinals in the Wild Card. To make matters worse, the Astros would have to pass four teams to claim the division and six teams to claim the Wild Card. They've been outscored on the season by 49 runs, and they've actually outperformed their underlying metrics. According to the postseason odds report at Baseball Prospectus, their chances of making the playoffs are less than one percent. So why are they trying to improve their 2008 team?

Sometimes, teams make decisions that defy logic. While it's possible that the Astros can come back and make the playoffs, it's highly unlikely. For that reason, the Astros would be better off playing for 2009, or are they?

Ages 27, 28, and 29 are generally considered players' prime years. On the Astros' current roster, there are only five guys in their pre-prime years: Wesley Wright, J.R. Towles, Hunter Pence, Michael Bourn, and Oscar Villarreal. If the Astros keep their current roster around for 2009, they can be expected to be even worse than they are in 2008. To compete in 2009, they'd probably have to bring in a new outfielder to replace Bourn and a couple of starting pitchers. With that being unlikely, that leaves the Astros with two options: play for 2008 or Billy Beane the roster.

In situations like this, I'd rather see the team follow in the footsteps of Billy Beane and blow up the roster, but that's not completely possible. Lance Berkman, Roy Oswalt, and Carlos Lee have full no-trade clauses through 2010, 2011, and 2012, respectively. With those no-trade clauses, the Astros can't enter complete rebuilding mode. Since they're unlikely to contend in 2008 or 2009 and they can't enter rebuilding mode, the Astros are in no man's land. So what are the Astros to do?

In my opinion, they should sell off what they can: infielders Miguel Tejada, Ty Wigginton, Kazuo Matsui, and Mark Loretta and pitchers Jose Valverde and Doug Brocail. Once those players go, you might be able to convince Berkman, Oswalt, and Lee to waive their no-trade clauses. This is the only way I see the Astros reviving their franchise and building something special.

The Nationals have been discussing a contract extension with Cristian Guzman. This is similar to what they did last July when they signed Ronnie Belliard and Dmitri Young to extensions. Belliard is making $3.5M combined for 2008 and 2009, and Young is making $10M combined for two years with a $6M team option for 2010. The Guzman extension is said to be another two year extension, but why are the Nationals so concerned with locking up mediocre players? Are Belliard, Guzman, or Young going to be a part of the next great Nationals team? Guzman is 30 years old, and he's the youngest of the trio. These three (well, potentially three) contracts seem like a giant waste of money for a last-place team that doesn't seem likely to get out of last place for the duration of the contracts.

That got me thinking. Just how much money are the Nationals wasting on signing mediocre guys that aren't going to be a part of the next contender in Washington? I listed the 2008 contract amount for players that fit that description.

Paul Lo Duca - $5M
Dmitri Young - $5M
Felipe Lopez - $4.9M
Cristian Guzman - $4.2M
Luis Ayala - $1.7M
Ronnie Belliard - $1.6M
Jesus Colome - $1.25M
Johnny Estrada - $1.25M
Aaron Boone - $1M
Willie Harris - $0.8M

That's a total of $26.7M in what I'd call wasted money. That's more wasted money than the Marlins pay their whole team - a team that is 14.5 games ahead of the Nationals. What are the Nationals trying to prove with these contracts? If they're trying to show the fans that they're "trying" to contend by spending money, they should ask themselves one question. Do they think the fans are stupid enough to mistake this waste of money as an act of trying?

Having the All-Star game decide home-team advantage is great ... for AAA. That's right. The AAA All-Star game decides which league gets to be the home team in the Bricktown Showdown. So why is it good for AAA but not MLB? Quite simply because the game's played in Oklahoma City regardless. When the All-Star game decides who gets to take the field first, there's not much at stake. When the All-Star game decides who gets to play 4 home games in a 7-game series, it's a different story. Plus, it's not like having the All-Star game decide home-field advantage really affects how the players play the game. Did any of them try any harder last night than they would have if home-field advantage wasn't up for grabs? You'd be hard-pressed to make a convincing argument.

On to the main topic, there has been a lot of talk about how close we were to reliving an All-Star game tie and what should be done to prevent it from ever happening again. I look at it, and the solution seems remarkably simple. First, let's state the situation. You have 8+ innings in which you need pitchers. You have 12 pitchers who all have different amounts of innings they can pitch. You want to use all of them within the game without running out of pitchers in extra innings. My solution: Use the relief pitchers first.

When you're faced with having to fill 8+ innings (with no guaranteed upper limit) and limited resources (12 pitchers), why wouldn't you save the high-value resources (pitchers that can go multiple innings) until late in the game? Plus, you gain more information about the length of the game as it progresses. In the first inning, you don't know whether your team will need 8 or 20 IP. In the fifth inning, you have more information. If it's a five-run game and you're the visiting team, you most likely only have 3 innings left. If it's a tie game, you might have 3 innings left or you might have 10. Put simply: wait until you have more information before deciding whether Roy Halladay will go one, two, three, or (gasp) four innings.

Let's use the AL team as an example, and I'm going to save Mariano Rivera until the 9th for symbolic reasons. We're going to use last night's scoring to determine usage, although things would have obviously been different by using the pitchers differently. It's just an example, so that aspect doesn't really matter.

Inning 1: George Sherrill - With Utley and Berkman due up, this will be the best place to use the lefty.
Inning 2: Joe Nathan
Inning 3: Jonathan Papelbon
Inning 4: Francisco Rodriguez
Inning 5: Joakim Soria
Inning 6: Cliff Lee - Utley and Berkman due up again, so we'll go with another lefty.
Inning 7: Roy Halladay - Here's your first real playing time decision. Down by two with three innings to play, let's say you move to the next pitcher in order to get as many in the game as possible. By seniority, Halladay gets picked.
Inning 8: Halladay - Tie game and Rivera's planned for the 9th, so we don't want to use 2 pitchers to get there when 1 will do.
Inning 9: Mariano Rivera
Inning 10: Joe Saunders - Nate McLouth and Adrian Gonzalez are the only two lefties remaining from the NL. With McLouth leading off, you might as well use Saunders here.
Inning 11: Saunders - With only two pitchers remaining (non-Kazmir division), Saunders remains in the game.
Inning 12: Saunders - Same as Inning 11.
Inning 13: Justin Duchscherer - You don't want to piss off the Angels by leaving Saunders in for a fourth inning, so it's time to make a move.
Inning 14: Duchscherer - Similar to Inning 11, you want to keep Ervin Santana available in case we go incredibly deep into this game. Duchscherer will need to go four or five if necessary.
Inning 15: Duchscherer - Same as Inning 14.

The game's completed without using either Ervin Santana or Scott Kazmir, and now J.D. Drew doesn't even have to think about pitching.

Similarly for the NL:

Inning 1: Billy Wagner - With Ichiro Suzuki and Josh Hamilton due up, we'll start with the lefty.
Inning 2: Brad Lidge
Inning 3: Brian Wilson
Inning 4: Carlos Marmol
Inning 5: Ben Sheets
Inning 6: Dan Haren - Up by two with four innings to go and five pitchers left, this situation is borderline on whether to keep Sheets another inning or move to the next pitcher to try to get as many into the game as possible. To show you that this strategy will work, I'm going to make things harder on myself and go to the next pitcher.
Inning 7: Carlos Zambrano - Still up by two, I can't change my strategy from what I said for Inning 6.
Inning 8: Edinson Volquez - Up by one with two to go, I'm going to keep running through pitchers.
Inning 9: Volquez - In a tie game with only two pitchers left in the bullpen (non-Webb division), I'm going to have to use these pitchers for 3 or more innings unless we score.
Inning 10: Volquez - Same as Inning 9.
Inning 11: Ryan Dempster - I don't want to use Volquez for more than 3 innings, and I want to save Aaron Cook as my "fall" guy. It's better to deal with using a pitcher for a whole outing when he plays for me in the regular season.
Inning 12: Dempster - A tie game and only Cook left in the pen means Dempster remains in the game.
Inning 13: Dempster - Same as Inning 12.
Inning 14: Aaron Cook - Since I don't want to use Dempster for more than 3 innings, I'm sending Cook out there until he throws 100 pitches.
Inning 15: Cook - No alternatives.

The game's completed without using Brandon Webb.

If, on the other hand, the game turns out to be a blowout, both teams can use each pitcher for one inning, and you're left with 3 pitchers from each team not making it into the game. That doesn't seem like a problem to me. You might get some complaints from fans if their team's lone All-Star doesn't get in the game. To avoid that, you just make sure to make them one of the 9 you use in a blowout - not that hard.

So there you have it. By using the relief pitchers first and delaying the decision on the starters' number of innings, you have enough arms to go deep into extra innings without sacrificing the ability to get most of the pitchers into the game.