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.

Last Sunday, I wrote about the flawed All-Star selection process. Before getting into today's topic, I want to respond to a few comments from last week. First, I used Joe Crede as the example because Alex Rodriguez should have been a unanimous selection at 3B. For Crede to be elected because some players couldn't see that Rodriguez is the best AL 3B is ridiculous. I'll admit that Jason Varitek would have been a better example than Crede, but Rodriguez was a better example than Joe Mauer.

The second issue is with the start of All-Star balloting. I have no problems with voting starting at the beginning of May. The point brought up against it was that Carlos Quentin wasn't on the ballot because he hadn't stepped in as starter yet. Actually, that's false. Quentin has been starting since April 3rd. Instead of listing Quentin on the ballot, Jerry Owens was listed, and he hasn't even had a single plate appearance in 2008. This isn't really an issue of when the voting starts; it's an issue of "how did MLB end up listing Jerry Owens on the ballot without a single plate appearance?"

The last issue is that several of the comments were complaining about the fan vote with many of you suggesting that the players and managers have a better idea of who should be on the All-Star team. That is the main topic of this post.

Instead of looking directly at the players the fans voted in, I decided to look at the rosters as a whole and find the players that don't belong objectively. When people choose All-Stars, there are two separate paths that are usually used. The first is the most common, and that is to select the All-Stars based completely on the first half of the season. The second is the one I generally use, and that is to pick the players that are most likely to put together the best season, which takes into account both their season-to-date stats and expectations on whether or not they're likely to keep it up. For example, Ryan Ludwick and Ryan Braun are performing similarly, but Braun would get my vote well before Ludwick would. Back to the objective process, I wanted to incorporate both of those selection methods, so using the players' WARP totals from 2005 to 2008 (minor league numbers included), I computed the average 2008 WARP and the average 2005-to-2008 WARP for the All-Stars. I have listed all of the players that have WARP totals worse than one standard deviation below average in either category.

Poor All-Star Selections by 2008 WARP: Joe Crede, Derek Jeter, David Ortiz, Carlos Quentin, Alfonso Soriano, Jason Varitek, Billy Wagner

Poor All-Star Selections by 2005-to-2008 WARP: Justin Duchscherer, Josh Hamilton, Tim Lincecum, Nate McLouth, Dioner Navarro, Joakim Soria, Edinson Volquez, Kerry Wood

Poor All-Selections by Both Methods: Cristian Guzman, Carlos Marmol, George Sherrill, Brian Wilson

Let's look at how those players made the All-Star team, starting with those selected by the fans.

Poor Fan Selections: Josh Hamilton, Derek Jeter, David Ortiz, Alfonso Soriano (4 out of their 17 selections, or 23.5%)

Poor Player Selections: Joe Crede, Tim Lincecum, Nate McLouth, Carlos Quentin, Joakim Soria, Jason Varitek, Edinson Volquez, Brian Wilson, Kerry Wood (9 out of 33, or 27.3%)

Poor Manager Selections: Justin Duchscherer, Cristian Guzman, Carlos Marmol, Dioner Navarro, George Sherrill, Billy Wagner (6 out of 12, or 50%)

The data suggests that the managers are the ones screwing up. If we want to look at just the players that don't are worse than one standard deviation below average in both categories, that's one player selection and three manager selections. No matter how I look at the data, it doesn't appear to me that it's the fans screwing up.

Looking at it more subjectively, Varitek, Crede, Guzman, and Sherrill are the players that don't belong on the All-Star team. As I've already stated, I think Varitek and Crede were selected because Joe Mauer and Alex Rodriguez were close to unanimous selections at their positions, which resulted in Varitek and Crede only needing a handful of player votes to make the team. This is a problem that needs fixed. Guzman is the Nationals' rep, and looking at their roster, there's not really anyone else to pick. I have no problem with requiring one player from each team even when it means that Cristian Guzman is a 2008 All-Star. Likewise, Sherrill is the Orioles' rep, but Brian Roberts would have been a much better selection. If Roberts were selected instead of Sherrill, the 12-pitcher restriction would have knocked Dioner Navarro off the team. Roberts and CC Sabathia (an AL player at the time) are better choices than Sherrill and Navarro. In total, I find that to be two bad choices by the player vote process (not the players), one bad choice by necessity, and one bad choice by Terry Francona.

If two bad choices were in fact by the player vote process, how do we go about fixing it? As I suggested last Sunday, I think it can be fixed with one easy change: make the players vote for two players at every position. That should remove any chance of a player making the All-Star team because someone else (Joe Mauer or Alex Rodriguez) was a near-unanimous selection.

Oh, and we should have Senator Mitchell look into how Jerry Owens got listed on the All-Star ballot.

In the past week, significant changes have happened in the NL Central. The Brewers struck first on Monday by acquiring CC Sabathia for Matt LaPorta, Zach Jackson, Rob Bryson, and PTBNL. The Cubs struck back on Tuesday by acquiring Rich Harden and Chad Gaudin for Sean Gallagher, Eric Patterson, Matt Murton, and Josh Donaldson. While the effect of the trades on the participating teams has been widely covered, the effect they have on the rest of the league gets little coverage. So just how has it affected the rest of the National League? I'll try to answer that today.

I will be using the Postseason Odds Report available at Baseball Prospectus as a starting point. I will also consider the Sabathia trade to add 3 wins to the Brewers and the Harden/Gaudin trade to add 2 wins to the Cubs.

NL East and West Division Championships

I have not looked closely at the Cubs and Brewers individual schedules to see how they would directly affect other teams' projected records, so the chances of each team in the other divisions winning their division championships goes unaffected.

NL Central Division Championship

With only the Cubs, Brewers, and Cardinals having better than 1% chances of winning the Central before the trades, the trades do not have a large effect on the Reds, Pirates, or Astros. As for the Cubs, the Sabathia trade decreases their chances while the Harden trade increases them. I estimate the net effect being about zero. On the other hand, the Brewers' chances of winning the division have increased about 3% to 15%. That, of course, means that the Cardinals' chances have dropped the same 3% about 5%, but there is a much larger effect in the Wild Card race.

NL Wild Card

Before the trades, the NL Wild Card had a strong probability of coming out of the NL Central with a 75% chance of that occurring. So that means that once again, the Cardinals were the bystander most affected by the trades. By my estimation, the trades have bumped up the Cubs 2% to 15% and the Brewers 13% to 47%. That increase of 15% has to come from somewhere. Since there was only 0.6% chance of the Wild Card coming out of the NL West, that 15% has to come from the East and Central. After removing 1% from the top four NL East teams and the Reds, the Cardinals' Wild Card chances are reduced by 10% to 16%. So now that we've accounted for how the Sabathia and Harden trades affect everyone's playoff odds, let's review where that leaves everyone's odds going forward.

Updated Postseason Odds

NL East
Phillies 56.70%
Marlins 9.62%
Mets 48.89%
Braves 5.19%
Nationals 0.00%

NL Central
Cubs 95.13%
Cardinals 20.67%
Brewers 62.55%
Reds 0.52%
Pirates 0.00%
Astros 0.12%

NL West
Diamondbacks 50.16%
Dodgers 42.41%
Giants 2.78%
Rockies 4.77%
Padres 0.51%

Buyer or Seller

The Buyer or Seller series may have ended prematurely, but that doesn't mean we can't revisit it here. In certain situations, it's obvious whether a team should be a buyer or seller, but there are other situations where it's not so obvious. Here's my opinion; I'd like to hear yours in the comments.

Buyers: Phillies, Mets, Brewers, Diamondbacks, and Dodgers
Holders: Cubs
Sellers: Braves, Nationals, Reds, Pirates, Astros, Giants, Rockies, and Padres
Undecided: Marlins and Cardinals

I plan on revisiting the Marlins and Cardinals in separate posts to make up my mind on where they should be. If I had to decide now, I'd place them in the Hold category.

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Also, I plan on having one more post regarding the All-Star selection process. Hopefully, I can get that up by Monday; it's going to be especially difficult if my internet connection doesn't start working.