In a season where they were more concerned with achieving records than winning ball games, is it any surprise the Astros are not in the playoff race?

The Good

Roy Oswalt has continued to be Roy Oswalt, although his peripherals have been on the decline. This marks the fourth straight year that Oswalt has seen his strikeout rate decline, but the bigger scare comes from the walk rate, which has jumped up from 1.55 BB/9 in 2006 to 2.59 BB/9 this season.

Carlos Lee's first season as an Astro has gone pretty well for him as he's currently hitting .297/.351/.515, which is pretty well in line with his career average. After a month experimenting with Chris Burke in center field, the Astros brought up Hunter Pence to be their full-time center fielder, and the results have been outstanding. Most years, a CF hitting .324/.360/.548 would be a rookie of the year, but he'll probably lose out to Ryan Braun in this year's award voting.

The Bad

This seems to be the story as I understand it. Owner Drayton McLane forced Craig Biggio into the lineup so that Biggio could reach the 3000-hit milestone. While Biggio was sucking up playing time and batting .252/.283/.390, the Astros were losing. Once Biggio got to the milestone, it seems that McLane began to see just how poorly the team was doing and decided that GM Tim Purpura and manager Phil Garner were to blame.

I'm not saying that Purpura and Garner did a good job, but it's not usually customary to handcuff your employees by forcing them to put a past-his-expiration player out on the field before kicking them to the curb after they fail to produce (mostly due to your mistakes).

Getting back to players that didn't perform well, Lance Berkman put up good numbers, but they weren't Berkman numbers. After six years of posting .400+ OBPs and .500+ SLG, Berkman has only hit .276/.384/.499. It isn't that apparent when looking at his counting (team-dependent) stats, but Berkman has not performed up to expectations.

Looking Forward

While the Astros have seen Pence and Wandy Rodriguez lay claim to roster spots, there isn't much in their farm system that will help them out over the next few years. In this year's draft, the Astros had forfeited their first and second round picks during free agency by signing Carlos Lee and Woody Williams. On top of that, they failed to sign their third and fourth round picks. Based on previous seasons, McLane doesn't like to let his scouting department sign prospects to large bonuses, and the results shine through in their farm system. If you don't put the money down to draft and sign the best talent, you're basically forfeiting away the cheapest source of talent in the game today. Until this gets corrected, the Astros will not be consistent contenders. As for 2008, anything is possible in the NL Central.