One has to feel for him, b/c the Astros should have seen this coming before they signed him.

One has to feel for him, b/c the Astros should have seen this coming before they signed him.

Well, don't feel bad on that account. He has an extra $6.25 M b/c the Astros didn't see it coming.

The guy didn't make a MLB start until age 28, and ended up winning 132 games. He was a member of seven playoff teams, two World Champions, was an All-Star, an eighteen game winner one season, and ended his career with a winning record and an above average ERA+.

That's a pretty decent career.

Top two comps - Todd Stottlemyre and Pat Hentgen. Weird.

You're right. But his quoted comments always seem so pathetic. And i wouldn't mind getting fired if it meant getting paid anyways. He seems ignorant of his craptasticity. and that is pitiful.

And i'm happy to seem him go, and never cared where he was from, or that we share the same alma mater.
BTW, he looks like the guy who washes windows on the corner of Cullen off 45.

AG1F, I see him as a member of one world champ (1993 Jays) for whom he did not pitch in the playoffs.
Still a very solid career.

Certianly a worthwhile career for quite some time; just really silly to bring a pitcher who gets pasted by righthanded hitters to the juice box. A quick glance at his road line in'06 would have told the astros they were blowing their 13 million. Soft-tossing 41 year old fly ball pitcher at the end of his time.

The justification for bringing him here was his history w/ the city- from here, pitched at the University of Houston, neither of which had anything to do w/ baseball.
And he really does look like the sqeegee guy, seriously.

So long, Woody. From the time the Cardinals acquired him in 2001 through early 2003, he was absolutely terrific--he just couldn't stay healthy. Very good hitter for a pitcher, too. This is about as good a game as I've seen a pitcher have--8 IP, facing only one batter over the minimum, plus a bases-loaded triple and another RBI.

Gord Ash and Dave Stewart have been waiting for this day since 1998, having gave him away years ago for Joey Hamilton. Now that he's retired, he can't rub it in Gord's face anymore. But I can.

Had a fantastic run with the Cardinals from his August '01 acquisition up through his first dozen starts of his All-Star season of 2003:

40 starts, 264.1 ip, 190 k/59 bb, 2.28 era, 1.01 whip, and a 24-6 record.

For that brief stretch he was one of the best half-dozen pitchers in baseball.

During the 40 starts above, through June 5, 2003, Woody allowed 5 runs in a game three times; in his 21 remaining starts in 2003 he allowed at least 5 runs 10 times, and never again was he able to come close to matching that earlier stretch...

Maybe he lost something from the effects of his oblique injury, or it was just time taking its toll, or he was never that good to begin with and the pixie dust wore off...

I was at his first start after the 40-start run, in Boston in June of '03. He entered the game as the ace of the Cardinals staff, with a record of 8-1 and a 1.99 era, and I was bantering with some of the fans in the bleachers, whose only familiarity of Williams seemingly was that of the mediocre Blue Jay of yore. As the Red Sox quickly plated two runs in the 1st inning this one guy just kept yelling "Woody Williams!!!?" (with just a slight uplift at the end to signify a mocking incredulity) as if the name itself was enough to sum up the joke that this guy was supposedly the ace of some random NL team.

Woody ended up allowing 5 runs in 6.1 innings, (I can still hear that guy yelling "Woody Williams!!") and that was the beginning of the end...

Man I wish I could throw a baseball. Meh 20 year career, 15 in the majors, not a household name, and clears $60million. Not too shabby.

Man I wish I could throw a baseball. Meh 20 year career, 15 in the majors, not a household name, and clears $60million. Not too shabby.

Chuck Prince cleared a hell of a lot more than that, without a 40-start run of brilliance.