Astros - Signed Lyon

Houston Astros - Signed P Brandon Lyon to a 3-year, $15 million contract.

Ed Wade is officially your idiot cousin.

Now, your idiot cousin might not necessarily be your cousin.  He might be your uncle with a drinking problem.  Or your wife’s brother who got clipped a few years ago for boosting stereos.  Or your childhood friend who got kicked out of William & Mary for selling exams.  But most people have someone like this in your life.  The person who calls you up, needs money in an emergency, and a few days later, you find out that their cell phone has been turned off but the person has a new exhaust for their pickup truck and tickets to a Nickelback concert.

That’s Ed Wade.  The Astros are a team that has some serious issues to deal with.  Houston’s thin everywhere on the field, has a terrible farm system (quite possibly the worst in the majors), and not enough resources to fix the organization quickly.  I don’t know that the Yankees have enough money to turn the Astros into a serious contender in 2010.  So, what does Ed Wade do when given some money to spend?  He blows it on a middle reliever who, while a better reliever than Nickelback is a music group, is a good, not great, pitcher and fixes what is essentially the Astros’s 11th Most-Important Need.

Houston is a team in need of triage.  Triage isn’t seeing a patient having a heart attack and deciding to fix the patient’s ingrown toenail first.

But it’s not all Ed Wade’s fault.  He can’t help but make poor decisions.  It’s his nature.  When the Astros are fighting with the Pirates for last place in a division with no excellent teams and Drayton McLane’s looking for answers, there better be a mirror in his office.

Thumbs down for this own, probably the first truly bad transaction of the offseason.  I don’t like Arizona’s part of the Granderson trade, but at least in that case, there’s a realistic scenario in which the players acquired will lead to the team having success.  I just don’t see one here.

ZiPS Projection - Brandon Lyon
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            W   L   G  GS   IP    H   ER  HR  BB  SO   ERA   ERA+
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2010        6   4  66   0  71.1  67   29   7  22  56  3.66    121   

2011        6   4  65   0  69.2  66   29   7  22  54  3.75    118 

2012        5   3  60   0  65.0  61   27   6  21  49  3.74    118 
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