Astros - Signed Woody

Houston Astros - Signed P Woody Williams to a 2-year contract.

This comes in at $12.5 million.  The beauty of the Astro signing of Carlos Lee is that no matter what they do the rest of the offseason, they’ll totally look smart and prudent.  Woody’s not a bad pitcher, but he’s an old pitcher without much stuff and most importantly, he’s a flyball pitcher going to a park that won’t hold a lot of his Petco flies.  The Astros still have a lot of rotation work to do - Clemens is what made the Astros 2nd instead of 4th and Williams isn’t going to replace any of Clemens’ value, only be an OK #3/#4 starter who isn’t very durable.

2007 ZiPS Projection - Woody Williams
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            W   L   G  GS   IP    H   ER  HR  BB  SO   ERA
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Projection  8   9  26  26  150  160   76  23  44  90  4.56

2008        7   9  24  24  138  149   75  24  44  81  4.89
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Opt. (15%) 11   8  29  28  170  167   70  20  43 106  3.71 

Pes. (15%)  5   9  22  21  121  139   75  24  42  71  5.58
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