Kuzul

Houston Astros fans should not feign felicity.

They should not dance in the streets surrounding Minute Maid Park, host vivacious celebrations, or cheer as if the August rain will soon turn to gold. They should feel disillusioned, upset, and hungry for change. If the 2005 World Series qualifies as the franchise’s peak, last week was its ultimate valley.

The Astros fell into a state of such disrepair that management needed to trade two icons to give the team a chance to compete.

Let that previous sentence marinate. Since when do the words “icon,” “trade,” and “compete” belong together? Drayton McLane should know the answer now.

I will not try to convince fellow fans that the jettisoning of Roy Oswalt and Lance Berkman, two players whose numbers will one day hang in the Juicebox rafters, should inspire hope and happiness. I must, however, back off a bit from the column I penned Thursday afternoon.

In my rush to publish something just after the announcement of the Oswalt transaction, I failed to put the circumstances that forced Ed Wade to deal his ace into proper perspective.

Some of my points are inarguable. What Wade and McLane executed is undeniable.

The Astros dealt Oswalt to the Philadelphia Phillies for 27-year-old, left-handed pitcher J.A. Happ and two teenage prospects, Jonathan Villar and Anthony Gose. Wade then flipped Gose, a speedy outfielder, for Toronto Blue Jays’ prospect Brett Wallace, a potential starter at first or third base. McLane agreed to kick in $11 million of the money remaining on Oswalt’s contract.

None of the players fetched Thursday will star in Houston as Oswalt did. Happ will not challenge the record for all-time wins, and any jersey retirement talk is premature and silly.

Wade and McLane paid the New York Yankees to take Lance Berkman. The two throwaway prospects landed in that deal are inconsequential. Berkman, a former All-Star with Hall of Fame-caliber career stats, was donated to a franchise with 27 championships.

I also stand by my contention that Philadelphia won the deal’s first round in a rout. The Phillies are trying to win a pennant, and Oswalt, despite his nightmarish debut, can help them do that.

Did the Astros secure the best possible deals for Oswalt and Berkman? Will the players brought to Houston help the squad make the playoffs in the next three years?

In my crazy, idealistic world, I wanted Wade to turn his best players into prospects who would make the answer to both questions a resounding “yes.” I wanted Wade to get back fair value. I wanted two trades to jumpstart the restocking of a depleted, embarrassing farm system.

Stupid me. A more realistic Astros fan helped me find earth.

I should have processed a few things Thursday afternoon. Teams often deal stars from a handicapped position. Oswalt’s trade request afforded the Astros little leverage with which to net the best possible return.

The Tampa Bay Rays, the club with the finest farm system, did not need or want a veteran as expensive as Oswalt, even if McLane agreed to fork up $11 million. The other outfits with standout prospects could hang up on Wade for a similar reason.

That forced the Astros to send their best player to the team with the least to offer. The Phillies emptied their minor league stock by stocking up on key pieces like Roy Halladay to continue chasing World Series triumphs.

Happ, also, could exceed my expectations. I was struck by the number of Philly fans disgusted to see him go. He began his Astro tenure with a shutout performance. Most projections peg him as the third or fourth man in a playoff-caliber pitching rotation. Maybe he can become a second wheel.

The Berkman salary dump is more difficult to rationalize, but it can be done. Two veterans in their mid-30s, no matter their importance and association with Houston, were not going to aid the rebuilding process.

I also do not doubt Wade’s claim that Oswalt had become a clubhouse distraction. He might seem like a nice guy, but even a gentleman can morph into a horse’s ass if he’s tired of losing and frustrated enough.

Astros fans should remember Berkman and Oswalt fondly and then come to grips with the same reality I accepted over the weekend. If McLane could not trade his way back to another World Series, why did I expect a pair of deadline deals to fix a franchise that took years to break?

The Astros fall was steady, painful, and elongated. Expect the rebuilding years to also be steady, painful, and elongated. Manager Brad Mills needs a lot more youth and talent on his roster before he can be fairly evaluated for his work. Wade needs a few more years to get his rebuilding plan in motion.

Then, we will know if McLane hired the right guys to tackle two of the toughest jobs in baseball. Where the Astros must go from here is clear. How they get there remains as much a question mark as Happ, Wallace, and Villar.

The Yankees and Rays provide polar opposite models for McLane and Wade. It is clear now that the Astros brass much choose the latter. McLane will spend money but not enough to enter Yankee territory. The Bronx Bombers now have Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez, Berkman, and Mark Teixeira, among others, in their hitting rotation? Ridiculous.

I cannot see McLane ever sanctioning a payroll that tops $150 million, which is what he would need to shell out to build that kind of a lineup.

The Rays’ model takes much longer to mimic but costs a lot less and carries less risk if certain experiments fail. Tampa Bay used to be a laughingstock, but years of prudent drafting (and, yes, they signed their draft picks) and deals that yielded primo prospects lifted them into contention.

The Astros will not compete again as they did in 2005, given the unlikelihood of another pitching rotation that includes Oswalt, Roger Clemens, and Andy Pettitte, so they must travel the alternate route. Repairing the shattered farm system will require time and patience.

If Wade can pay someone to take Carlos Lee’s exorbitant deal off his hands next summer, the Astros will be in the thick of the rebuilding business.

Wade locked up Brett Meyers with a multi-year extension and now has Happ. Myers, Wandy Rodriguez, and Happ could become a terrific, reliable pitching rotation, provided the front office can unearth an ace and a fifth wheel.

Wallace is ready to step in to the lineup and can play first or third base. Michael Bourn and Hunter Pence are keepers. Ditto for Jason Castro and Tommy Manzella.

A funny thing happened after Wade sent Oswalt and Berkman packing. Call it good karma. The Astros won their fifth game in a row Sunday afternoon, blanking the Milwaukee Brewers. The streak will not continue, nor will the ‘Stros suddenly become that feel good story that makes a shocking playoff appearance.

This club will still lose more than 100 games. A winning record remains years away.

Still, McLane should see this as confirmation from the baseball gods he did the right thing. The stubborn owner no longer needs to utter the dreaded “r” word. His actions last week did all of the talking.

The Astros are rebuilding and reloading. If trading Oswalt and Berkman was a rock bottom moment, the franchise’s brain trust should know now it cannot fall any farther.

Sometime before the end of this decade, the Astros will be good again. All of the players on the roster will want to play in Houston and they will play hard. Then, fans will know last week was worth it.

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Houston Astros fans should now slide into a deeper depression, as if the one that had already consumed them was not deep enough.

Ed Wade had until Saturday’s trade deadline to send the franchise’s best player and near leader in career pitching wins elsewhere. Well, according to The Houston Chronicle and Associated Press , he did it Thursday afternoon. Oswalt will head to the Philadelphia Phillies in exchange for J.A. Happ and two prospects.

The wait and speculation surrounding the presumed end of Roy-O’s Houston tenure is over. A new period of wait and speculation begins.

The grandest prospects often ferment in the minor leagues for several years before they make successful jumps to the big league level. Not all of them succeed. 

I know little about Anthony Gose and Jonathan Villar, the two teenage players Philly’s front office shipped out along with Happ. I can tell you this for sure: do not expect anything grand.

The Astros needed to trade Oswalt to accelerate the rebuilding process. I said so in a column earlier this year, months before the ace requested that Drayton McLane and Wade move him to a contender.

McLane, weeks after that sobering nudge from Oswalt, pulled off one bulldozer of a deal. Guess who got fleeced, plowed, and run over?

Uncle Drayton should plan on an even emptier Minute Maid Park next season. He should prepare for some lean years, ones that will accompany his suddenly tight wallet.

In the latest episode of Rescue Me , Tommy Gavin, Denis Leary’s character, drinks a bottle of expensive whiskey his brother and uncle secretly laced with bleach. A wreckless night on the town leads to the disappearance of his daughter and the temporary alienation of his wife and fellow firefighters.

Franco Rivera, the fire house’s Puerto Rican ladies man, balks when Gavin will not down an extra beer that might help him loosen up and ascertain the whereabouts of his daughter.

“Jesus Christ, Tommy. All of these years you’ve been drinking for no damn good reason, now you have the chance to do something good with it, and you suddenly can’t stomach alcohol?”

Gavin sighs and drinks the beer. As the episode continues, memories of the previous night begin to flood his mind. He finds his poisoned daughter, alive.

Stay with me folks. This TV analogy serves a purpose.

McLane has been spending big for years. He opened his wallet and showered Carlos Lee with $100 million. That overweight blob of a power hitter, who couldn’t run the bases even if cops were chasing him, is untradable.

Wade gambled on Kaz Matsui with McLane’s permission. Big mistake. How about Miguel Tejada? Boy, that pennant race he helped the ‘Stros enter and conquer was one heck of a thrill ride.

McLane’s payrolls topped the $100 million mark for most of the previous decade. The Astros ranked in the top eight in payroll for most of those seasons.

Why, then, did McLane refuse to shell out the additional money that could help this franchise get back on track after a disastrous fall? Gavin chugged one beer that helped him, in a small way, find his daughter.

As Fox Sports’ Ken Rosenthal first reported, the Astros did not want to pay a “significant” chunk of the $23 million remaining on Oswalt’s deal. That limited Wade’s options, given that a number of teams hesitated to spend that kind of money on a 32-year-old. Uncle Drayton could have spent his way back to respectability, or waited until that $11 million sum netted more value.

A side question: why did the Phillies send Cliff Lee packing in 2009 only to trade for another expensive pitcher this summer? Can anyone help me make sense of that?

I cannot rationalize what McLane and Wade just did to the Astros. They torpedoed the organization’s already gloomy future by dealing the best player and most valuable trade chip to a team with an almost as horiffic farm system. The Phillies jettisoned most of their prime prospects to put the finishing touches on their NL-contending rosters in the past three years.

You didn’t think Philadelphia GM Ruben Amaro Jr. landed Roy Halladay for a mere fruit basket, did you? Phillies fans should send one of those to Wade, who just giftwrapped for them one of the best starting rotations in the league.

McLane, according to reports, forked up $11 million, which sounds like a lot to a guy who doesn’t own a sports team. Could even more dough have convinced a team like Tampa Bay, with the best farm system in the league, to enter the sweepstakes? Maybe not, but it was worth a shot.

Color me ignorant if you must. I do know what these pathetic Astros need.

They suck. They will lose more than 100 games. They need elite talent and lots of it.

The Phillies did not surrender projected elite talent. I know that Sporting News named Happ its rookie of the year in 2009. He finished second in the official NL balloting. He went 12-4 with a 2.93 ERA.

Those numbers dwarf Oswalt’s this year. The Houston ace has stumbled to his dubious 6-12 record, though, because the run support is a joke and the defense qualifies as stand-up comedy.

Can Happ front a contending rotation the way Oswalt has for most of his career? Happ’s forearm has bothered him, and his form has taken a dangerous u-turn.

I hope the 26-year-old left hander and two prospects make me look like a buffoon. I hope they help this organization win again in the next three to five years. I wouldn’t make that bet, however, in any Vegas casino.

Oswalt might have been as attractive next summer at 33 with a lot less money remaining on his deal. A trade partner might have surrendered better pieces.

McLane and Wade could not wait until then. They appeased their franchise star’s request when their job was to make the Astros better.

I am not convinced they did that.

It might sound ludicrous to suggest that one team needs to turn one player into a successful rebuild. Crazy sounds about right for the Astros. If no one wants Lance Berkman now, who the heck else can Wade dangle aside from the few legitimate youngsters worth building around?

Oswalt waived his no-trade clause and agreed to play for a squad with World Series aspirations. Remember when the Phillies won it all in 2008?

Funny, but I don’t have that same recent memory of the Astros. The one time the franchise did reach baseball’s pinnacle in 2005, Oswalt, along with Andy Pettitte and Roger Clemens, led the charge.

Prospects are as hard to predict as Lady Gaga’s next outfit. This deal, however, already sounds like a failure. Wade needs to work on his p-p-p-poker face.

Happ on the hapless Astros makes for a bad romance.

Astros fans should once again embrace pessimism, until these players prove me wrong. That will take years.

How many years rested in Uncle Drayton’s hands? Instead of reaching for $11 million to complete a questionable trade, they should have found the snooze button and waited until next summer.

Now, Astros fans can only hope to sleep through the rest of this lousy campaign.

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