Wandy Rodriguez is 7-9 with a 3.79 ERA in 21 starts this year.
What Wandy Rodriguez represented as the last remaining link to the Astros’ 2005 World Series team is undeniable.
But it’s another last linkage that really hits hard given the events of this month, which have culminated in Rodriguez being the latest Astros veteran to be traded, going to the Pittsburgh Pirates.
Rodriguez represents the last major effort for the Astros to be competitive before they blew the whole thing up and left the roster in the shambles that it is today.
Yes, they had already dumped Roy Oswalt and Lance Berkman when Rodriguez signed his deal before the 2011 season – a deal that the Astros had to eat a significant portion of in order to acquire good prospects for the lefty. But Oswalt and Berkman were respectively asking to be traded and two months from free agency – hardly the fire sale that this club began to see last year with Michael Bourn and Hunter Pence leaving with more than a year left until free agency.
And certainly Rodriguez’s three-year extension (that essentially becomes four now) was a move that hardly meshes with this 21-day run of trades, which has purged Carlos Lee, J.A. Happ, Brandon Lyon Brett Myers and now Rodriguez.
In the latest deal, the Astros acquired Class AAA lefthander Rudy Owens, Class AA outfieder and Cy-Fair alum Robbie Grossman and high Class A lefthander Colton Cain. Rodriguez has not been officially replaced in the Astros’ rotation, though Armando Galarraga is a favorite after he was pulled from his Class AAA start after three innings and would be starting on three days of rest against the Pirates Saturday. (Maybe even against Rodriguez himself.)
General manager Jeff Luhnow said he felt comfortable dealing Rodriguez within the division because the Astros were exiting next year, but these teams were headed in separate directions. The Pirates’ surge to the cusp of the division lead and good wild card position led to an aggressive offer.
“Pittsburgh put their best foot forward and it really feels like Wandy’s an important part of their playoff picture this year,” Luhnow said. “They made us essentially an offer we couldn’t refuse.”
Rodriguez is owed $4 million for the rest of this season and $13 million next season. The obstacle to trading him, which they tried to do as early as his first trade deadline under the extension last year, had been in part the $13 million club option for 2014 that becomes a player option if traded. The option essentially guarantees Rodriguez $30 million over the rest of the deal, and the Astros will pay roughly $12 million of that assuming Rodriguez exercises the option, according to reports out of Pittsburgh.
In exchange for eating the salary, the Astros got some strong prospects from the Pirates.
Grossman, 22, is the most highly regarded of the prospects , landing in the No. 8 spot in Baseball America’s Pirates prospect rankings. He was hitting .262 with a .374 on-base percentage and a .403 slugging percentage for Class AA Altoona.
Owens, 24, has the best track record of the three and currently owns a 3.14 ERA for Class AAA Indianapolis. The big lefty has walked 25 and struck out 85 in 117 1/3 innings. And Cain, 21, had a 4.20 ERA and 25 walks and 51 strikeouts in 75 innings.
They are the 11th, 12th and 13th prospects the Astros have acquired along with two big league veterans in what is really an almost unprecedented three-week upheaval.
So what’s next?
Well, on a roster with Wesley Wright – acquired before the 2008 season – as the longest serving Astro, there is no obvious move like Rodriguez, Myers, Lee and Lyon were.
“We’re going to continue to monitor any situations that are going on, but we feel pretty good about where we are,” Luhnow said. “We’re accumulating quite a lot of talent in our system and that’s everywhere from rookie ball to AAA.”
That took sacrifice, an obliteration of any existing veteran talent, not to mention the best pitcher on the staff this year with a 3.79 ERA through 21 starts.
It’s a direction the Astros have been reluctant to go in the past, and Rodriguez’s presence on the mound as recently as Monday is the last example of that. Now it’s a direction they have embraced fully and executed on swiftly.
There may be more moves, but they’ll be minor by comparison.
The house is cleaned.
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