I’m not usually a fan of public trade demands, but this one was neither public, nor a demand. Oswalt, or his agent to be exact, asked Astros owner, Drayton McLane to be traded recently. This isn’t your typical problem child trying to pass blame on his organization. We’re talking about a standup guy, a real quality player here. Oswalt is in his 10th big league season with the Astros and has done nothing but anchor their rotation for the entire decade. He has a career record of 139-76 and a 3.21 ERA. He’s got an NLCS MVP under his belt, is a three-time All-Star, and has finished in the top 5 in Cy Young voting 5 of his 10 seasons. You don’t hear much from him, which is a good thing. But the guy’s 32, and his team is clearly on the fast track to nowhere. It’s time for Houston to let him go to a contender for the latter part of his career. GM Ed Wade says he wants to win with Oswalt on the team. Clearly that isn’t going to happen this year. Houston has the second worst record in baseball, and the worst in the National League. When a veteran who is your best player wants out, it’s time to honor that request. Oswalt ranks 5th in strikeouts, 7th in innings pitched, and 10th in ERA in the National League. All nine of his starts have been quality starts, yet he has a 2-6 record, thanks to the lowest run support in the NL. Memo to McLane and Wade….. your team isn’t going anywhere this year, or the next to be precise. Don’t hold the guy hostage. Again, this is very atypical coming from
me, but I think Oswalt has kept himself in line for a solid decade and has done nothing but go out and play the game. If he wants to be somewhere else, you’ve got to honor that request. I swear none of this has to do with Oswalt being on my fantasy team. I’d love to see a few more W’s to go with his otherwise stellar numbers – don’t get me wrong. I just think some solid prospects would be a lot more beneficial to the Astros’ future than Oswalt is. Poor Roy is getting Munsoned down there in Houston and he really deserves to be somewhere else…. like, say,…. Oakland.
Tag Archives: trade demand
Free Roy Oswalt
I Guess it’s Time For SJax to Go…
Well, since I’ve been following SJax from the start of his trade demands on DIME magazine, I guess I can finally admit he’s burned his bridges for dubs fans. We’ve been very tolerant of Jackson in the sense that he’s always played hard, and been a great leader on the court. I thought he’d actually show a little more respect to the organization that’s stood by him when many others wouldn’t. I guess even he is wearing out his welcome. It’s been hard for me to admit that Jackson is a cancer to the team, but this weekends events have shown me the light. I didn’t actually see his preseason game that earned him a two game suspension, but it sounded like a bitch move. Seriously, if you don’t want to play you don’t need to pick up five personal and one technical foul to prove it. He already made his point by demanding a trade, so why pour it on. I feel like the Warriors have pretty much done everything an organization can do for him. They’ve overpaid him, and pretty much handed this young roster over to him to lead. I guess that’s not enough , and I understand he’s frustrated, but he’s going about it the wrong way. The most amazing part to me is Artest now seems like the guy who has matured since the infamous Detriot slugfest. Artest has made slightly sane maneuvers (aside from not knowing that San Diego existed), but he didn’t take a ridiculously large contract like Jackson did, and now he’s playing with the champs. If Jackson really thought it through, he should’ve stuck with that old contract that was slightly more tradable. Now he’s just overpaid, spoiled, and selfish, which can only be traded to teams like the Clippers and Grizzleys of the world. It’s scary that all this is just starting to come clear to me. I’m not even caring what we get at this point even if it’s Zydrunas Ilgauskas’s dead corpse. He’s pretty much made his trade value lower than the Raiders franchise hopes. I’d like to see a deal done before the season starts, so his attitude doesn’t spread to the few positives we have going into the year.
Why is the NBA Hating on SJax?
Steven Jackson was fined $25K for conduct detrimental to the league a couple of days ago. I didn’t think much of it at the time, but as I pondered it more, I realized that I’ve never heard of a fine going down like this, have you? I guess saying you want to be traded hurts the league in someway or another, but shouldn’t it be a teams discretion to hand that fine out? Being a Warriors fan, I honestly can understand why he’d want out of GS to go to a contender. Not that I don’t have confidence in our young core, Jackson is getting older and knows his NBA life is ticking down to 10 on the shot clock. It’s not the first player in a Warriors uniform that has wanted to leave, and I’m sure it won’t be the last. I wrote about how retarded his trade demands were after signing an extension to stay in Golden State longer, but at the same time I don’t agree with the league fining him. If his comments were such a distraction I could see GS management fining him, but not the league.
I’m not sure why Kobe, Shaq, Al Harrington, or the many other players that have asked for trades didn’t get fined. Are their comments in interviews that much less detrimental to the league? Doesn’t it seem like the Lakers franchise player demanding a trade, should warrant the same type of fine! The case the NBA pointed to is when they fined Ron Artest in the 05-06 season, but I couldn’t figure out exactly what happened in that situation. I guess they just want to fine the guys that had to do with the melee in Detroit.
Or maybe since the NBA is in such a deep financial hole they are trying to do a little economic blackmail. Why not take a little money from the players where they can. It’s not like the Warriors are struggling financially as they have a surprisingly solid fan base, and are in the top half of the league in ticket sales. So why not hand down a fine to one of their top paid players. If I were Jackson, I’d demand the players association does something about it, because it seems unfair to him!
