Stupid Is As Stupid Writes

So Richard Justice at the Chron has decided to write another blog post. And once again, he's decided to show off his ignorance in so doing. And I don't know what pisses me off most about the blog post. That he insults my intelligence, or that he makes me defend Drayton McLane.

For those who don't want to read the latest Justice tripe -- and I can't blame you -- Justice claims that Drayton is once again lying to all of us Astros fans: Drayton is losing money due to the economic crisis, Justice writes, but instead of telling us all of this, Drayton is expecting Ed Wade to keep payroll at a certain point while claiming he's trying to improve the team.

Justice claims that if the Astros pay all of their players what they should be paid, then the payroll will be around $125 million, whereas Drayton wants to keep it at $100 million. And because Drayton overpaid Carlos Lee and Miguel Tejada and is locked up with big contracts to Lance Berkman and Roy Oswalt, then the team must be torn apart.

I'm not going to get into all of the crap Justice spews. But he's wrong about many things.

First, he writes that the Astros are in financial trouble because every GM in baseball knows that Ed Wade is out there trying to trade every player that he can possibly trade. One problem with Justice's assertion is that, just because Ed Wade sucks big ones as a GM doesn't mean that Drayton is broke.

The two players on the trade block are Ty Wigginton and Jose Valverde. I think that any smart baseball guy would be looking to offload these two players right now. They're at the top of their value. Wigginton has never had a season like the one that he just had -- he's had a mostly mediocre career. Most GMs would use a season like this to dump this player on some sucker for a lot of talent. Unfortunately for the Astros, that moron is Ed Wade, so he might have a little difficulty finding someone as stupid as he is to make the deal. The same thing with Valverde. The Astros aren't going to contend, so a closer isn't that important. Of course, after Wade blew it last year when trading his closer, I'm not so sure it's a good idea to give him trading power.

There's just a lot more I want to write. But I've really got to address the continued contention that Carlos Lee can't be traded. THIS IS WRONG! And any person with a brain knows that this is wrong. Lee's no-trade doesn't mean that he can't be traded. If some team comes along to Lee and offers him even more bucks to be a fat tub of lard, then I'm sure Lee would willingly take the deal. All no trade clauses can be brought out. It just takes some bucks.

But I suppose what I really want to say is just because the Astros are trying to dump Ty Wigginton and Jose Valverde doesn't mean the Astos are having financial problems. It means that, for once, they're actually trying to be smart baseball-wise. Then again, as long as we're dealing with Ed Wade, I wouldn't expect too much in baseball smarts.