One nominee for our WTP Whipping Boy has been released.

Woody Williams, the flammable starter, was evidently undone by the continuous, extreme whiplash and was released by my beloved Astros today. At least this hangover of Tim Purpura’s gross incompetence will cost us $6.5MM this year thanks to the idiotic contract Williams signed last year.

This was one of those signings that was trouble from the start: a flyball pitcher with homerun tendencies, turning 41, and obviously losing his stuff, starting half his games in the Juice Box. I gotta admit that that strategy’s nothing if not optimistic. In just 160 IP in the Juice Box, Woody bonered up 32 HRs, an almost Ken Dixon type pace.

Fortunately, the Stros have a well-stocked farm system of replacement possibilities who can step in for Woody. What? It’s not 1991?

Dammit.

The super fantastic Replacement Level Yankees Weblog had a little fun with Diamond Mind Baseball over the last couple of weeks, coming up with forecast standing based off individual players’ forecast statistics. Not dissing on ZiPs or THT or any of the others, I’m going to focus on the results using PECOTA (due to the fact that PECOTA is behind their subscriber firewall, I will be talking a bit in generalities instead of specifics. So why PECOTA? Because it’s the best.).

Running 1000 games in the simulation using PECOTA, the Astros wind up with a 74-88 record, or one game better than the lowly Pirates and the crappily managed Cardinals. And that, sadly, sounds about right.

So, what looks good for the Stros? Even though the team is starting to look like a beer-league softball team on offense, the runs for number comes out to only 744, which would be deep into the lower half of the NL if that comes true. Berkman should be his usual, solid self, but he’s turning 32 this year, and his old player skills - which tend to not age well - worry me deeply. His OPS is being forecast at 900, which definitely doesn’t suck, but Berkman’s lifetime OPS is 971. In other words, we have seen the best Berkman has to offer.

Next is Miguel Tejada. For now, I’ll forgo the argument that this was an asinine trade made by a total dumbass of a GM. Instead, I’ll focus on the forecast. PECOTA has him getting 563 PAs, which I don’t think he’ll come close to meeting. He’s 32 if you believe the birth certificate, and he is simply no longer capable of playing SS on a day-to-day basis, conveniently forgetting that he has no better than fall-down range at this point. With a PECOTA forecast OPS of 800, he’ll be slightly above-average offensively, but whatever he adds with the bat he’s likely to give back with the glove.

Hunter Pence is forecast as the third best Stro in terms of VORP. Until he learns to walk at the break-even 10% rate, I think he will struggle offensively. He doesn’t have a ton of power, yet, though the park will help. Personally, I think his career path is Eric Byrnes.

Finally, we get to the super-mega-huge contracted Carlos Lee. He’ll continue to do his best imitation of a statue in LF, but he’ll also hit the ball. PECOTA has never much liked Lee, in large part because of Lee’s large build, so one could take the over on the projected 850 OPS. Still, he’s already the third player listed here who’s 32, but plays and looks a helluva lot older than that. It’s likely that one of Berkman, Lee, or Tejada will lose significant playing time this year. My bet’s on Tejada.

And then, by VORP, it’s…JR Towles? First of all, I’d be shocked if he gets 497 PAs as is being forecast. Coop will get Ausmus more PT than 170 PAs, no matter how detrimental it is to the team. And if Towles struggles in the least? Ausmus will be back to full-time status in a blink.

For some reason, Nate hasn’t adjusted the Stros lineup to have Michael Bourn in CF over Reggie Abercrombie, but I think we’d be lucky to get Abercrombie-type production from Bourn. Bourn couldn’t hit his way out of a paper bag. Think Willy Tavares without the power, and you have Bourn. He’ll need to do a ton with the glove to prove any worth to the team. Again, I’m not optimistic he can do this.

Ty Wiggington? Why? Which god(ess) did I offend so horribly to get Ty Wiggington on the team? Below average offensively and defensively, there is probably no player who better identifies the Tim Purpura error (sic) than Wiggington. Think half a David Wright, and that’s Wiggington. I so hate.

I’ll end with this guy, with this idiotic, moronic signing: Kaz Matsui. Most GMs would’ve looked at the 32-year old (that damn age again!) Matsui and thought, wait a minute, this guy has a 650 OPS everywhere but Coors Field. He sucks pretty badly. But Ed Wade is no such negative ninny! Wade saw Matsui’s 864 OPS at Curs and thought to himself, “Holy shit! He’s a superstar!” That’s the wisdom of seeing the glass half full…when it’s really just the hardened coffee at the bottom of the mug that can’t be scrubbed off anymore. The good news it that there’s no way Matsui gets more than 500 PAs. The bad news is that he’s still considered the starter. And we gave up on Chris Burke for this.

That’s enough. I can’t take anymore. But, for those of you who think that this will be a high-powered offense, I hope you’ll reconsider. This is a poor offense, slow except for Bourn, Matsui, and Pence, and horribly defensively, especially on the left side.

For Part II, I’ll look at the pitchers.  Grab the bleach.