Editor’s note – This article originally appeared on AstrosConnection.com.
“To Clemens or not to Clemens, that is the question. Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer the Yankees and Rangers and their outrageous fortunes…or to pick up the greatest arm against a sea of playoff contenders and by opposing, end them…”
That’s the question every baseball team that pays its players, with the possible exception of the House Of David, has been asking themselves. Some reports estimate that as many as 13 teams have inquired about the cost of having the Rocket in their unis in 1999 and beyond. Those teams have been all over Blew Jays GM Gord Ash like strippers on a bachelor party. The leaders in “proposal fest” have been the Yacht Captain’s Evil Empire and your own hometown team, those loveable, rough and tumble Astros. These are the teams that have the personnel resources to do this deal and fit at least one of Roger’s criteria for a team, and unless the stRangers or Cleveland Native Americans push up their reported offers, the only real contenders that Clemens is going to allow Ash to consider.
The cost you ask? At least 3 and as many 6 players could be required if Ash gets greedy and the lesser teams keep raising the ante in a poker game they can’t hope to win. On top of that, unlike a normal trade, the “winner” in this race gets the privilege of renegotiating a contract currently the size of the moon into a contract the size of the earth. This is high stakes poker, baby and it’s all about who blinks first. It’s time to show the world that the Astros are indeed money when it comes to getting what they want.
First of all, I’m all for a Clemens deal. The packages have been mentioned from the sublime (Bell, Reynolds, Ward) to the ridiculous (Biggio) and everywhere in between. It’s going to be a Chinese Dinner Special approach. One from column A (Reynolds, Hampton, Elarton, Lima), one from column B (Hidalgo, Everett, Bell) 2 from column C (Ward, Johnson, Wagner, Bogar, Bergman, Holt) and with the special you get a choice between Dave Clark and eggrolls. (The eggrolls had a higher OBP last year, by the way.)
I’m a big win now guy. I put a bit of stock in the future, but the Clemens deal brings us benefits that we can’t afford to pass up. First of all, the Rocket is dead-on nails in pressure situations. To be more clear, he’s a winner, plain and simple. He wins wherever he goes. Secondly, the man is a first ballot Hall of Famer, if he ends his career with the Astros, he’ll go in as an Astro. Thirdly, while having Clemens doesn’t guarantee a World Series (or any kind of series win…Monkey on the Back alert!!!) he improves the odds greatly of getting to the Promised Land. Make no mistake; these next 3 years are the best chance in history for the Stros to reach the World Series. For those of you in Houston in 94 & 95, what you saw with the Rocket’s Championships will look like the introduction of a new menu item at Taco Bell (except at Scott’s Taco Bell) in comparison to the an Astros’ championship. It’ll also prove to the team that winning the whole damn shooting match is the only priority for this team. Clemens also brings the AIS number through the roof, and if the people get excited by what they see, they’ll buy more tickets, which leads to a higher revenue and better players. And for those of you that think this sort of thing is important, we’ll be the lead story on Baseball Tonight every 5th day.
Roger Clemens is the missing link, and not in a Leyritz / Juden sort of way. He’s a fiery, blood and guts performer, with the ability to completely shut down a team, any team. He’s not above getting in his teammates faces and telling them when they’re stinking up the field, and he commands the respect to get away with it. He’ll add fire and excitement to the Stros when he’s pitching, but also when he’s not pitching. He’ll cheerlead, he’ll dance with Lima (not a euphemism) he’ll speak his mind, and he’ll take a lot of the pressure off of his teammates. If we get Clemens, you can print the playoff tickets in 1999 and 2000.
The cost could be great and they’ll be cries that whatever the price, we gave too much, that we mortgaged the future. But the future will take care of itself. And I’ll show you how… we get Clemens, we make the playoffs, people come to the park, we have more money, greater revenues, greater payroll, bigger salaries, better players, more money to devote to the minor league development. We sacrifice Richard Hidalgo or Scott Elarton, and that’ll hurt, but winning a World Series is more than worth it.
The Astros have to show the players, city, state, country and world that they are ready for the Big Time. And to do that, they have to make bold strokes and take risks. If borrowing against the future is what it takes to get the Rocket (hell, we’ve already named a basketball team after him) into the Blue and Gold and to get the Astros in the hearts of the city once and for all, then I can’t think of a better example of Big Time than Roger Clemens. Full steam ahead and torpedoes be damned!