Anyway, I don't know how Houston goes thru the offseason only adding pitching. As far as I can tell CF is a pretty big need right now. And I like Pence, but he's not a CF.
Adding a CF is a need (IMHO) and so would adding a catcher, but it doesn't have to be restricted to the free agent market. Realize that the free agent market is trending upwards and guys like Gary Mathews Jr. got 10 million per year for five years after a career year. You're talking about players like Andruw or Torii who will point to Sarge Jr.'s contract and laugh that they're being asked to take the same or less.
Free agency is an area that is costly to use to build your team with complimentary players (IMHO). If you have a core, spent a pretty penny for them, then stay away from the free agent market (IMHO again) for said complimentary players. Unless you're willing to dump salaries, as Gerry Hunsicker was prone to do when he went into the free agent market to get players. He was known to jettison a player or two to pay for the new acquisition.
The other method to reload your team is via trades or minor leaguers getting promoted. But let's talk a little bit about that. Houston would have to be really smart to make trades because you won't get the better type of complimentary player (like a CF that can leadoff) without paying for it somehow. If it means you have to delve into your minor league system, and you've done this quite often, then you're continuing to gut your minor leagues. At some point you have to stop that. You have to realize that it just may be time to give some of these kids a chance to prove themselves rather than thinking of going out and making a lot of trades this offseason with your own prospects in mind. You have to look at your good players (like Wheeler or Qualls) that you could replace with young players. If you get back good complimentary players that are in your system for a while, you've done well to stay out of the run away free agent market or overpay with prospects and hurt your minor league system to fill all your complimentary needs.
I say that no one will trade away pitching, so you'll have to look at free agents for this need. *THIS* is where you'll need to save your pennies to spend (and spend wisely as much as you can). Starters or bullpen, you'll need to use your dollars here. So how you reload or your strategy for doing so is as important as what you get back. Because as you've seen with the Jason Jennings trade, things can go bad quite quickly. Houston stayed out of the free agent market of pitching (Meche, et. al.) because the dollars were high. Of course they made an offer to Pettitte for one year of service, but that was still 12 million dollars for one year. So to get what they needed, they went the trade route and it cost them three young players, all major league ready guys. And because Jennings has struggled, it's now seen as a very bad move. A stupid move. So all in all, when you make a trade of a Albers and others for Salty or pitching and they fail, you're back to being criticized for shipping out the prospects and gutting the future. So Houston can't do that any more, but they can look at certain strategic players like Qualls this offseason if a market exist that can get you back someone that you need with Qualls as the main fodder. Maybe Luke Scott. Maybe Chris Burke. Those are the guys you have to use as fodder to pull back the guys you may need that cost too much in free agent dollars. Again, like Salty. If you package Burke and Qualls, then you better be getting back a leadoff guy or be willing to move Pence to leadoff and try to resign Mark Loretta for a reasonable price. Or use Brooks Conrad on your team as well.
GM Purpura has options on how to make his plays this offseason (and also set up his needs acquires by making trades now with guys like Lamb and Loretta as trading fodder, maybe even Luke Scott). He can call up guys like Conrad or Anderson to give them some PT to see if they're answers. All in all, he's got to develop his strategy as much as anything else and I think we're seeing some of that at work now.
