This is one of a series of posts in which belittle each team for their befuddling offseason blunders, and possibly praise them for any prescient pre-season pickups.

The Astros were in deep trouble even before the offseason started. Even before Ed Wade started his wheelings and dealings to drive this once-proud franchise even further into the ground.

I know these posts are supposed to focus on what happened during this current offseason, but I think it would be difficult to understand exactly how fast and how breathtakingly far this organization has fallen without a bit of a recap on the past year.

It is almost hard to remember that just two years ago, the Astros were representing the National League in the World Series, and coming off nearly a decade as perennial contenders in the NL Central, including six playoff appearances in nine years.

But that all changed a year ago when the Astros had just about one of the worst offseasons imaginable. Things began when the Astros lost 2/3 of their rotation by making no effort to re-sign Andy Pettite, and consequently, lost Roger Clemens as well. The Astros attempted to fill this gaping hole with Woody Williams, but grossly overpaid for a 41-year-old pitcher whose numbers had been greatly enhanced by pitching in the best pitcher’s park in baseball for all those years in San Diego.

The Astros also tried to make a splash by signing Carlos Lee, but even at the time, many questioned giving a 6-year contract to one of the worst defensive outfielders in all of baseball who was already in his 30s and already seemed to be having signficant problems with his weight.

But the biggest blow of all was when the Astros inexplicably and bafflingly traded fan favorite centerfielder Willy Taveras as well as their two best pitching prospects, Jason Hirsh and Taylor Buchholz, to the Rockies for pitcher Jason Jennings, who had just one year remaining on his contract.

Not surprisingly, most of us here at UmpBump predicted disaster for the 2007 Astros, and our predictions were borne out in almost every way possible. While Pettite pitched well for the Yankees, and Taveras helped the Rockies reach the World Series, putative no. 2 starter Woody Williams fell off a cliff to an 8-15 record and a 5.27 ERA, Lee gained 30 pounds, won the NL GIDP title, cost the team 16 runs with his defense, and broke shortstop Adam Everett’s leg, and Jennings, who had come at such a high price, never looked right all year, posting an execrable 2-9 record with a 6.45 ERA. Overall, the team stumbled to a 73-89 mark, its worst record in eight years, and both manager Phil Garner and GM Tim Purpura lost their jobs.

Thus the Astros headed into the 2008 offseason in desperate need of a creative reboot. Despite the fact that they were locked into the bad contract with Lee and had a barren farm system, there was some reason for hope that the team might head in a new direction and launch a long awaited youth movement, now that the Craig Biggio farewell tour was over, Biggio was safely retired at least two seasons later than he should have, and the battle cries of “we have to try one more time to win a World Series for poor Craig Biggio” could be laid to rest.

Unfortunately, the man the Astros hired to replace Purpura, former Phillies GM Ed Wade, was simply not the right man to take the Astros in a creative new direction.

To be as fair as is possible to Wade, he was handed a pretty bad hand, given orders from owner Drayton McClain to put a contender on the field rather than rebuild, and handed one of the worst collections of talent in baseball. If we give points for trying hard, we have to admit that Wade has certainly been very active this winter, and has tried his very best within the limits of his understanding to improve the team.

It’s just that pretty much every decision he has made has been questionable. At the very least, it would have been wise for Wade to try his best to hang on to whatever prospects he had left, but instead he completely traded away every last near-major-league-ready prospect or marginal prospect the Astros had left in order to land Miguel Tejada and closer Jose Valverde, completely emptying the cupboard and taking what had been one of the five worst minor-league systems in baseball and turning it into the absolute worst.

Wade compounded mistakes by deciding to keep Tejada at shortstop. This made no sense, since Tejada’s defense is no longer even adequate at shortstop, and the Astros already had one of the best defensive shortstops in baseball firmly under control in Adam Everett. It would have been a perfect chance to shift Tejada to third, where the Astros had a gaping hole in the form of Ty Wigginton, a player who can nominally play any position on the diamond, but only because he is equally terrible at all of them. But instead, Wade decided to keep Tejada at short, and keep Wigginton - a player even the Devil Rays didn’t want. He then actually non-tendered Everett - one of the top two or three defensive shortstops in all of baseball - losing a valuable player that was still under the team’s control and getting nothing in return, while insuring that any gain to the offense from what pop remains in Tejada’s unjuiced bat will be negated by the absolutely abominable left-side defense.

Mistakes continued in other areas as well. While Valverde is a useful player, his acquisition necessitated the trading away of the Astros’ last remaining major-league ready pitching prospect. And the whole reason Wade had needed to get Valverde in the first place was that he had traded away incumbent closer Brad Lidge to the Phillies to get one of his old favorites from his days in Philadelphia, centerfielder Michael Bourn. Although Bourn is an exciting speedster and a well-liked teammate, he is projected by most systems to be a fourth outfielder type at best so one has to wonder if will help the Astros much at all.

Finally, there is the awful signing of Kazuo Matsui to a 3-year, $16.5 million deal. I almost can’t express in words what a terrible idea this was. It reeks of big-name-itis, a desire to get someone, anyone, who might have been affiliated with the Rockies’ magic mojo of last season, and a complete lack of understanding about how ballparks might affect hitting numbers. Given that he was playing half his games in Coors Field last season, Matsui’s batting numbers are truly frightening, and we can expect a severe drop off as he returns to sea level. One wonders if Matsui’s numbers next season would be better than even another season of Craig Biggio, as bad as Biggio was in recent years.

So where do all Ed Wade’s moves this leave the Astros in 2008? In the NL Central cellar, alongside the Pirates, and with a very dim future.

The Astros offense should be okay, but with the loss of Lidge, Chad Qualls, and Dan Wheeler they have not much bullpen after Valverde, they have one of the worst infield defenses in the major leagues, and they have perhaps the worst rotation in all of baseball, despite the presence of ace Roy Oswalt (I mean seriously, Wandy Rodriguez is the number two starter?!?!). You are also talking about a team with the worst farm system in all of baseball, a meddling owner who interferes with his GM, a hide-bound GM stuck in old ways of thinking, and no hope of doing anything at all at any time in the anywhere near future.

In other words, in just two short years the Astros have gone from World Series runners-up to the worst organization in all of baseball.

Offseason Grade: D

Additions: SS Miguel Tejada, CL Jose Valverde, 2B Kazuo Matsui, CF Michael Bourn, CF Darin Erstad, OF Jose Cruz Jr., RHP Shawn Chacon, UT Geoff Blum, RHP Oscar Villareal, RHP Doug Brocail, RHP Geoff Geary, RHP Chad Paronto, OF Reggie Abercrombie

Losses: 2B Craig Biggio, RHP Brad Lidge, SS Adam Everett, RHP Chad Qualls, 3B Mike Lamb, OF Luke Scott, 2B Chris Burke, UT Eric Bruntlett, LHP Trever Miller, RHP Matt Albers,

Projected Lineup, Rotation, and Closer:

CF Michael Bourn - .277/.348/.378, 18 SB
2B Kaz Matsui - .288/.342/.405, 32 SB
SS Miguel Tejada - .296/.357/.442, 18 HR
1B Lance Berkman - .278/.386/.510, 34 HR
LF Carlos Lee - .303/.354/.528, 32 HR
RF Hunter Pence - .322/.360/.539, 17 HR
3B Ty Wigginton - .278/.333/.459, 22 HR
C J.R. Towles - .375/.432/.575, 14 ML games

RHP Roy Oswalt - 14-7, 3.18
LHP Wandy Rodriguez - 9-13, 4.58
RHP Brandon Backe - 3-1, 3.77
RHP Woody Williams - 8-15, 5.27
RHP Chris Sampson - 7-8, 4.59

CL Jose Valverde - 47 SV, 2.66

-Hot Offseason Action Index-

The Astros have signed Carlos Lee for $100 million. That’s right, the big guy is going to be making in excess of $16 million per year for six years.

That’s a lot of money. It’s hard to even picture what that much money would look like. For those of you who can’t wrap your mind around the prospect of a paycheck that large, let umpbump put it in terms that you (and fat Carlos) can understand.

$100 million could buy:

119,047,619 Krispy Kreme glaze donuts

34,482,759 Big Macs

14,285,714 Six-packs of Budweiser

26,666,667 pints of Ben & Jerry’s Chunky Monkey ice cream

Lee is listed at 6-foot-2 and 240 pounds and there have been questions about him being out of shape. Questions like, “Are they feeding that guy in between innings?” and “Should we be worried that he might try and eat Willie Taveras?”

Phillies GM Pat Gillick, who reportedly tried to sign Lee after first missing out on the much slimmer Alfonso Soriano, was quoted the other day saying, “Lee is a heck of an athlete.” Gillick is right. Lee is a heck of an athlete, in the same way that Kobayashi is a heck of an athlete.

Why wasn’t Gillick worried about Lee’s weight? The same reason the Astros aren’t worried. They know something many people don’t: uniforms with vertical pinstripes are slimming.

Gary Matthews signed with the Angels today. He got $10 million a year over five years. That’s right, the Angels paid a 31-year old centerfielder $50 million. A guy who, until this year, hit .250 over his career.

Matthews is a fine player. He was an all-star this year. Seems like a real good guy. Comes from a baseball family. And maybe he really has turned a corner as a hitter. But $50 million?

“Guys learn at different times in their careers,” Angels GM Bill Stoneman said. “Gary’s coming into his own.”

Okaaaaaaaaay. Sure he is. Just like Adrien Beltre came into his own a few years ago. When are GMs ever going to learn that it’s a bad idea to hand out monster contracts to guys who put together one solid year after 10 years of mediocrity?

Even if Matthews can put together a couple more .300 seasons, $10 million per is a real stretch. I mean, really, $50 million? That’s a ton of money.

Plenty of players have parlayed fluke years into monster contracts. Many of those players, we’ve come to find out, did so with the benefit of some designer drugs. But Matthews may be the first that I can remember to score a big deal on the strength of one spectacular play. You know the one I’m talking about.

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kzp6ny0rtAA[/video]

You know what? On second thought, if I were a GM, I think I might shell out $50 million to Matthews on the off chance that he might make a catch like that again, this time for my team. Wow. Wowie, wow, wow, wow.

In other hot stove news, the Carlos Lee sweepstakes seems to be heating up. And, really, your guess is as good as mine as to who will end up with Lee. Everybody seems to think it’ll come down to three teams, but nobody seems to be able to agree which three teams. I’ve heard the Orioles, Astros, and Phillies are all serious contenders. But the Giants and Rangers have also been mentioned as possibilities, and you’ve got to think the Giants are more of a player after losing Moises Alou and then losing out on Matthews. An AL team would almost certainly be a better fit for Lee, who is growing fatter by the day. At the rate he’s going, he’ll be forced into DH duty buy July. If he signs with an NL team, he’ll eventually be too fat to play anything but first base. You’d think that would prevent the Phillies from signing him, since they already have a pretty good fat firstbaseman. But then again, Pat Gillick seems desperate to sign a slugger.

From the “don’t hold your breath” department, rumors persist that the Red Sox will try to convince Roger Clemens to become their closer, and that the Angels will trade for Andruw Jones. First of all, Clemens isn’t a closer. Second he likes to spend off days with his family, and closers need to be available everyday. So it just isn’t going to happen. As for Andruw, he’s got a no trade clause and doesn’t seem interested in going anywhere until after this season, when he will become a free agent and should command money similar to what Alfonso Soriano just got.

Well, the first mega-deal of the trade deadline week finally came down today, as Carlos Lee was delt to Texas along with minor leaguer Nelson Cruz for Kevin Mench, Laynce Nix, Francisco Cordero, and minor league hurler Julian Cordero (no relation to Francisco).

Maybe I just don’t know the full story or something, but this seems like a horrible deal for the Brewers.  Despite what you think about Alfonso Soriano’s alleged greatness, Carlos Lee was probably the best outfielder out there on the market, projected by Baseball Prospectus to add about 11.9 runs over a replacement player down the stretch, whereas Soriano is projected to add only 8.8 runs.  (As an aside, assuming that teams are replacing a slightly better than replacement level player with Lee or Soriano, and given that 10 runs only equals about one extra win in the standings, the whole point of trading for someone at the deadline is somewhat called into question).

Meanwhile, Laynce Nix and Kevin Mench have proven to be fourth outfielders, at best, and Francisco Cordero is a headcase who not only once assaulted a fan with a chair but also blew a Major League record 5 saves in a single month earlier this season.

But worst of all, the Brewer’s best option to replace Lee in left field next year was none other than Nelson Cruz, who was batting .302 with 22 doubles, 20 home runs, 73 RBI and 17 stolen bases in 104 games for the Brewers AAA afilliate in Nashville.

So the Brewers not only got crap in return for the best outfielder on the market, but they actually gave away his replacement to seal the deal.

Um.