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By yongi, Section MLB
Over the past couple of days several sportswriters have been taking great glee in predicting that the bruised and broken Astros are going to cut Hall-of-Fame-bound Craig Biggio at the end of this year to save some money in the name of rebuilding the team. And while it's certainly true that Biggio has a $3M one-year extension that Astros management can buy their way out of for only $1M, thereby saving $2M and freeing up space for a "younger, healthier" player, I don't think they should do it.
Let's think about this for a minute. Right now Biggio leads his team with 141 hits, 35 doubles and 77 runs. He's second on the team with a .287 avg and 19 homers. Now maybe the fact that some of those numbers shouldn't rank so highly for a major league team that's loaded with players that should be doing much better than they are takes a little shine off of Biggio's season. But not really, if you think about it. After all, the man is also 1st among leadoff men in homers in the majors. And 2nd in doubles, too. Be honest with yourself - that's just not weak. Especially for an 18 year veteran who is also the most HBP guy in all of baseball.
With all that said, I'm not advocating keeping him out on the field every night when someone younger could be in there, working their way up to an epic hall-of-fame career. Nope, instead I think they should keep the option on him for next year, pull him back to a secondary role on the field and - wait for it - make a player-manager out of him.
Yes, I said make a player-manager out of him. Who's been around this team longer? Who knows the ins and outs of the core players and their personalities? Who has contributed more to the Astros over the last 18 damn years? And how frigging cool would it be to have a really great player-manager in the mold of Lou Boudreau, Rogers Hornsby or Frank Robinson calling the shots in Houston? Now that would be yet another thing to set the mighty Astros apart from their distinguished competition. My heart swells with the thought of it. I mean, it's classic baseball at its finest.
It's safe to say that the manager spot in Houston is going to be one of the things that gets shaken up in the off season. I mean no disrespect to Scrap Iron here - he's been an admirable fill in for that guy who got canned - but Garner really is just a fill in, I'm afraid. So why not give the role to a battle-tested and highly-respected player? A guy that all those young bucks who Houston needs to bring up and groom into the World Series winners we want them to be can look up to. Hell, Biggio is someone they've all probably been looking up to for a big chunk of their lives anyway.
The man has lead his team from the field for years now. Don't waste that - let him lead from the field and the dugout for a while. It's decent. It's respectful. Everyone wins. And if he can pull a few decent playing years as player-manager, Biggio might well wind up breaking 3,000 hits. And watching that run might even draw some more fans out to the park...
So rather than dishonor one of the greatest Astros of all time by cutting him loose a year early just to save a little cash, I really think the Astros could do a hell of a lot worse than take my crazy advice. Or, at the very least let's keep the Astros' honor intact and let #7 keep his place for that last year, okay Gerry? Okay, Drayton? After all, the numbers show he's still a great player and it would be a shame to alienate his loyalists when that one year probably won't make that big a difference. Story writing contestLog in or create an account to vote for this story!
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