Attaining Happ-Iness

The blind squirrel syndrome may have afflicted Astros GM Ed Wade this week when Roy Oswalt's trade request prompted him to fold the tent on this season. Of no value to the dying embers of the franchise in 2010, Oswalt brought back second-year hurler JA Happ, a pair of prospects and $12 million in contract relief from the Phillies.

One of the prospects from that deal (indirectly, by way of a second swap with Toronto) is a first base OBP machine destined to spell Lance Berkman when he is inevitably recycled to a contender for more prospects and off-loaded salary.

In sum, Wade is finally  recognizing that his franchise needs a complete overhaul, not a few patches. Anyone else on the roster, possibly excepting Michael Bourn and Wandy Rodriguez, whom they can ship out for cash or youngsters, moves this woeful outfit in the proper direction.

There are those cruising Blogomundo who can evaluate the prospects Oswalt returns, but that's almost always a flimsy proposition. The word "if" is always highly operative. We do know a few things about Happ, though.

JA Happ has tossed 217 innings in his young major league career, the vast majority of them in 2009, and his results have been outstanding. He is 14-5 3.11 in Philly's rich offensive environment, a value to his team of 5.5 wins compared to a fifth starter type. If that's the real JA Happ, at 27 years of age, yowzah!

However, the prediction gods are not sold. Happ enjoyed a .270 batting average on balls in play against him last year (compared to about .300 on average), watched only half the expected number of fly balls against him leave the park and stranded 85% of his runners. None of these seems particularly sustainable. In addition, Happ is only nominally acquainted with the strikeout, meaning he is especially susceptible to a regression to the norm. Baseball Prospectus crunched the numbers and found that his performance rates more like a 4.97 ERA pitcher than a 3.11.

These considerations are generally valuable and shed new light on results that looked starkly different in the darkness of ignorance. However, they are not destiny, so we'll see what happens in Houston. In the meantime, if nothing else, the Astros have come to understand their problem, act on it, and save themselves beaucoup Benjamins. A few more acorns and they'll cease to be a blind squirrel.

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