1983 Houston Astros

How imbalanced was baseball's divisions in 1983. I've commented on the depth of the AL East before, but this is the third team I am covering from the old NL West, and I still haven't touched the 2nd place teams in the AL West or NL East. The Astros started slowly but got to 85 wins. Just four games above .500 (or is that 8?) and still no second place team out of two divisions.

The Astros big news in 1983 was Nolan Ryan passing the career strikeout record previously held by Walter Johnson. Ryan shattered this record eventually by nearly 2000 K, and although no record is unbreakable, it will take a pretty special pitcher to break Ryan's record of 5714 strikeouts.

Best Player: Tough decision between Jose Cruz and a break out season by Dickie Thon, but I will give this to Cruz

Best Pitcher: Nolan Ryan

All-Stars: Bill Dawley, Dickie Thon....really Bill Dawley, not the token player since Thon was on the team, but he was 6-6 with a respectable ERA, but didn't lead the team in saves

Hall-of-Famers: Nolan Ryan

Rookie Card of the Year: Bill Doran

Other rookie cards: Frank DiPino, Alan Knicely (under players on new teams, did appear on the Astros prospects card in 1981), Mike Madden

First Astro cards: George Cappuzzello (under retired players), Randy Moffitt (under players on new teams), Omar Moreno, Mike Scott

Most interesting non-Topps card: There were no cards not in one of the Topps sets

Starters

__	TO	774	C	Alan Ashby	HOU
__	TO	275	1B	Ray Knight	HOU
__	TT	26	2B	Bill Doran	HOU
__	TO	558	SS	Dickie Thon	HOU
__	TO	478	3B	Phil Garner	HOU
__	TO	585	LF	Jose Cruz	HOU
__	TT	76	CF	Omar Moreno	HOU
__	TO	39	RF	Terry Puhl	HOU

Starting Pitchers

__	TO	221	SP	Joe Niekro	HOU
__	TO	360	SP	Nolan Ryan	HOU
__	TO	382	SP	Bob Knepper	HOU
__	TT	100	SP	Mike Scott	HOU

Relief Pitchers

__	TT	25	CL	Frank DiPino	HOU
__			RP	Bill Dawley
__	TO	172	RP	Vern Ruhle	HOU
__	TT	64	RP	Mike Madden	HOU
__	TO	247	RP	Dave Smith	HOU
__	TO	92	RP	Mike LaCoss	HOU

Other Players

__			RF	Kevin Bass
__	TO	507	OF	Tony Scott	HOU
__			CF	Jerry Mumphrey
__	TO	692	UT	Denny Walling	HOU
__	TO	328	MI	Craig Reynolds	HOU
__			C	John Mizerock
__	TO	752	C	Luis Pujols	HOU
__			C	George Bjorkman
__	TO	193	UT	Harry Spilman	HOU
__			UT	Tim Tolman
__			OF	Scott Loucks
__			SS	Bert Pena
__	TO	14	RP	Frank LaCorte	HOU
__			SP	Jeff Heathcock
__			RP	Julio Solano

Minor Leagues

__	TO	639	MN	Art Howe	HOU
__	TO	611	MN	Bert Roberge	HOU
__	TO	662	MN	Joe Sambito	HOU

Manager

__

TO

66

MG

Bob Lillis

HOU

1982 Houston Astros

MVP
This team is a good demonstration in how much the game has changed in 25 years. The Astros in 1982 were 4 games (or is that 8 games, not quite sure how that works) under .500, so they were roughly an average team in 1982. Granted the Astros played in a very large stadium, but they did play half their games on the road. Here are your team leaders in various categories:
BA - Ray Knight - .294
HR - Phil Garner - 13
RBI - Phil Garner - 83
SB - Dickie Thon - 37 (Garner had 24, Jose Cruz had 21, 2 others had at least 17)

By comparison, the leaders for the 2009 Astros, who played in a smaller park, but finished 4 games worse:
BA - Miguel Tejada - .313
HR - Carlos Lee - 26
RBI - Carlos Lee - 102
SB - Michael Bourn - 61 (OK, he led the league in stolen bases, but only one other player had more than 17 and three players I would consider full time players had 0, nobody in 1982 had 0.)

OK, some stat guy could probably tear these comparisons apart (different stadium, record was better because team pitching was better in 1982, etc.), but it is odd to see that 13 home runs and 83 RBIs could lead an average team.

Anyway, Phil Garner, Dickie Thon, Ray Knight, and Jose Cruz get consideration for team MVP, I'll give it to Garner. Probably a pitcher really deserves it.

Cy Young
The 1982 Astros had two hall-of-famers anchoring their pitching staff in Nolan Ryan and Don Sutton (although Sutton got traded before the end of the season to the Brewers), but the ace of this pitching staff was a brother of another hall-of-famer, Joe Niekro. He had 17 wins with a 2.47 ERA.

Another sign of the changes in the game in the past 25 years, Niekro pitched 16 complete games. Nolan Ryan pitched 10 and 11 games complete games were pitched by other pitchers. That is a total of 37 complete games or almost 23% of the games played. Was this an oddity to have so many complete games. Well here is a look at the NL West teams in 1982:
Atlanta - 15 (didn't have a very deep rotation)
Los Angeles - 37 (18 of these were by Fernando Valenzuela)
San Francisco - 18
San Diego - 20 (thrown by 7 different pitchers)
Houston - 37
Cincinnati - 22 (13 by Mario Soto)

By way of comparison, the Giants had 11 complete games in 2009...and they had the two league leaders in complete games thrown in Tim Lincecum and Matt Cain.

Rookie Card of the Year
Not much to choose from here...I'll go with Joe Pittman, he was a utility infielder through 1984 with the Astros, Giants, and Padres. It was either Pittman or George Cappuzzello. Pittman is shown with the Astros on his card so he gets the pick.

Most Interesting non-Topps Card
Danny Heep had a 13 season career as a utility first basemen/outfielder, seeing action with the Astros, Mets, Dodgers, Red Sox, and finally ending it with the 1991 Braves. In 1981, he was one of the three players on the Astros future stars card. He had his own card in the 1981 Fleer set. You would think Topps would've given him his own card in 1982, since he already had one in a competitor's set. Nope, he was put on the Astros prospects card in the 1982 Topps set as well. Again, Fleer gave him his own card. He finally got his first solo Topps card in 1983.

Note: if you want to check out more cards of Houston Astros go to Astros Baseball Cards, a blog devoted to nothing else except Houston Astros cards.

Starters

__	TO	433	C	Alan Ashby	HOU
__	TT	57	1B	Ray Knight	HOU
__	TO	683	2B	Phil Garner	HOU
__	TO	453	3B	Art Howe	HOU
__	TO	404	SS	Dickie Thon	HOU
__	TO	325	LF	Jose Cruz	HOU
__	TO	698	CF	Tony Scott	HOU
__	TO	277	RF	Terry Puhl	HOU

Starting Pitchers

__	TO	611	SP	Joe Niekro	HOU
__	TO	90	SP	Nolan Ryan	HOU
__	TO	305	SP	Don Sutton	HOU
__	TO	672	SP	Bob Knepper	HOU
__	TO	539	SP	Vern Ruhle	HOU

Relief Pitchers

__	TO	761	CL	Dave Smith	HOU
__	TT	61	RP	Mike LaCoss	HOU
__	TO	248	RP	Frank LaCorte	HOU

Other Players

__	FL	217	RF	Danny Heep	HOU
__	TO	582	C	Luis Pujols	HOU
__	TO	147	UT	Denny Walling	HOU
__			UT	Alan Knicely
__	TO	57	SS	Craig Reynolds	HOU
__			2B	Bill Doran
__	TO	377	SS	Kiko Garcia	HOU
__	TO	509	1B	Harry Spilman	HOU
__			CF	Scott Loucks
__			UT	Tim Tolman
__			OF	Kevin Bass
__	TO	119	UT	Joe Pittman	HOU
__	TO	734	PH	Mike Ivie	HOU
__			RF	Larry Ray
__			RP	Randy Moffitt
__			SP	Frank DiPino
__			RP	Bert Roberge
__	TO	137	RP	George Cappuzzello	DET
__	TO	34	RP	Joe Sambito	HOU
__			RP	Danny Boone
__			RP	Mark Ross
__			RP	Gordie Pladson

Manager/Coaches

__	DO	144	MG	Bill Virdon	HOU
__			MG	Bob Lillis

1981 Houston Astros

Ugliest Uniforms Ever

This may be the last chance I get to comment on the 1970s era Houston Astros rainbow uniforms since the Astros move away from these after 1981. There are often many lists on the internet that discuss the worst baseball uniforms of all time, for example such as this link, and the rainbow Astros uniforms are always on such lists.

These are not ugly to me. In the current baseball environment of trying to squeeze every last dime out of the fans without selling the great game of baseball itself, there are several worse examples. The Blue Jays, Brewers, and Padres all come to mind. You know the current Blue Jay uniforms were tested in front of a sample group and determined that these would get the most money in souvenir purchases, and as a result you get a boring corporate logo that is unoriginal (doesn't every sport have angry birds now?) and largely forgettable.

These Astros uniforms as shown in the Gordy Pladson card above is more interesting. It comes from a time when teams were experimenting with colors that weren't from the time of black and white TV. These colors represent what the Astros really were, a 1960s expansion team playing on astro turf (which was cutting edge then), and were named after the then current dreams of the time (space exploration). This was definetly not a team that had a history before World War II. Traditional blue and white wouldn't have worked with this team. Granted, it is now 2010, and these uniforms wouldn't look right now, but I think they are far from the ugliest ever.

Starters

__	TO	696	C	Alan Ashby	HOU
__	TO	190	1B	Cesar Cedeno	HOU
__			2B	Joe Pittman
__	TO	129	3B	Art Howe	HOU
__	TO	617	SS	Craig Reynolds	HOU
__	TO	105	LF	Jose Cruz	HOU
__	TT	828	CF	Tony Scott	HOU
__	TO	411	RF	Terry Puhl	HOU
__	TO	439	UT	Denny Walling	HOU

Starting Pitchers

__	TO	240	SP	Nolan Ryan	HOU
__	TT	782	SP	Bob Knepper	HOU
__	TT	839	SP	Don Sutton	HOU
__	TO	722	SP	Joe Niekro	HOU
__	TO	642	SP	Vern Ruhle	HOU

Relief Pitchers

__	TO	385	CL	Joe Sambito	HOU
__	TO	534	RP	Dave Smith	HOU
__	TO	513	RP	Frank LaCorte	HOU

Other Players

__	TT	765	SS	Kiko Garcia	HOU
__			2B	Phil Garner
__	TO	313	C	Luis Pujols	HOU
__	TO	172	RF	Gary Woods	HOU
__	FL	72	1B	Danny Heep	HOU
__	TT	844	2B	Dickie Thon	HOU
__	TO	597	2B	Rafael Landestoy	HOU
__	TT	824	UT	Dave Roberts	HOU
__	TT	774	1B	Mike Ivie	HOU
__	TT	833	1B	Harry Spilman	HOU
__			UT	Jeffrey Leonard
__			CF	Scott Loucks
__			OF	Tim Tolman
__			UT	Alan Knicely
__	TO	253	1B	Dave Bergman	HOU
__			SS	Bert Pena
__			RP	Bobby Sprowl
__	TO	329	RP	Joaquin Andujar	HOU
__			RP	Billy Smith
__	TO	491	RP	Gordie Pladson	HOU

Minors

__

TO

148

MN

Randy Niemann

HOU

Manager/Coaches

__

FL

61

MG

Bill Virdon (or DO 384)

HOU