Happy new year.
And it should be a happier new year in Houston. That's not just because the Astros have signed free-agent RHP Jesse Crain.
Crain is more a symbol of change than a game-changer.
Houston's management has made a series of incremental improvements that won't move the Astros into contention this season, but should move them to a point where they are more competitive on a daily basis.
The change is most evident in the bullpen -- where Crain joins other new RHPs Chad Qualls, Matt Albers, Anthony Bass, Darin Downs and Raul Valdes.
That might not sound like much, but doesn't it sound better than Josh Zeid, Kevin Chapman, Chia-Jen Lo and Josh Fields? They were the unproven youngsters in a bullpen that led or tied for the lead in negative categories with a 4.92 ERA and 29 blown saves.
Fields and Lo were among the part-time closers Houston employed in what we now can call last year.
The most obvious weakness, even with the influx of veterans, is that there is no proven closer. Qualls would be the closest to matching that job description. He and Crain are tied for the most relief wins in the majors over the last 10 seasons, with 45. That says more about their longevity than their ability.
It's quite possible that some of the new Astros won't open the season on the major league roster. Well, Crain might not because he's still recovering from surgery following a bout with biceps tendinitis that ended early a 2013 season during which he was an All-Star for the White Sox (who weren't a whole lot better than Houston).
But let's say Downs and Valdes could go back to the minors or be shipped off to another organization. And maybe Zeid and Lo could be major leaguers in April. The point is that there would be greater competition for jobs, and even the losers in that competition could be viable major leaguers at some point in the season.
I'm planning to do some analysis during the next few days to determine who might be the best closer candidate in Houston. My gut feeling is that the Astros would start with Qualls, but we'll see.
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I'm in two football bowl-picking contests. One is with point spreads, the other without. Haven't seen a recent report on the point-spread pool, but I started out something like 2-7. In the pick-winners pool, I've rallied after a slow start, and went 4-0 Tuesday. It's a pool in which you assign point values based on how much faith you have in a team's winning. Confidence pool, I think it's called. Texas A&M's rally helped because I had 30 points on the Aggies. I'm a little over plus-200, but haven't seen that report since early Monday.
By the way, I ended up making no money in my regular-season office pool. I made a rally in Week 17, tying for third at 12-5, but still finished 13 points behind the winner and four behind third place, the last with prize money.
Now I have a couple of different NFL playoff pools to master. One of those is straight pick-'em; the other is pick-'em while assigning wagers best on a theoretical $1,000 bankroll to begin the playoffs.
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Hockey. I'm stayed at points, but fell 1 1/2 points farther out of second place. I got excited when I saw Keith Yandle, heretofore a drain on my plus/minus, was plus-3 Tuesday. However, my team still dropped another point in the plus/minus. Not many players going today, but I've set up my lineup for the next couple of days so that I'd have pretty much a full roster Thursday.
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Basketball. My team currently is leading 8-0, but four categories are very close. Over the next two days, I had a choice for the 10th player in my lineup between Victor Oladipo and Taj Gibson. Because three of my closest categories are 3-pointers, assists and steals, I'm going with Oladipo.
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