As an exciting World Series continues to cap what has been a marvelous year for baseball's playoffs, the Astros have made yet another off-the-field move, this time announcing that Jimy Williams's contract has been extended through the 2005 season. Specific terms of the contract were not disclosed by the club (they seldom are), but Wiliams is thought by some in the press to be getting around $1 million a year.

News of Williams's re-signing has generated a lukewarm reception in most quarters. Even Gerry Hunsicker's remarks on the announcement, though polite, were rather bland: "I believe that Jimy's done a solid job," Hunsicker said. "He's very committed to moving this franchise forward. This was an acknowledgment of the organization of his efforts."

It's disconcerting to hear Hunsicker talking about "moving the franchise forward" under Williams's tenure. This was, after all, an NL Central champion in 2001. In other words, no one should have to be using the words "moving forward", but we are. Although the front office made two key off-season decisions after 2001, to let both Vinny Castilla and Moises Alou walk away, thus robbing Williams of two players vital to Larry Dierker's final season, Williams still inherited a decent nucleus with which to work. Despite getting superb years from Roy Oswalt and Wade Miller and Lance Berkman, Williams's first club finished thirteen games behind St. Louis. This year, while Williams isn't responsible for the impact of two significant injuries that put a dent in the Astros' 2003 season--Roy Oswalt's thrice-injured groin and Jeff Kent's wrist, which cost him a month--he remains responsible for the things under his direct control, namely, the decisions about who plays on a given day, which pitchers to take out or leave in, and what plays to put on in a given situation. In those critical respects, nothing much changed in the way Williams handled the ballclub. Starting pitching was, in general, not as good as it should have been and (at least, early in the season) for every time Williams went to the bullpen in a questionable way, there was a matching moment in another game when he had no choice. Although the starting pitching improved as the season went along (nobody but us chickens in Astros country seems to realize that Houston gave up fewer runs than Chicago), the bullpen was still given too much work. Less-than-expected production from Wade Miller, Lance Berkman, and Brad Ausmus was balanced by better-than-expected work from Richard Hidalgo, Morgan Ensberg, Jeff Bagwell, Craig Biggio, Brad Lidge, Jeriome Robertson, and Billy Wagner. The Astros were in the hunt all the way to capture a weak division and, from a biased and critical viewpoint, probably should have captured it. The Cubs won because their young pitching matured about a year earlier than most observers thought it would, and because the clueless Pirates gave them three key components before the deadline. St. Louis never got the pitching it needed to be a serious factor. The Astros had both of these teams beat in September. They had a game and a half lead. They had the final seven games of the season at home. And yet, they blew both of those advantages. They lost four of those last seven, and six out of their last eight. Two of those losses were wretched efforts against the Milwaukee Brewers. Do I blame Williams for the collapse? Not as much as you might think.

Williams made a large cluster of well-thought-out moves over the second half of the season, including two brilliant ones involving Jose Vizcaino to win games against the Brewers in Milwaukee and against the Giants at home. He did everything he could to keep the Astros in that epic extra-inning game at St. Louis on that Saturday in September, doing, I thought, a more than competent job of giving his team an opportunity to come out on top. While I still can't forgive or forget Williams's early-season stupidities with the lineups at Milwaukee and San Francisco (taking regulars out in April against division opponents and "resting" starters the night after they've finally busted loose), the failure of the Astros to hang on to the division lead is not wholly Williams's fault. It is also, and is mostly, the fault of the players, who didn't do the job against the Cardinals, and who fell apart against the Giants and Brewers.

Although as judged strictly by the team's won-loss record from 2002 and 2003 (84-78 to 87-75) Williams deserves the extension, I still have deeply mixed feelings about it. True, the Astros have "improved" from how they finished in Williams's first season, but in my view, the improvement is not that significant and Williams is being rewarded for something he has not yet done--lead the Astros back into the playoffs. Some fans have correctly pointed out that the new extension takes Williams out of the "lame duck" category he would have been in during the 2004 season, but "a lame duck" isn't always what the appears to be, and that's not always a bad thing to be, either. Walter Alston managed the Dodgers for over 20 years with nothing but a year-to-year contract and emerged from that lengthy experience none the worse. Williams could do with similar pressure, coming from whatever source, be it the owner, the General Manager, or the press. The name of this game is not to be forever comfortable or always happy. It is to win.

As I opined on the last day of the season, I don't expect Williams to change as a manager. I wish that he would change, because he needs to. He needs to demand more of his starting pitchers and less of his bullpen; he needs to do a better job substituting his players; and--although nothing requires him to do this--he needs to do a much better job explaining and defending his managerial moves to the press and thus to the public. Declaring all questioning and discussion of his most controverial decisions out of bounds with the over-simple and insulting phrase "manager's decision" will no longer cut it. That phrase may give Williams' s conscience an easy escape on a tough night and it may protect his players from embarrassment, but it's terrible public relations, both for him and for the ballclub.

Williams needs to change, and so does the team around him. Perhaps in neither case does there need to be a great change, but the necessity for change is still there. Even now, as I interepret some of Gerry Hunsicker's latest remarks about how the Astros' OF "appears to be set" for 2004 with Berkman, Biggio, and Hidalgo, it's hard not to sense at least a slight feeling of self-satisfaction in the front office about the way things are. I tried to express some of my own misgivings on thr last day of the season. The temptation is to fall in love with players like Blum and Ausmus and Everett and Hidalgo and Merced and Vizcaino and Stone and Gallo. But if Houston yields to that temptation, the temptation of being content to just collect a bunch of nice players who build up nice stats, of thinking that their players are better than they are, then the Astros will be right back in the same spot in 2004 they are now--looking up from second place. That's what this club is--a second-place club. Whether it's because its players really aren't good enough, or because its manager made enough bonehead moves to cost it a couple of games in the standings, or a combination of these things, it is a second place club. Although Gerry Hunsicker can play the PR game with the best of 'em (the idea of being "set" for next year is, I hope, a PR spin), I think he knows it's a second place club, and he will do what he can to address Houston's needs.

Criticism comes easy, however. Figuring out what to do, even imagining what might be done, is hard. Nevertheless, I owe it to you and to myself to suggest at least a few of the off-season moves Hunsicker and the Astros might try. His remarks about being "set" in the OF for 2004 are words I take seriously, but not as gospel. He will make a deal or two and perhaps more than that before ST rolls around again next year. When the World Series is over, I will devote two columns to potential off-season moves: the first--up, I hope, by next Friday--will look at potential free agent acquisitions; the second, the week after next, will look at possible trades. I won't be able to mention every possible deal, but both columns will pay some attention to how such deals would impact the Astros' payroll as well as the team on the field.

Rumors have already started about one possible acquisition for Houston over the winter, with press speculation out of Toronto that Roger Clemens might forego retirement in exchange for $5 million or so and a final season in front of his wife and kids in Houston. The rumor looks juicy, but I'm not ready to bite at it just yet. The price tag sounds right and Clemens' place in the Houston rotation (third, behind Oswalt and Miller) is just as it should be, but for all of Clemens's obvious strengths, there are two weaknesses he has the Astros should pay attention to. Batters can go deep on him more easily than they used to, and dealing with the Crawford Boxes is entirely different from giving up a hit off Boston's Green Monster. Clemens can certainly adjust his game to right-handed batters in Houston better than Jose Lima could, but the Rocket will still give up some homers, maybe more than the Astros can tolerate. Clemens would also have to bat, a bigger deal than you might think after years of not having to in the American League. Still, the rumor is intriguing. and it will be interesting to see if Houston and Clemens really are interested in each other. Would I sign him if I were Houston's GM or its owner? Yes, if the terms were as the Toronto paper puts them. I'd then cross my fingers and hope Clemens can give me one good year. The fact that Clemens is not an especially likeable man is irrelevant. All I really care about is that the Astros win and conduct themselves decently in doing so. If Clemens is willing and able to be part of those endeavors, I'd support signing him for 2004.

See you next week