Valentine's Day is over a month away, but the Astros already have theirs, thank you very much. In a low-risk bid to strengthen the bench this week, Gerry Hunsicker signed former Boston Red Sox infielder John Valentin, 36, to a minor-league contract and invited him to Spring Training.

Valentin has an impressive resume over eleven big-league seasons: a .279 career BA, 124 HR, 558 RBI, an OBA of .360 and an OPS of .814 His career Total Baseball TPR (Total Player Rating)--a measure of the extra wins a player provided his team compared to what a league-average player at that position would have provided--is a quite respectable 15.3.

If there's a "catch" to Valentin's signing, it is that he hasn't played big-league ball since 2002, when he batted .240 in 114 games for the Mets. He's pretty clearly on the decline in most offensive categories, and no one really knows whether the year away from the bigs has served to energize him for one last year or solidified the rust on his arms and legs.

Valentin won't cost the Astros very much, however, and if he can still play, Hunsicker may have solved several nagging problems that remain with the Houston bench as the club looks toward March. Valentin is primarily a SS (580 games), but he has also played 371 games at 3B, 83 at 2B, 22 at 1B, and six as a DH. It's the figure at 3B that catches my eye the most. The prospect of having Jose Vizcaino as the principal backup to Morgan Ensberg at 3B has worried me ever since Vizcaino struggled there in a couple of late-season games versus the Cardinals in 2002. If Valentin makes the club, I'll breathe a whole lot easier in the event of an injury to Ensberg, and Jimy Williams can keep Vizcaino playing at the positions for which he is finely suited, SS and 2B. As a right-handed batter, Valentin offers no help from the left-hand side of the plate, but he does provide the Astros with yet another singles hitter who also represents a legitimate power threat in the event the pitcher makes a mistake. The Fenway Park-like design of Houston's home field should make Valentin quite comfortable in pinch-hitting, late-game, and--we hope--playoff pressure situations. His statistics in this latter category are also very good--a .347 BA, .407 OBA, 5 homers, and 19 RBI--and I credit Hunsicker for thnking ahead--way ahead--in this regard.

Signing an older position player is different from signing an older pitcher. Mistakes made by the latter are not usually forgiven; they commonly mean hits, if not runs, and too many of either will mean losses. The Astros have had some notable failures with older pitchers since 2000--Kent Bottenfield, Hipolito Pichardo, Brian Moehler (if one stretches the definition of "older" a little)--but their luck with older position players--Vizcaino, Orlando Merced--has been much better, and Hunsicker is plainly hoping to catch lightning in a bottle a third time. We'll see whether he does.

The Astros also signed nine other players to minor-league contracts this week and invited them to Spring Training: infielders Jason Alfaro and Mike Coolbaugh, catchers Chris Tremie and Dax Norris, and pitchers Kirk Bullinger, Jared Fernandez, Miguel Saladin, Rodrigo Rosario, and Nate Bland. I mentioned the latter last week as having been nudged into free agency in order to clear roster space for the possible return of Roger Clemens. Had I not been quite so focused on writing about Clemens, I would have pointed out that the Astros were a good bet to do exactly as they did--re-sign Bland as a non-roster player and invite him to camp. As a left-hander for the bullpen, he's potentially too valuable for Houston to let go, and I never figured the club would. The other men represent in various ways other pieces of the Spring Training puzzle. Fernandez, Rosario, and Bullinger have already demonstrated some usefulness to the Astros on both the big-league and the minor-league level. Alfaro, Coolbaugh, Tremie, Norris, and Saladin will at least provide necessary player depth for workouts and ST games. Keep in mind, too, that the organization likes both Rosario and Saladin. Although there would appear to be no big league spot for them in 2004, if the two of them can return to full health, the Houston farm system will be in that much better shape in the event of injuries to the big-league staff this season.

All ten men (including Valentin) represent as well the earnest desire of talented human beings to make it back to the big leagues. They desire to do so not just for the big paycheck, but also because of a profound wish to test their skills at the highest level possible. One wonders how many more buses Kirk Bullinger or Dax Norris or Chris Tremie will be willing to ride in over the next few years before they finally call it a career, but the fact that they do so at all is remarkable. Minor-league life in a city like New Orleans or Nashville is not all bad, but there are plenty of other places, at AAA and below, less hospitable. Yet, here these guys are, trying to endure all that, hanging on for maybe one last shot at a season that will give them a measure of financial security. And each year, here we are as fans during Spring Training, saying to ourselves--or in print, as the case may be--that player X or player Y has no shot, or player Z isn't quite ready yet. It sounds a bit cold and maybe cruel to say those things even if they are true. We'll say them again when March rolls around, though. If there's a defense for any of us saying such words, it is that they are usually said without malice, with clear honesty. Most of us have either watched this game or played it for a very long time and what we seldom acknowledge to each other or even to ourselves is that we love the game and all the men who play it, even those who, in some sense, fail in playing it. There would be no point at all in criticizing someone who had no ability in the first place, and most of us would not do so. But fans and players alike share a common vision of how baseball should be played at its highest level every day, and we both revel in well-played individual games, be they in June or September, when both teams are giving it all they've got out on the field. The love of a fan for the game and the love of a player for the game are, I think, different things, yet they are akin. Both kinds of passion are commendable. Few things worthy of accomplishment in life are accomplished without it. But the passion of the players--those who, season after season, endure the roster cuts in Spring Training, the mid-season option to AAA, the long, long bus rides to Tacoma or Wichita or Midland--a thing we seldom talk about or even acknowledge except during one month of the year, is especially praiseworthy, a quality inviting not just our criticism, but our deep respect.

There is, of course, one big blank the Astros are trying to fill in, and that is a roster spot for Roger Clemens. As the last few days have passed, there have been articles on the subject of Clemens falling like snow flurries everywhere you look. The articles say he's comin' or he ain't comin', take your pick. In terms of a decision by Clemens himself--which is what we're all waiting for--we're only a little closer than we were seven days ago. We do know, however, that the Astros have acknowledged putting together the "framework of a deal" for Clemens, probably for a year in length, possibly for around $4 million. This tentative language is similar to the language the ballclub used in discussing the signing of Andy Pettitte with the press before it happened, so if you're looking for positive, hopeful signs, the talk of some of those closest to the situation would certainly seem to be positive. Yet, Clemens himself hasn't said anything, and he might not do so until the upcoming Interfaith Charities dinner in Houston at which he is to be honored. That might be an appropriate time to say once and for all what his plans are for 2004. I still believe he'll come back for a final season. The Astros have certainly done what they could to invite him, and they may do more. The rumored money--$4 million--is $3 million less than Clemens earned last year, but Houston could also make it easy to collect that money by pitching Clemens only at home. Even with that limitation, Clemens would still be a great addition to the Astros' rotation, and Clemens could always go beyond that restriction and pitch a road game or two if he wanted.

I take seriously, though, the thought of the Rocket keeping closed the door he shut during the 2003 playoffs. Unlike Michael Jordan, who retired and unretired for personal reasons twice while he was still near the peak of his remarkable career, Clemens has already reached an appropriate stopping point, and there is no need to go beyond it seeking other accomplishments. He'll still have those 310 wins, those World Series appearances and championships, and he'll enter the Hall of Fame wearing a Yankee cap, dadgummitt. But all that said, there may be a desire on his part to try to do one last striking thing in his career for the team nearest his home, a desire that might override his quite-understandable wish to scale back the strenuous workouts, the extensive travel, and the demands of the public and the press with which he has dealt for over twenty years. We'll see what he decides. I hope he decides to pitch again, but if he decides not to, that also will be fine. Both the Astros and Clemens have kept their discussions amicable and properly low-key over the last month. The best that can be said is that the biggest blank on the Houston roster will be filled in soon enough.

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