Remember when the Astros made a crazy run at the playoffs just a few months ago? In the absence of Carlos Lee, one of the players that sparked that run was Ty Wigginton, as he thumped along to a .379/.394/.804 line in August, when the 'Stros were making their run. He fell off in September, but he still had a career year in 2008. In line with Ed Wade's mad scientist plan to contend, the Astros decided last night to non-tender Wigginton. The official reason for the move is simply that the Astros thought that Wigginton would be too expensive. Based on his $4.35 million salary last year he likely would've made in the neighborhood of $6 or $7 million in 2009. How Wigginton isn't worth that when the alternative is Geoff Blum, I don't know. They tendered Jose Valverde and he's likely to make a similar amount of money next year. This is just a poorly thought out move by the Astros, but what else is new?
WIgginton was the biggest name to be non-tendered but he wasn't the only one. Daniel Cabrera, Tim Redding, Chris Capuano, and Willy Taveras were also among the 30+ players that weren't offered contracts by midnight last night, making all of them free agents.
