The Pecan Park Eagle

Table of the 36 Men who played for the 2005 Houston Astros and their Active MLB Playing Statuses today in December 2013:

The trade this week that brought reliever Chad Qualls back to the Houston Astros has activated the question of how many former members of the 2005 National League champions are still active in the major leagues today, eight years later. The preceding chart is just something the Pecan Park Eagle work out this morning with the deft assistance of Baseball Reference.Com. The 36 men shown here are the body total of every player who made it onto the roster of the Astros in 2005 and participated in any way or degree as active participants.

The chart show each player name by position in column one; each last MLB season for each individual player; and, in column three, whatever clarity there is on those who have either formally retired or shown by their absence from the big leagues over the last two seasons that they are effective done, except for their needs to either hang in there as minor leaguers, or to simply keep playing for want of any other clear work alternatives.

By our count, 25 of the 36 players (69.4%) are listed as either “Yes” for formally retired or shown now being at least a season past their last active minor league season. By this accounting, we are willing to float the assumption that any of  these players who played minor league baseball this year could still be hoping to get pulled back to the MLB level. We realize that we have no way to actually separate that group from those who know better, but are still willing to collect some kind of baseball check for as long as it is possible.

Only 4 of 36 (11.1%) go into the 2014 season with active MLB records in 2013 and apparent intentions to play MLB in 2014. Those four would include Luke Scott, Humberto Quintero, Wandy Rodriguez, and Chad Qualls. We did not include either Lance Berkman or Roy Oswalt as returning big leaguers because of their ages, health issues, and a general doubtfulness that either wants to keep playing, As to whether each will make a statement of formal retirement, that remains to be seen.

Have fun with the data, folks, and, if you know something that we couldn’t find out at “BR.COM” about the “retirement/keep playing” status of any 2005 Astro, please leave your information here as a comment on this column.

Thanks, and have a pleasant day. – The Pecan Park Eagle.

Tags: 2005 Houston Astrod

This entry was posted on December 10, 2013 at 5:02 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.