Astros have No. 1 pick locked up, but race for the bottom is crowded after that

Houston has the worst record in baseball locked up for the second straight season, so the Astros can start deciding what to do with the No. 1 overall pick in next June’s draft.

Right now the Cubs own the second-worst record, but the race for the No. 2 pick is pretty crowded:

              W      L       GB
Astros       40     91     ----
Cubs         50     80     10.5
Twins        53     78     13.0
Rockies      53     76     14.0
Indians      55     76     15.0

Minnesota picked second this season and the Twins trail the Cubs by just 2.5 games for the right to do that again next year. However, the Indians are coming on pretty strong. In fact, since the All-Star break Houston (7-38) and Cleveland (11-35) are the only two teams with fewer than 15 wins or more than 30 losses.

Unfortunately for the Astros and everyone else listed above next year’s draft, much like this year’s draft, is considered a weak class in terms of elite-level talent and most early projections have Stanford right-hander Mark Appel as the top prospect available. Houston passed on Appel with the No. 1 pick in June and he tumbled all the way to Pittsburgh at No. 8 before turning down $3.8 million and going back to school.

Last night during the Cardinals-Cubs game, the ESPN camera caught sight of a group of women at the game for a bachelorette party. Play-by-play man Matt Vasgersian had some opinions about it. Here’s the exchange:

Vasgersian: Is there anything more obnoxious than the bachelorette party at the ballpark, by the way?

Jessica Mendoza: Why is it obnoxious?

Vasgersian: Congratulations, by the way, yeah, we’re all very happy for you, la la la la.”

Mendoza: Why is that obnoxious?

Vasgersian: It’s such a ‘look at me thing.’ You’re sitting behind like the bridal party — ‘Like, oh my god! We’re getting married! Ehhhhh.”

Mendoza: Woooow. Kind of harsh.

A-Rod didn’t say much other than laugh a bit and say “I love it, Matt.” Which I presume meant he loves the party being there but it could be that he loves Vasgersian’s displeasure at it. I dunno. It’s A-Rod. He’s a man of multitudes.

I’m not exactly sure why Vasgersian believes that people having a good time with their friends is “obnoxious.” Indeed, I would think that, given what he does for a living, he’d think it’s good for people to associate baseball with fun and togetherness. It’s a free country though.

I presume that, at some point, ESPN is going to make Vasgersian apologize, because ESPN doesn’t really want its baseball announcers to be in the business of calling baseball fans “obnoxious.” I further presume that Vasgersian probably won’t mean it because the sort of person who gets cranky at other people having a good time tends not to be the sort of person who does a lot of reflecting when it’s pointed out to him that he’s being a jackwagon. Such is the exercise we go through when this kind of thing happens, however, so let us all hit our marks, shall we?

In other news, I can think of a lot more obnoxious things that can happen during a ballgame than a bachelorette party. Like when play-by-play announcers ignore the action on the field for minutes at a time as they chat idly with their booth-mates about things that are not related to the ballgame.

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