How many of us have longed for the days when our favorite player stayed with our team for his entire career.  We talk about how free agency has killed what was once beautiful about this game.  We celebrate those rare few that manage to stay with their one team forever and ever.  I remember clearly the day Pete Rose went to play for the Phillies, and I still have an issue with the Phillies to this day- like its their fault that happened.

But, yesterday something happened that made me question my feelings on this subject.  I should have reconsidered it years ago, when Cal Ripken Jr. wouldn’t sit out a game, even though the team would have been better off without him, but I didn’t.  The reexamination of the issue is coming today. You see, Roy Oswalt requested that his team, the Houston Astros, trade him.    Owner Drayton McLane had long spoken about wanting to keep Oswalt as an Astro for his entire career.  McLane had fallen in love with the franchise player idea because of Jeff Bagwell and Craig Biggio, the two most beloved Astros who played their entire careers for Houston.  But, just as holding onto Ripken hurt Baltimore’s ability to build competitive teams for years (and if you need me to explain that one, I will) keeping Oswalt for the sake of some legacy would hamstring the organization for years to come.

The Astros haven’t drafted well in years.  So they have a pretty thin farm system with no one coming along in the future.  The guys they have on the field are old- and to keep fielding a team the Astro’s would have to continue to sign free agents- and only one with few offers are going to have much interest in playing in Houston.  The only chance the team has to not become a long-term laughingstock is to take what they have of value right now and trade it for whatever it is worth.  And yes, that means taking the beloved Roy Oswalt and Lance Berkman and anyone else that another team will take and get the prospects.

Richard Justice adds that no matter how bad the team is that is left, after all the selling off is done, the Astros will be left with guys on the field who are happy to be there and are still learning.  Now, the players can’t see anything but the losing- and even though no one wants to pay money to see a loser, a bunch of young players having fun will sell more tickets than some old grumpy guys going through the motions.

Oswalt has to be many Astros fans favorite player.  He just is that good and that much fun to watch.  But keeping him for the sake of memories is a mistake for the Astros.  Its time to let him go, let him get an opportunity somewhere else and see how he can help Houston in the process.

The Astros will be able to turn around their losing much faster if they make this move now, then if they wait and do it piecemeal over years.  The risk is, of course, that the pieces aren’t as good as what you are giving away.  That they never become who you think they might.  But that is a risk McLane and Ed Wade should take now instead of waiting until he has nothing to offer.

There is no telling of the Reds would have declined if they had kept Pete Rose.  The money Rose received from the Phillies might have hurt Cincy in other ways had they chosen to spend it.  I know Rose continued to have success after he left.  But holding onto a player can be much worse than letting him go to soon.  And, no matter how much we long for those days when a player stays with one team, we have to recognize that it will take a very special set of circumstances to make that happen.  It isn’t just free agency and the players greed that makes them leave.  Its also the health of the organization- and after all aren’t we really fans of the team?