RK: Were you surprised when the Astros signed Carlos Pena this offseason? Do you think he can give the Astros any sort of production in 2013? Thinking about the signing, I think it may end up having a lot more benefits in terms of Pena’s clubhouse presence and example to the young guys than Pena’s stats. Do you like the move overall?

GT: I was a bit surprised by the Pena signing, especially with the surplus of 1B/DH candidates already on the roster. But you hit the nail on the head talking about his leadership qualities. I fell in love with Pena’s attitude at his introductory press conference. He seems like a guy that can pay tremendous dividends in the clubhouse with this young team. Whether or not he can get his batting average back to a respectable level remains to be seen, but he walks enough to maintain a decent OBP. Hopefully he can resurrect some power as well. Overall, I like the move.

RK: The Astros and Rays are on opposite edges of the spectrum right now, with the Astros in the midst of what could be a lengthy rebuilding process while the Rays have been reaping the benefits of theirs for years. As an Astros fan, do you look at teams like the Rays as hope that the major league nightmare the Astros are about to go through will be worth it in the end?

GT: I think teams like the Rays definitely provide hope for Astros fans to cling to. Our farm system has already been significantly upgraded and this year’s high draft position should result in another influx of talent. Things on the field have been ugly for a couple of years now and the league change help make this season even worse. But there is light at the end of the tunnel and I am optimistic that things will start getting better soon.

RK:  What has been your overall opinion of GM Jeff Lunhow running this whole process? Did it tick you off when Houston native Andrew Friedman turned the Astros down?

GT: I was definitely hoping that Friedman would take the job, but I am extremely pleased with what Luhnow is doing. Obviously the results have yet to be seen at the big league level, but the Astros minor league system went from the worst overall winning percentage in baseball in 2011 to the best in 2012. The former regime had been pinching pennies in the areas of the draft and player development for years. For Luhnow to right the ship in such short order says a lot. Drafting Carlos Correa at 1:1 and still having enough money to sign a couple of players that other teams passed on due to signability issues was a stroke of genius.

RK: Do you look at Ben Zobrist and lament what could have been if not for the Aubrey Huff trade? Rays fans call that the best trade Friedman ever pulled off–what do Astros fans think of it?

GT: Aubrey Freakin’ Huff. That definitely turned out to be a terrible trade for Houston. At the time, it didn’t seem so bad. Zobrist had put up decent enough numbers in the minors, but he was always playing below his age level. I guess you never know if a guy is going to turn into a late bloomer, as was the case with Ben.

RK: Any thoughts on David Price’s dog being named Astro?

GT: Maybe he’s a fan of The Jetsons?

RK: He is indeed. But do you feel any honor at all that David Price’s dog shares a name with your team?

GT: No, not really.

“But I think emulating exactly the way they do things isn’t really what you want to do. You want to find the next advancement and to be ahead of the curve yourself. But the amount of success they’ve had is incredibly enviable. And I think any organization would strive to emulate that level of success. But I think it’s dangerous for someone who doesn’t know exactly how they’re doing things to say, ‘We need to copy the Rays’ strategy.’ I think developing your own strategy and developing your own philosophy is really the best way to go about it.”

The message is simple: while the Astros would love to go on a Rays-esque run beginning in a few years, what worked for the Rays the past several years may not be what will work for Houston now. Whenever a team finds an advantage in baseball, they can ride for a few years- but then everyone else catches up and they have to innovate again. For example, we’ve seen teams copy the Rays’ previously much-maligned policy of signing players to a team-friendly extensions very early on in their careers, with a couple examples being the Royals’ extension of Salvador Perez for 5 years and just 7 million dollars and the Brewers’ extension of Jonathan Lucroy for 4 years and 11 million dollars. As they hope to contend, the Astros’ aren’t going to copy the Rays’ gameplan of stockpiling as many young starting pitchers as possible and then signing as many as they can to extension while trading any extraneous ones to fill needs- they’re not the same team as the Rays are going to find a solution that works perfectly for them.

It isn’t just the last-place teams that need to come up with their own solutions- the Rays have to find a way to stay ahead of the curve themselves or they’ll be in trouble. They have enough monetary disadvantages that they have to compensate in every other aspect of their ballclub to have any hope of keeping this run going. And over the past year, they’ve changed up several aspects of their team in an attempt to do just that. In this past year’s draft, they selected a college player, Richie Shaffer, with their first round draft pick for the first time since 2007, recognizing that their strategy of selecting high school players early has not yielded desired results. They’ve traded pitchers like Scott Kazmir and Matt Garza in the past- but this offseason they traded two MLB starting pitchers in one deal for the first time in an effort to yield the type of prospects that they need to keep their future looking bright, with Wil Myers right at the forefront of that. With both Shaffer and Myers, the Rays are acknowledging that while pitching will always reign supreme in their minds, they have to refurbish their supply of core position players to score enough runs to give themselves a chance. They’ve been signing high-upside bullpen arms for a long time- but this offseason they signed a starting pitcher, Roberto Hernandez, to a similar type of deal, realizing that while they’ve avoided free agent starters in the past, the reward for a good bargain could be even more significant. And while their money may not go very far on the free agent market, they decided to go all-in on the international free agent market, incurring penalties from major league baseball from going far over the 2.9 million dollar maximum but coming away with a massive haul of talent in the process. Whether all these changes to their team will have the desired effect remains to be seen. But realize that the Rays are never going to sit back and just ride on the coattails of their previous success. They know that what they have done up until now has been improbable, and they have every intention of seizing all the opportunities they can get to make this five-year run of success turn into something a whole lot longer.

Francisco played decently for the Rays in September, posting a .228/.270/.421 line (91 OPS+) with 5 doubles, 2 homers, and 8 RBI in 24 games. He received some starts in right field in place of Matthew Joyce and at least offensively he was better as Joyce managed just a .187/.291/.360 line. But was it such a good thing that Francisco was playing over Joyce? Both Baseball-Reference and Fangraphs have Francisco’s contribution to the Rays as slightly negative, -0.1 and -0.2 wins above replacement respectively. Francisco was halfway-decent offensively, but whatever he provided he essentially gave back with his defense. And although Joyce was probably worse, you never know whether he could have finally hit his stride if he was given the starts that Francisco took from him. There’s basically no good way to spin Francisco’s time with the Rays. He gave them nothing.

The cost of the Rays taking a shot with Francisco was Geith, 23, the Rays’ 39th round pick in 2011. Geith, a 6’5″, 175 lefty, was unequivocally great this season, going 0-3 with a 2.98 ERA, an 8.1 K/9, a 1.8 BB/9, and a 0.3 HR/9 in 31 relief appearances. Minor League Central also had his groundball rate at a robust 48.0%. Why would the Rays get rid of someone like that? The obvious answer is pure stuff, which isn’t too special. Geith appears to have projection remaining, but right now his fastball is just in the high-80′s. He does get a solid downward plane on it and commands it decently, but it’s nothing much. Geith’s best offering is his low-80′s slider, which features sharp, tight break and forced quite a few swings-and-misses this season. However, Geith’s poor fastball forces him to throw it so often and more advanced hitters will be able to recognize more easily and lay off, putting Geith in a bind. He also throws a changeup, but that hasn’t made much progress. Worst-case scenario, Geith becomes a situational lefty someday.

This isn’t a case where the Rays foolishly gave up a pitcher throwing in the mid-90′s for a month of a backup outfielder. Geith has just modest potential and the Rays were willing to risk that in exchange for a player they thought could help them make the playoffs. It didn’t work out, but the cost here certainly was not that high. The Rays lost this trade, but they had the right idea, trading an unimpressive prospect for a player in Francisco who had shown some ability in the past, slamming 15 homers in 2008 and 2009, and the Rays hoped he would be electrified by the thought of going from the last place team in baseball in the Astros to a contender, the Rays. In the end, the Rays lost this trade. But when you take enough calculated risks, some will work out, and maybe the next trade like this the Rays make will make a positive impact in the Rays’ performance and help them secure a playoff berth this coming season. Just because this trade looks bad now doesn’t mean it wasn’t the right move at the time. When Andrew Friedman sees another opportunity for a low-risk gamble, he’ll take it knowing that next time might turn it better.