Maybe it's a contrarian view, but Steve Henson of Yahoo Sports says that the Astros are winners of the Winter Meetings:
For a team that couldn’t work a trade for Rafael Soriano, failed in its effort to re-sign LaTroy Hawkins and lost closer Jose Valverde to free agency, Houston certainly salvaged its bullpen at the winter meetings. First came a trade with the Marlins for 100-mph throwing Matt Lindstrom, with the Astros parting with only three middling minor leaguers. Then came an excessive but refreshingly decisive three-year, $15 million deal for Brandon Lyon. Either acquisition could become the closer, with the other serving as the eighth-inning setup reliever.
The Astros are in a penny-pinching mode, but they still finished business Thursday by signing free-agent third baseman Pedro Feliz to a one-year, $4.5 million deal, returning Geoff Blum where he belongs – in a reserve role.
We didn't come out here to play tiddlywinks, son.
-Hal Smith
