I'm not inclined to fault a team for losing a player in Rule V and, to a lesser extent, in expansion drafts simply because you can't keep everyone.

If I'm not mistaken, the players eligible in the Rule V have to be in the system for a few years - long enough for the ballclub to have done some evaluating. If they haven't progressed to the bigs by then and weren't protected on the 40-man roster, that would imply the club saw them as less than "can't miss" material - or they had other guys in the system they wanted to keep more.

Yes, a few guys have left that we should have tried harder to keep but I keep thinking of the guys we bring in for almost nothing that turn into solid performers - guys like Mike Lamb and Dan Wheeler. No doubt to me that part of what has kept the Astros a consistent winner for over a decade was Hunsicker's ability to pluck nobodies from other teams that may never be stars but have certainly overachieved as an Astro.