During this past off-season, the Houston Astros failed to make the necessary moves to get their team to the next level, which has left fans in the Lone Star State scratching their heads.

After seeing the Astros unveil their offer to outfielder Lance Berkman for a six-year deal worth between $85 and $98 million , a few things come to mind.

Why are the Astros risking this kind of money on a player who is currently sidelined with the worst injury in professional sports -- an ACL tear in his knee?

Berkman will not even be ready for the opener and could actually miss more than a month in the first part of the season. Then, expecting him to return to superstar form while he is trying to break off the rust could be unrealistic.

Also, coming off of the ACL tear raises some questions. Most players in every major sport can never reach their previous level of play once they have suffered an injury of this magnitude.

This is especially true for a power hitter like Berkman, who relies on the power from his legs to help drive the ball. He could have some trouble coming from the injured knee that will prevent him from doing so.

Although Berkman has been a great player for the Astros, he maybe is not even worth the money while playing at a level of 100%. So, why would you risk a long-term deal to a guy who is not even able to play right now?

If you put the Berkman move together with the Roger Clemens one-year deal worth $18 million that was also signed during this past off-season, you get roughly seven years worth of players for $103 to $116 million.

This would have been more than enough money to keep Carlos Beltran around for the Astros. Beltran signed a similar deal with the New York Mets this off-season, leaving the Astros in his dust.

However, the Astros are going with an aging Clemens, who could possibly break down at any point this season, and Berkman, who will miss part of this year and is no where near Beltran?s level.

The Astros also let free agent SP Wade Miller go this off season. He ended up signing a one-year deal with the Boston Red Sox, worth between $1.5 and $4 million dollars.

Miller was a solid SP for the Astros, averaging at least 13 wins for them over the past four seasons. He also was much younger than the 40-plus-year-old Clemens at only 29 years of age.

The Astros could have let Clemens go, either into retirement or become a free agent, and then given Miller a secure three-year deal worth about $5 to $6 million, which he would have gladly accepted.

This then would have left about $12 million saved from the Clemens deal to be used as extra money for what could have been a potential Beltran contract. This would have afforded the Astros enough money to most likely out bid the Mets and keep Beltran in town along with SP Miller.

Then they could have worried about Berkman?s deal after the season, which is when it will expire, after seeing how well he rebounds from his ACL injury.

So they could have had Beltran and Miller for the long term, and would have been able to wait out the questionable Berkman.

The Astros could have locked up Beltran, who is developing into what many believe could be the best player in the MLB in a few years, and is already an all-star.

Also, if you consider that Miller would have joined a healthy Andy Petite and fire-baller Roy Oswalt in the rotation this year, it could have been easy to have survived without a Clemens in Houston.

With that starting rotation, and what could have been a long term deal with Beltran, the Astros would have been setting themselves up with a five-year window in which they could have made a serious run at the World Series.

Instead, they are an aging team that will no longer get the type of production that they once got out of players such as Craig Biggio and Jeff Bagwell.

Clemens will only serve as a 40-plus-year-old-one-year fix, while Berkman will join the team well into the season and try to rebound from a major injury.

It truly was the off season of "Would of?could of?should of?" for Houston in my opinion, and this will most likely leave this team short of a World Series for at least the next five years.