As someone who went to Rice and came back to live in Houston after my time in the Navy, I have always regretted the talent that the Astros traded away in the late 1960s. They could have had a lineup of:

Cesar Cedeno, cf
Joe Morgan, 2b
Jim Wynn, lf
Rusty Staub, rf
John Mayberry/Bob Watson, 1b
Doug Rader, 3b
Denis Menke/Roger Metzger, ss
Jerry Grote, c
Bench--John Bateman, Sandy Alomar Sr., Cesar Geronimo
Starting pitchers--Larry Dierker, Don Wilson, Mike Cuellar, Ken Forsch
Closer--Dave Giusti

And when Gussie Busch got mad and unloaded a bunch of Cardinals that he considered malcontents, they picked up Jerry Reuss cheap for a couple of years before trading him. What would have been more amazing would have been had they picked up a couple of the others--Tim McCarver (actually traded to Philadelphia for Bateman) and Steve Carlton. Add those three to that team and the 70s would have been the decade of the Big Orange Machine.