TEMPLE, Texas -- Owning a small private jet comes in handy for Astros owner Drayton McLane, especially when he needs to jettison some of his biggest stars from Houston to his hometown of Temple, Texas.

It's an annual McLane tradition. He and his wife, Elizabeth, host a barbecue for a couple hundred of his favorite central Texas friends and business associates. As a bonus, he recruits a slew of Astros players and executives, who hop on his plane and take the short flight to Temple for a two-hour dinner that includes autograph and interview sessions.

This year the barbecue drew an All-Star cast: Jeff Bagwell, Brad Ausmus, Craig Biggio, Roy Oswalt, general manager Tim Purpura, manager Phil Garner and assistant GM Dave Gottfried.

The crew joined the traveling caravan that is already in the middle of a three-day jaunt through Temple and its outlying areas. That group included Brandon Backe, Luke Scott and Chris Sampson.

Ausmus, Oswalt, Bagwell and Scott will all be honored at Friday's annual baseball awards dinner. Ausmus is the recipient of the Darryl Kile "Good Guy" Award, whereas Bagwell is receiving the Allen H. Russell Award. Oswalt is being recognized as the Astros Pitcher of the Year, and Scott as the Rookie of the Year.

Bagwell, who recently signed a three-year personal-services contract after retiring as a player, is busy these days. Next week he'll work with Minor League prospects at Minute Maid Park as part of a mini-camp recently named the Jeff Bagwell Elite Hitters Camp, which will run in conjunction with the third annual Nolan Ryan Elite Pitchers Camp.

Bagwell also plans to spend quite a bit of time at Spring Training this year. He'll head to Kissimmee, Fla., right around the same time that position players report. He'll be there for a couple of weeks, and plans to return to Florida for the final two weeks or so of the Grapefruit League season.

"I don't have a set schedule yet," Bagwell said. "I'll talk to the Minor League kids and basically do whatever Tim wants me to do. He wants me to get involved with things on the Minor League side, and the big-league side, too. I'm looking forward to just being there around the guys and not having to worry about throwing."

Special award: Ausmus is the fifth recipient of the Darryl Kile Award, named after the former Astros pitcher who died in his sleep in June 2002.

"A part of me is saddened, because he's a friend of mine who I lost in the prime of his life," Ausmus said. "Knowing the type of person he was, it's an honor to receive an award memorialized after him."

The award was intended to capture the spirit of Kile's professionalism and his character as a human being. Those who know Ausmus would certainly agree that he's a worthy recipient of this honor.

"Darryl, win or lose, good, bad or ugly, always answered the questions," Ausmus said. "He never made excuses. He never shied away from blame when things weren't going well. If I had a percentage of those qualities, than it's an honor."

Rotation talk: With two spots in the rotation seemingly up for grabs, Garner is determined to keep his options wide open when evaluating talent this spring.

He figures that left-hander Wandy Rodriguez has a "leg up" on the competition for the fourth spot, but he's willing to give a handful of hopefuls a look for that last starting job. Sampson will receive strong consideration, as will Brian Moehler, Fernando Nieve and Matt Albers.

But the fifth starter spot isn't the only gray area. Garner's on the lookout for the best candidates to serve as long middle relievers, because given the makeup of the rotation, he senses he's going to rely on bullpen endurance more often than in years past.

Oswalt and Jason Jennings can likely be counted on to go deep into games, but the endurance of 40-year-old Woody Williams may be tested over the course of a season. And considering Rodriguez's past control issues, combined with the fact that the fifth starter spot has yet to be issued, it's understandable that Garner may need two- or three-inning efforts from his middle relievers.

"That becomes more critical than the fifth starter, because you're going to use him more times," Garner said. "This guy's liable to get 90 innings, 100 innings. He's going have 70, 60 appearances, the way I'm lookiing at our [starting] staff."

"I think we're going to have an offense that's going to keep us in some games. We don't want games to get out of hand. We want them to be close, so that [long reliever is] going to be absolutely critical. Whoever pitches best in Spring Training might not go to that fifth spot. He may go to that [long relief] slot."