ARI is such a weird team. MadBum signing makes no sense. Are they in win-now mode? Is MadBum kind of an investment to help establish their young arms? They’re an interesting fit for Correa as well, especially if they’re trying to compete with LAD et al. Ray and Bradley are nice pieces, but I’d personally love to add Ketel Marte. Teheran deal is 1y/9m. Pretty reasonable for a pitcher that’s gone 170ip the last 7 seasons. Kinda wish the Astros would’ve inked him to the same deal.
Clevinger is on the market. Would take a heavy haul for Indians to part with him. Only 29 with three years of club control and a bargain projection of 4.5 mil in arbitration this season. 2.96 era 10.3 k/9 3.3 BB/9 0.9 hr/9 and a 40.6 ground ball rate over the last three seasons in 477 2/3 innings
If Kenta Maeda and Austin Barnes are headlining the return for a player with MVP-caliber talent and two years of control remaining, you aren’t getting enough back. Either you get an elite prospect or two back, a comparable MLB talent, or you keep Carlos Correa. I’d rather take the gamble that Correa can stay healthy for an entire season than trade him for that package.
If I were the Astros, I’d make a strong offer for Clevinger. He’s an ideal Cole replacement, with three years of club control.
It is hard to figure them out. Looking at their roster, there’s really no way they can compete for a wild card this season, much less their division. And they have a good farm, but it’s not like there are multiple near-ready prospects who profile to be stars. As it stands they have one star player (Marte) and a handful of complementary players; their rotation is solid, but doesn’t have a starter who anyone should expect to be in a Cy Young race. Their bullpen is good but not a place to build a contender around. I guess maybe they signed MadBum expecting to contend in the last 2 years of his deal. But it’s really hard to see a path for them. Like a lot of teams (Rockies, Pirates, Cardinals, etc) they are stuck in the middle.
With Gonzalez and Perez off the board, there are now only 8 free agent SP who project for >1 fWAR next season: Ryu Keuchel Bailey Wood Hill Nova Chacin Erlin Further down the list, Walker, Cashner, Nelson, Harvey, Miller, and Salazar represent upside plays. It is also worth noting that James Shields threw 200 innings last season. Slim pickings beyond Ryu and Keuchel.
It is hard to improve on what Astros did last year with salaries increasing. The Astros spent the money from this offseason at the trade deadline when the Astros acquired Greinke. If the Astros want to spend significantly this offseason, they will likely need to make trades to save money. That said, I'm hoping for a Springer extension (shouldn't affect 2020 budget much), Maldonado to sign, and a starter miracle. Maybe Strom could wave his arms over Jimmy Nelson and he's back to being a healthy ace (though he may be just a reliever at this point).
Why does improvement need to be dependent on what they do in the winter? The offense still has plenty of room to improve and grow. If Springer didn't get injured in May we probably would have won a few more games. Same for Correa and his freak rib injury. Bregman will undoubtedly play with a chip on his shoulder after coming in 2nd in MVP voting and I'm banking on a historic season from him next year. Sure on the pitching side we're going to see the rotation falling back down to earth a bit but unless JV and Greinke completely falls off the map, they will keep us in games. This isn't even including Yordan being a part of the team to start next season, Whitley and Tucker having one more year of prep work under their belts, getting McCullers back, etc. It's human nature to tie winter signings to whether or not a team has improved because we want a shiny new toy/FA to play with but I don't recall a Luhnow-ran Astros team that came out of winter meetings with big signings and I think we've been doing okay to put it mildly.
Astros are trying to manage what they have. We’ve known that keeping this group together as long as possible will take a lot of creativity and luck... There was a big sting with Cole leaving via FA. But at the same time we didn’t have another allStar in McCullers all of last season. If McCullers puts it all together, he’s got Cy Young potential too... Lers keep fingers crossed that McCullers can stay healthy. Marisnick was one of my favorite Astros, but even I knew that moving him was becoming inevitable. Straw can give you a defensive OF replacement in the late innings, he can play IF, is an excellent base runner. Plus Straw has shown his offensive arsenal is promising. Also, if Kyle Tucker takes over RF, Reddick will be a super luxurious defensive Backup OF late innings replacement. Most of the guys are coming back for one more run. But geesh, after next year this team will look vastly different. Brantley Springer Tucker Bregman Correa Altuve Gurriel Alvarez Verlander Greinke McCullers Osuna Presley Smith There is still a lot of star power for this upcoming year. And they can stand toe to toe with anyone. It’s baseball, the Astros had the best team in baseball last season but ran against a red hot Nationals team I. The World Series. But Astros should put up a quality product, maybe not as big a favorite, but they are still really good for next year, at the very least.
You didn't mention Mr. Astro. Once Jose got comfortable from the recovery he was smashing the baseball again. Altuve's second half was .325BA .372OBA with a crushing .995OPS. I look for Altuve to return to MVP conversation.
I’d like to say I left Jose out to prove your point but I can’t lol. You’re 100% right, Altuve has room to regain his prime production. This is why I don’t understand the reaction that since we didn’t throw obscene money around during the winter meetings that somehow we can’t improve. We don’t need to be touted as Winners now or be anointed as WS favorites.
Houston will surely be among the 3-4 best teams in the league this season and next. They currently project for ~105 wins with a payroll of $207M for 2020, with a slightly lower ~100 win projection for 2021, but with a payroll only $161M. It’s starting in 2022 when things get dicier: Year Projected wins/Projected payroll: 2022 90 wins, $80M 2023 90 wins, $110M 2024 90 wins, $140M Those projections assume younger players (Alvarez, Tucker, Toro, Whitley, Urquidy, Abreu) continue to emerge/improve. But for now, as long as Houston is reasonably successful at developing their prospects and signing productive free agents for fair value (and is able to sustain a high payroll), they should be able to continue to be in the playoffs for at least the next 5 seasons.
