That's because there are 104,500,000 reason over the next three years. He'll be 37 in the final year of that deal. Zac is not wearing rainbows anytime soon until Arizona send him over with a pot of gold.
Essentially Realmuto for Tucker is ‘A Cruise to Jamaica’or Mystery Bag? I’m going with mystery bag, Chuck. I trust our homegrown talent. Our farm system produces very talented pro’s. Unless our front office knows inside info about Tucker that they see is a glaring problem to his high upside then I keep him and see how good he can be. I see this as Bregman/Chris Sale trade speculation all over again. Kyle can be the next anchor for the next wave of Astros talent like Springer/Altuve were. I think the goal is a cyclical wave of talent to create perpetual contending Astros rosters. We were historically bad for a few years and fortunately got superior talent via drafts and international signings to create the current long-term, contending team. That talent created logjams at multiple positions which afforded the astros flexibility and patience. The 1st wave of talent can’t all be resigned for financial reasons so that frees up the logjam of talent that was hopefully accumulating in the minors. Ideally the hope is that those free agents wind up getting us high compensatory picks which will revamp talent. Bring up new crop of talent, Rinse and repeat without having to tank again. Of course this means our front office would have to be nearly perfect with the drafts and international signings each year which is almost impossible but the hope is at least being a contending playoff team each year and winning one every handful of years. This is possible though because the initial wave of homegrown talent during the rebuild which was nearly spot on with all-star/hall of fame picks. Trades that deplete our system will make this impossible. Trades like Tucker for Realmuto raises the floor now but hurts our ceiling for perpetual contention greatly.
Scouting has changed. Based on what I've seen from transactions, it seems teams are realizing that they know less than they thought they did about ceilings. I do understand that players that are traded and/or are not signed by their own team typically perform worse than projections/$/WAR would suggest. Moncada has hit better than a league average hitting 2B (Altuve can only raise the average so high by himself) and if he keeps this up will tally about 12-13 WAR. Not the generational prospect some scouts touted, but people looking at things like KATOH or his K% understood he was likely more top tier prospect than AROD. That's nearly a fair deal for what was likely expected from Sale. Sale raising it up a notch and being even more fantastic has helped the Red Sox not care. If Kopech learns to hit the broad side of a barn, the White Sox probably won't care that Sale has a ring as they weren't going to be good anyway and weren't getting a better deal. That's not bad considering the deal worked out perfectly for the Red Sox. MLB players aren't perfectly consistent. Sometimes you get Sale, Verlander. Sometimes you get Darvish, Quintana, Sonny Gray.
Question is do the Astros rebuilt with Correa and/or Bregman. If we don’t planning on rebuilding with those 2, I think we should be able to hauls in a Tucker, a Whitley and probably few more pieces that are ready to contribute in the major instantly via trades. We should be able to content again few years after that.
Sometimes, your own players walk from one side of that aisle to the other completely on their own. Not just guys who move to new teams. 2019 Correa could be 2018 Bregman. Or not.
this is how i'm leaning... i understand the want to keep some flexibility for the future, but if you have a legitimate window to win another title and cement yourself as one of the all time great squads, you do that. i'd gladly accept another rebuild in 3-4 years if the preceding years provided another WS appearance or two. it's just way too difficult in baseball to reach that level of sustained success and i prefer we go all in and seize it while we can.
This happens. Players having bad years, aging faster than expected happens more with other teams' players/prospects than one's own though. Astros showing no interest in Keuchel says to me that they think he's going to get paid more than he's worth (or they hope he comes crawling back to them cheaply after failing on open market). Bukauskas being in nearly every trade rumor makes me think he may have something show up in medicals that shows he may not hold up. Nook says Astros think he's a reliever. Either way, other teams likely think less of him than what their eyes, stats tell them.
My view of the potential Realmuto trade: Tucker plus more good prospects is a bad deal. Tucker with throw-ins is ok. Tucker with throw-ins, and Miami including a good low-level prospect coming back, is a good, fair deal. Non-Tucker prospects (provided its not something silly like all 4 of Alvarez, Martin, JBB, and James) is a good deal.
The Astros brass does miss on guys. Fisher/Reed/Davis are guys that it would've been better to trade when their value was at it's highest. You can also put Martes in this group. Also they've still got Alvarez in the system. He's going to be very good, I like his swing from the very limited highlights I've seen. The reason you go for it and trade Tucker is if the Stros are lucky they will have one of Verlander/Cole for more than next yr. It's time to strike while the iron is hot and bring another championship to H-Town
That's easy to say now, but people tend to feel a lot differently and have a lot less patience once the rebuild actually starts - and of course, there's no guarantee it provides a WS appearance or two. The Astros could have traded Bregman for Sale on the same premise a few years ago and maybe they don't ever make a WS, Sale leaves, and the Astros watch Bregman be the MVP for some other team the next few years - pretty sure people would be pissed in that scenario. Tucker is the same - if the Astros still think of him as the "untouchable" guy he was last year, he could help the team win a WS in this window just as much as Realmuto.
Tucker is going to take time to develop. It’s highly unlikely he finds regular playing time on the major league roster.
I wonder if Crane and Luhnow feel they are a little more emboldened than most front offices to do a teardown/rebuild. Maybe they think the fans will have their backs since it worked so well before. Its basically the Astros brand.
Why does everyone assume we will only have two years of Realmuto? He is the best catcher in the game, he is young and a sure thing. Catcher is one of the team leaders, people are underestimating the type of impact he could have on this team. I know Tucker is very young, I was just a little shocked at how bad he looked in his very brief stay in the majors. No idea what the right answer is for the team, just pumped they finally made a move. Brantley brings a lot to this line up.
Yeah, literally just saw that. Wow. Seems like, if you can just muster through 150 innings, you'll make at least 8m per season.
