Do you think the Astros should bid aggressively on a player like Masahiro Tanaka?

I don't see the Astros getting into a bidding war with the Yankees, Dodgers, Red Sox and Rangers over Masahiro Tanaka.

 

With no signaficant can't miss prospect in 2015 mlb draft and the draft class looking real weak I hope the Astros sign a few free agents who are good. Slogan for 2014 it is time to WIN big. With Springer's leadership and amazing talent Astros will win much more games next season.

 

Safe to say Crane and co. won't risk $80MM+ on him. It sure would be fun though.

 

His stats are as good as it gets. Too much money on one player who hasn't proven himself in the Majors is a big risk.

 

Definitely not with CSN issue still not taken care of.

 

One of the benefits of having no payroll, and likely not a huge payroll the next several years, is the opportunity to bid on guys like this. I have no idea if we will, and I think amount you end up paying per year gets to be a bit ridiculous when you add in the posting fee, the Astros do have the luxury to do this if they wanted to.

 

well, he'd certainly help the team, that's for sure.

My guess is that Crane will save the money, though, until we are closer to competing. No reason to except for saving money, because next year we should be out of tanking mode and Tanaka is still young and could be part of the future.

Appel
Rodon
Tanaka
Cosart
McCullers

*tingle down leg*

 

At only 24 he's the type of free agent that actually might make sense for a club a few years out. But including posting fees, I'd guess it will cost north of $100 million to get a deal done. I think it's unlikely particularly with CSN still up in the air. Maybe if they can sign carrier deals before the nba season?

 

Organization already said they will be more like the Rays and A's until CSN is resolved.

Frankly, I would hope there is more that separates our market from theirs other than the TV deal, but that's how they want to play it.

 

This is definitely something to consider. I'll preface this by saying that there is probably a 0% chance that any of this will happen in real life, but it doesn't take away the fact that I still believe that it would work out in theory and in our favor if we made a bold move like below. I think this would be a high-risk, high-reward play that would be a defining moment for this franchise, and for its foreseeable future. The Angels are the poster child of the league, and prove what most of us should already know: that pitching wins championships. Heck, the Giants should have proven that the last few years. As already listed, we already have a ton of great pitching talent in the minors. Unfortunately, as much as I like a lot of those prospects, history tells us most will fail. Hopefully that is not the case, but I'm just trying to be realistic. So why not add a potential ace to the club. I would even go a little crazy and say we pay Kershaw something crazy like a 10 year, $250M deal (I'd even go up to $300M if necessary - and we'd probably need to overpay to get him to sign on). It is no doubt an overpay, but to get the best pitcher in the league to anchor your rotation for the next 6-8 years would be huge. He'd also serve as a perfect mentor to our young guns. A rotation of Kershaw, Appel, Rodon, Cosart, and McCullers should make us contenders even with a below-average offense. Throw in the fact that our offense will consist of players like Correa, Springer, Castro, and Singleton, and it's not really that crazy to really dream on our roster in 2-3 years. I know that the Dodgers aren't going to be dumb to let Kershaw hit the open market, but stranger things have happened (maybe that leaked contract has left a real bad taste of their front office in his mouth).

I'd feel the same about Tanaka, but the risk (less $$$ involved) and reward (kid almost can't be as great as Kershaw) would be less. If we go bold, I'd prefer to go real bold.

 

Seeing that number 2 starter puts the Astros over the top. I bet Rodon will be up in the majors by June 2015...

 

No really good players get to free agency. When they do, they cost way more than whatever you will have to pay this guy. Also, they are typically on the backside of 30 by the time they are free agents, so you are paying them for what they have done and not so much on what they will do. You also lose a draft pick when you get a traditional free agent of that caliber.

Getting a guy like this absolutely makes sense. I highly doubt they do it, but it makes total sense for us. You are talking about signing him and it brings our payroll up to, what, $28 million maybe? C'mon man. You have the flexibility now to make just this type of signing. If not, why did we trim all that payroll. It has to be assumed that eventually you are going to head north of $50 million again on the payroll.

Do you want a guy with #1 or #2 upside or do you want to go and get some Matt Garza-type old, overpriced guy.

 

I'll tell you one team that's going to bid on him, the freaking Rangers. Unfortunately I think our club is too far away from contention to bid on a guy like him but it sure would be nice to have an ace pitcher to fill in after on the staff.