wasn't hindsight for me bud, sorry. said it at the end of last season many times. and they didn't "go with the prospects". they went into the spring with no plan at first. reed obviously was not going to be in the bigs until the super 2 deadline. and white only made the opening day roster because he lit up spring. again, they went into the spring with nothing but marwin gonzalez and i guess matt duffy as the only real options to break camp with the big league club. that's a team looking to build on last season and contend for a world series title, mind you. meanwhile, carter could have bridged the gap/been an insurance policy for both of them at an absolute bargain (not that money should have been much of an issue for this team in the position they were in). he just hit 41 homers for $3MM. absolute front office stupidity.
Even with Carter's HR totals this year... he ended up with a WAR of 0.9. That still isn't worth his expected $6 million salary had he been kept (remember, the Astros would have been on the hook for the salary arbitration number... not his non-tendered free agent number). It is hindsight to suggest that Reed and/or Gonzalez/White would have put up a worse WAR than Carter ended up doing going into this year.
I should do planks instead, but I'll play along. Are you saying they would have performed exactly the same with Houston as they did with the Brewers? Because we know players perform exactly the same in another environment (** cough ** Gomez ** cough **)They would have faced an entirely different schedule. Grossman WAR 0.3 - Rasmus 2.2 Carter WAR 0.9 - Gonzalez 1.2 Villar over Correa at SS? There is no way you can guarantee how the Astros would have fared with those players. They may have won 100 games, they may have won 70.
While you absolutely did argue to bring Carter back, two quick points... 1) Carter had an outstanding year that exceeded even modestly positive expectations for him. After posting a .307 OB% these past two years, it rose to .321 this year, which, at 29, is his career high (for a full season); 2) Carter also led the NL in strikeouts - so while few of us would probably turn down his '16 season... I'm not sure adding *another* bat that routinely strikes out (206 this year) makes the '16 Astros appreciably better. That's kind of their problem. Carter hit .170/.751 and whiffed 60 times in 191 PA with RISP. I would guess that's why he "only" drove in 94. And before someone says, "Well, yeah - he played for Milwaukee!" he had Villar (.369), Lucroy (.359) and Braun (.365) hitting in front of him most nights for more than half the season. I respected the **** of Carter's finish last year; I really did. It showed incredible maturity. And I have no ill will toward him at all. But they *had* to cut bait with him. I think you ultimately nailed it, though: the issue wasn't cutting him so much as it was lazily not having a plan B.
Agree in general. Semantically, I'd replace "lazily" with something harsher, and to have a Plan B, that implies you had a more optimal Plan A. Punting the position/waiting for 2 months into the season in hopes that Reed would replicate his minor league numbers at the major league level immediately with no insurance was their plan. The FO has now completely botched 1st base for the past 2 seasons. Since AJ Reed unfortunately showed nothing so far, it will be interesting to see what they do there this offseason.
What kind of, sort of worries me about the Astros' FO... they too often - at least on the surface - don't seem terribly far removed from how a fan thinks... I've railed their offseason previously for being rooted too deeply in small sample size emotion (which is *very* fan-like) - but I fear they looked at what truly was a terrible season from Carter and thought - like a fan - that almost anything would be better so... Luhnow is in uncharted territory, and I want to give him room here to figure things out. If they act with greater urgency this offseason, I'll feel like lesson learned and be happier.
i don't know...don't forget the part where just about all of us (myself included) probably would've cut him way earlier in the season last year when he was putrid, and they didn't, for what many hypothesized was to attempt to salvage some sort of return in a trade for him. then when he actually performs in the latter part of the season, they didn't consider bringing him back. not much rhyme or reason there. not that what i think of luhnow and company matters, but i've been a huge supporter up until last season, and all the remaining goodwill he's built up in my mind hinges on what they do this offseason. it's the most important offseason for any houston team that i can remember.
It wasn't that crazy to replace Carter... and his would have been > than $5 million dollar salary... with somebody who performed at a replacement level. What they failed at, thus far, was their assessment of what White/Reed could realistically bring to the table. Based on their development going into the season, expectations of at least replacement level production were valid. If anything, they have a ton of (too much?) faith/confidence in their system/process that has yet to really distinguish itself from other team's systems, or past astros systems, in terms of graduating a consistent crop of players that meet/exceed their minor league expectations rather quickly. And for every Reed/White... there's been an LMJ/Musgrove.... so not ready to completely throw the farm system out with the bathwater.
