Projecting Astros '15 Roster - Advocating FA/Trade

Stacked how?

Pablo Sandoval is no monster, he just had a great postseason. Ortiz is getting old, and Pedroia is coming off his worst season. With Napoli and Ramirez it should be a good lineup, but it's hardly the 27 Yankees.

 

Thinking towards '15 and got to ponderin'...

Would you rather have the following rotation moving forward or the pieces that we got in return:

Dallas Kuechel
Collin McHugh
Scott Feldman
Bud Norris*
Jarred Cosart*

OR

Josh Hader (our #10 prospect and live lefty)
DJ Fisher (our best pick of the draft last year due to picks unsigned) - comp pick
LJ Hoes
Colin Moran (#7 prospect in our system at third which is a spot ahead of Rio Ruiz)
Jake Marisnick (a likely starter next year and could be of great value in CF next year)
Comp pick '15 - really hoping we sign someone worthy of losing this for competitive sake

To me, I am glad we made the trades and really think that Moran and Hader will make it look good, I just wonder if this rotation would be appealing enough in '15 with say a left field addition and bullpen help to make us reconsider.

 

While I would consider a trade:

Craig was terrible last season and is owed a good deal of money
Bradley has been terrible
Middlebrooks has been terrible

 

@BAnderson_30: Remember when the Astros and Lucas Harrell thought he'd survive in MLB...that was funny.

lol thought I'd share this

 

I would have kept Cosart and gone hard after Sandoval or Ramirez. Moran/Ruiz still big unknowns... and Correa is a "relative" unknown, but will get every single opportunity to stick at SS.

Chances are, at least 1 infield position will have to come from "outside" the organization... or be an established big leaguer... for this team to compete.

 

If his account wasn't hacked, guy sounds like a total douche.

 

So you're telling me Brett Anderson won't be signing in Houston?

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Remember when the Astros and Lucas Harrell thought he'd survive in MLB...that was funny.</p>&mdash; Brett Anderson (@BAnderson_30) <a href="https://twitter.com/BAnderson_30/status/537390738930417664">November 25, 2014</a></blockquote>
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p><a href="https://twitter.com/BAnderson_30">@BAnderson_30</a> happy thanksgiving. God bless you and your family.</p>&mdash; Lucas Harrell (@LucasHarrell34) <a href="https://twitter.com/LucasHarrell34/status/537394826497753088">November 25, 2014</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

 

That is pretty funny.

 

After looking at Brett Anderson's twitter, I think I'd avoid signing him.

 

tweets deleted i guess. too bad, wanted to troll his mlb career in reply to it

 

Wow, that was pretty unnecessary and mean-spirited. But I guess that just about summarizes Twitter to begin with. I know Harrell probably rubbed most people the wrong way, fans and myself included, but the guy is struggling to chase his dream, and play professional baseball for a living while providing for his family. Way to kick a guy while he's down.

 

This. Somebody in his life hopefully set him straight, leading to the deletion of those tweets.

 

Brett Anderson hasn't been able to stay healthy the last 2 years (~40 innings each year) and he has the gall to rag on Harrell?

 

That's actually a tough question. There's a lot of talent and upside among the prospects we got but none of them are can't miss prospects. Most of them won't reach the majors, much less make an impact, until late 2015 or later. Even moreso, most of them are really just depth and lottery tickets. We had a starting caliber 3B prospect (Ruiz) and high upside OF prospect (Santana). We didn't have a glaring need to make those trades.

Nearly 3 years into the rebuild, can it be said that those trades made the 2015 or 2016 Astros stronger? There's a better than decent chance that Norris and Cosart are worth more WAR combined over the next 2-3 years than that group.

I was happy with those trades but I'm fairly certain they set the Astros back in their goal of returning to relevancy.

 

Make it 3 years...the guy was only able to pitch 35 innings in 2012.

What a joke of a character, you gotta be kidding me.

 

And it appears you can make that 4 years after only 88 innings in 2011 due to Tommy John surgery.

 

Josh Donaldson traded, OMFG if that's all it took to get him it is inexcusable that we didn't.

 

Dont know anything about Graveman and Nolin, but Barreto was Jays #5 prospect per BA. Also gave up Lawrie...

Not a bad price at all. OAK looks to have gotten rigged on this deal, I guess we'll wait and see. Would've loved to get him in blue and orange though.

 

MLB Pipeline has Barreto at 8, Nolin at 12...wonder what the asking price was for Houston, or if we even tried to get Donaldson...

 

My guess is with Lawrie still being only 24, they probably valued him pretty highly in the deal. While we have two pretty good 3B prospects, we didn't have an MLB ready 3B with upside and the ability to step in right now and contribute, to send them. While they are dumping salary here, i'm sure their thinking when it comes to 2015 is to compete