It's looking like the front office is willing to eat Sipp's salary if he doesn't have a good spring training.
If they claimed him off waivers, would they have to assume responsibility to pay him under his existing contract with the Astros? If he is not pitching well, I wonder if anyone would be willing to spend that kind of money on him. Could the Astros just release him outright, at which point he could either sit at home watching TV or go work for another club under a new contract, maybe play abroad, etc.? I presume the Astros are still on the hook for the agreed third-year salary regardless of whether they use him.
The most likely outcome if Houston decides to get rid of Sipp is to trade him and eat most of his salary. No team would take on all $6M of his contract but I’m sure there are several teams out there who would want him if he only cost $1-2M. However, unless he is traded before the season, there will be enough scouting of him this spring that he will be either stick with the Astros or be worth nothing.
I really would be shocked if someone claimed him off waivers. The Astros would love to lose that financial obligation.
I give Sipp 50% odds of pitching well enough to make the Opening Day roster. He has a lot riding on this year's performance in terms of his future MLB employability. If he were a single guy he might think about going and playing in Korea/Japan for a while but he's got 3 kids at home, including an infant, so moving the whole family abroad, enrolling older ones in international schools, etc. would be a big headache. Maybe he is just physically incapable of pitching well, but I doubt it, his falling velocity notwithstanding. He cut way down on his FB usage last year -- perhaps there was pressure from Strom/Hinch to do so -- but it didn't work well for him. A big part of his problem seemed to be that hitters have gotten very good at hitting pitches in the lower part of the strike zone, especially the down & in stuff. If he starts integrating more letters-high FBs, I think he will do a better job of keeping guys off guard and generating whiffs. The competition from Gose/Guduan/Boshers should help light a spark for Tony.
We've outgrown Sipp. On a team starving for postseason relief pitching, on a steam starving for a lefty reliever, he didn't even get a sniff in the postseason. So help us we have tried. Two regular seasons have come and gone since he was effective. At some point you just say no, and god bless you, we need a fresh start, and you need a fresh start. There is nothing to roll the dice on here. Better off running someone out there who we can learn to trust, than someone who we know we can't.
That is scary, but not in a good way. Sure, some prospects will pan out. A few will even flourish. But counting on all of our top (current) prospects to fill out the rotation is beyond optimistic. I am not even sold yet that Lance can be consistent enough to hold on to a starting role, much less be our #1 TOR guy. On the other hand, I dont think our current FO will let us fall off a cliff. 3 years and beyond just has too many variables for me to feel secure with any kind of prediction.
That has always been my bigger concern with our future beyond 2018. The addition of Cole alleviated my 2019 concerns for the most part, but it gets particularly barren in the way of proven arms beyond that. We desperately need one of our young arms to become a true front line pitcher, and hopefully another can become a solid guy. If that happens, I imagine Luhnow can just cobble rotations together year to year using trades and shrewd FA pickups to make it work. If we haven't developed an ace pitcher in house over the next 2 years, something is gonna have to give when it comes to paying for front line pitching. I know nobody wants to do it because pitching is a particularly dangerous thing to pay for, but even this star studded lineup can't win with a mediocre staff.
The only thing that makes me feel better is every other club has this same uncertainty. You see the guys your counting on now going elsewhere or regressing. Maybe I am wrong, but nobody has 3 TOR prospects just waiting around.
Yeah, except the Yankees, Dodgers, Red Sox and Cubs typically don't just let their big guns walk, they can afford some f**k ups. We're walking with giants now, so Luhnow is gonna have to do some work.
Two things that will definitely have a bearing on our future that Luhnow has no control over: 1) 2022 Collective Bargaining Agreement (current one lasts through 2021) --This could level the playing field some, or not. (i.e. salary cap) 2) Players desire to stay (and possibly take pay cuts to do so) --How our key guys feel when the time comes could very well determine whether we keep them.
We don’t know what their strategy will be in 3 years. For all we know the Astros trade off their pieces and rebuild. For as talented as we were last year; we barely won the World Series. My point being even a slight dip in talent/production can be the difference between winning a World Series and losing the wild card. There is no way to know what happens. I will say that the Astros will likely be able to add a mid level guy that fills a rotation spot. Also the Astros are loaded with high end (low floor) prospects that could or could not pan out. I agree with your premise that it isn’t as simple as plugging the next wave of pitching prospects in the rotation and go to war. Injuries, poor performance and off the field issues all play a part.
Three years ago, what would the rotation have looked like for this year? Verlander and Cole were probably not on it. I give no stock in what anything may look like down the road. No sense worrying about it.
I'm guessing Astros will continue their strategy of having a lot of position players on cost controlled and/or on team-friendly extensions. They'll continue to try to avoid bad long-term contracts. Pitching will come and go, but hitting should make them competitive most years if they can maintain a strong base of cheap position players. Despite amassing an amazing roster on paper, Astros still appear to be the AL West team with the best outlook 4-5 years from now. Here's to hoping Tucker can add to Bregman and Correa to form a nice core for 2021 and 2022.
If Carlos Hernandez were coming up now, we wouldn’t have to worry about him tearing his rotator cuff on the base paths!
