Carlos Gomez - Are we concerned?

I love how all the turds that attacked me last year for hating on Gomez are quiet as freaking crickets. Dude has been garbage for his entire tenure as an Astro. He's batting .215 with a .588 OPS, 4 home runs, and 18 RBIs in 75 games with the Astros.

Quite possibly the worst trade in Astros history, and Fiers does not magically make it a good trade when he's the exact same quality of pitcher that this team is loaded with. Feldman, Fiers, Fister, McHugh. None are anything more than a#3, and really better served as #4 or #5 pitchers.

Unbelievable how terrible Luhnow's trades have been.

 

Originally I was against the trade for Gomez as well (because I liked Phillips). But the trade is FAR from the worst trade in Astros history. At least today.

Lets remember.. Fiers through a no-hitter and was a pleasant and plus starting pitcher for us last year, and Gomez did help us beat the Yankees to get to the Yankees in the Wild Card game.

I still do believe this trade will NOT work in the Astros favor, but for this trade to be the "worst ever" .. Domingo Santana and/or Brett Phillips are going to have to show a lot more than they have.

 

Exaggerating a little, but this has to rank somewhere in the top 5. Santana, and or Phillips, would have to become stars to approach the awfulness of the Curt Schilling or Kenny Lofton trades. But when one team vetoed the trade, why in the world did we trump their offer? Arguably what we gave up was valued more highly as a package across the league than what the Mets were offering. We looked like kids in a damn candy store losing our **** the moment we saw something, anything, instead of waiting for the guy that has already hit 29 homers and has a near .290 average for his team (Cespedes).

 

I'm with you that Luhnow needs to start getting more cents on the dollar. I believe part of the problem was that we had so much talent that we could not possibly adequate analyze who would be a real ball player versus a AAAA player versus a player who could never capitalize on talent.

I'm not giving excuses for Luhnow or the organization. The team needs to do a better job evaluating talent. As of now, all they have show is the ability to acquire a bunch of young talent. That was the system and structure.

Is it more positional coaching that is holding these players back? Thats not Luhnow.

 

I think Correa, Springer, Tyler White, A.J. Reed, Devenski, McCullers, etc. show this team has an eye for young yalent. They're doing a fine job on evaluating them. But for whatever reason, their talent in evaluating MAJOR LEAGUE talent sucks. I mean the only guys any good on this team are Astros farm system guys. Or at least I should say the leaders.

Colby Jack has no doubt been a good find but as we see by his .230 average, he's incredibly streaky. Valbuena sucks. Fiers is ok, and I'm at least thankful I got to watch a no hitter thanks to him. Giles has sucked so far. I don't need to say anything about Gomez.

None of the signings/trades have really been for guys that are leaders of this team. It's still Altuve, Keuchel, Correa, and Springer. Gomez and Giles should be in that conversation. Gattis was traded for with the expectation that he'd get even better as a DH than he was as a pure catcher. Nobody else.

Luhnow's trades have got to get better. Yes, I know I'm Captain Obvious.

 

They do perfectly fine evaluating major league talent. The problem is that they have never been in win now mode... so when they go after that major league talent, they don't value their own prospects as high as they should.

 

I see and understand your point. But what is really different than talent (like Correa, Altuve, etc.) and major league talent (Giles, Rasmus, etc.)? I think a lot of it is in experience. And improvements and adjustments. I think it's more coaching. Positional coaching.

If we get a star player like Giles and he comes here and falters. Do you really believe our GM acquired false talent. Or is it equally possible that our coaches made bad adjustments and our players faltered due to that.

I'm not trying to derail the thread. You're right, Luhnow needs to make better trades. But maybe if we had coaches that worked with players and got the best out of them, rather than relying on their natural talent, we may see these trades working out better. Just a another though.

 

umm, if you think this is even a top five worst thread in Astros history, you need a history lesson. and, I never liked the trade. not from the first day.

But Joe Morgan says, "hi". And Rusty Staub. And, that's just off the top of my head. The Astros have made some historic trade blunders (a couple of appearances on a recent top ten list, IIRC) to go with our one historic win: Bagwell.

 

1,000 times this

Wish I could rep.

 

This isn't an issue of not evaluating major league talent well. Giles, certainly, is in a funk - but no one thinks he's a bad player. Fiers and Rasmus had two of their better seasons for us last year - we got exactly the players we were hoping for there. Gattis was a little down, but not too much away from expectations.

They're not trading for or signing superstars - that's why you're not getting Correas or Springers out of those people. In trades, they were looking for people that are club-controlled and can contribute now and in the future. In free agency, they were mostly looking for undervalued talent or reclamation projects. And that's mostly what they've gotten.

I think they've made a mistake NOT going for the star-level talent. I was a huge proponent of going for Donaldson 2 years ago and Chris Davis this past year. They have the financial flexibility and prospects to make those moves, but they either weren't interested or didn't offer enough. But that's an organizational decision making process on where they want to spend, not an inability to identify talent.

 

Or the high priced/superstar player they finally committed to targeting (Hamels) decides he just doesn't want to come here.

Clearly, they were risk averse to making a big move prior to knowing if they would actually be *good* or not.

 

No more trades. Stick with he home-grown guys.

 

Here, this is for you...

Spoiler

Not even close to the worst trade in Astros history as of now. Maybe 10 years from now you could make that judgement...but there are still a lot of if's that have to happen.

Gomez was an All Star the 2 seasons previous to last season. He was injured last season. There was very good reason to believe that 2015 was the outlier.

 

This. No more trades!

 

I do think they may have been smarter to just hang tight and wait until they had a few years of winning under their belts before making splash moves. The last 2 off seasons Houston was handcuffed by their reputation as losers led by computers. It prevented them from being in on premium free agents and upped the cost of acquiring players via trade (or in Hamels' case, prevented it). I think that stigma has changed and players will be less reluctant to come to Houston. That's bad timing given the next FA class may be the weakest in history. But they probably should have held off on the Gattis, Gomez, Kazmir, and Giles trades and tried harder to fill those holes via free agency.

The real bummer to me is that there isn't a single prospect they traded away who would be truly blocked (outside of I guess Oberholtzer). Folty and VV could easily be in the rotation/bullpen over Fister, Feldman, Fiers, etc. Santana could have gotten the ABs that have gone to Tucker or/and Gomez. All of the other prospects are still in the minors.

 

First off, I am not a fan of all the moves that Luhnow has made. However a couple points to remember. Luhnow has to make trades that help the team in the short term AND long term because of the extreme financial constraints he is under.

Also, Gomez hasn't been good, in fact if his name was "Alex Pressley" he would have been release by now.

Having said that, the players that the Brewers received have not exactly done great. Santana is about to turn 24, and while he hasn't been a disaster, he hasn't set the world on fire. He has hit with mediocre power and has an pedestrian OPS.

Brett Oberholtzer failed to make the Brewers rotation, and has been ineffective out of the pen.

Brett Phillips has shown the chinks in his armor that the Astros expected. He no longer is a threat to steal bases, he is probably a corner outfielder and doesn't hit for enough power to be a really valuable corner outfielder.

So why is this one of the worst trades in history for the Astros?

The only player that the Astros have lost that looks like he will be a long term all star caliber player in Vincent Velasquez. Even in the Giles trade, Appel is pitching mediocre in AAA at nearly 25, Eshelman is mediocre thus far this season as well.

 

This makes no sense. As you said, there was a premium on FA's to get them to sign with a crappy team. There is no premium for trades - except in the rare case of the people with no-trade clauses (Hamels). But then you suggest that the Astros should have done more free agency and less trades?

Keep in mind we also have a 40 man roster and too many good players in the minors. The total number had to be culled - adding free agents would have just meant releasing some of those guys.

 

The same people were agonizing over losing Willy Taveras and Jason Hirsch.... because Jennings was a bust.

In the end, that was a big to-do about nothing... much like this has the potential to be if/when VV gets injured.

 

This exactly . You can see in lunhows interviews how highly he values the "club controlled" aspect of the players he gets . These are/ were productive MLB players on relatively cheap contracts . Their contracts and control were part of the reason these guys were so valuable and cost so much to get . I agree that perhaps we should have gone after better players and weighed how much club control they had left less .