The Cards still take into account the bottom line... hell, they didn't resign one of the top 5 Cardinals of all-time (and with that historic franchise, its a huge deal). They've also traded an at-the-time "prime" J.D. Drew for prospects in the midst of being a contending team (and, of course, one of those prospects happened to be Adam Wainwright). You need to have balance, which is what the Astros are looking for... they'll attempt to keep every player for their PRIME years. However, the second you start paying for past performance.... you're going to get diminished returns (and that's something sentiment will not make up for).
I agree But this post is far from the constant asset flip talk than many have You have to be smart, but I sure hope we don't just trade every asset when they are about to make big bucks And right now some would likely be ok with that
You'll see more and more players sign extensions within their "cheap" years to buy-out the arbitration years along with some of the free agent years with opt-out clauses (similar to what Stanton just signed). But beyond that... most players don't come close to living up to the free agent contracts around year 3-4 of those deals (post arbitration). You're essentially paying for "past" performance. Eventually there could be a market correction where the big market teams start doing this too... but till then, you'll continue to have those teams (along with occasional "window-is-now contenders") overpay players for basically 1-2 years of "elite" performance, and 3-5 years of so-so to bad performance.
I haven't heard anybody talk about flipping major league assets for prospects. Over the last 2 years the only MLB talent we traded for prospects was Cosart and that wasn't a financial move. We flipped Fowler, but that was for MLB talent. We've talked about trading Gattis or Carter down the line, but that's about getting players that fit better. Now whether we pay guys when time comes we will see, but so far the Astros haven't shown a propensity for flipping valuable MLB talent for prospects. Having said that if a guy is due a contract that you know isn't gonna be good, I don't have any problems with the team making a pragmatic decision, much like the Cardinals did with Pujols.
Oh I agree the Astros haven't shown that is going to be their mantra. I'm more talking about fans, and not even a majority, but a few of the die hards like us who have continued to post/talk about this team through the past few years of being terrible. I read quite a few posts this time last year about how we should be looking to move Altuve because he was overrated, and because we had DDJ and Kemp in the system. There was talk about moving Castro because "his value was high" after the great year in 2013. Things like that I guess I differ from most fans in that I like to follow players in addition to just the team. I loved the fact that guys like Biggio, Bagwell, Berkman, Oswalt were mainstays on a lot of winners. I don't want to be Oakland and Tampa, where everytime we develop a great player we trade him for more prospects, or let him go in free agency. Even if we get good prospects in those deals, just not the same fan experience in my opinion. And I know i've posted this before, but I'm tired of hearing about those two franchises (Oakland and Tampa) being the model of how to be successful in a smaller market. 1) We aren't a small market, we have proven we can draw 3 million fans when the team produces 2) Those two teams haven't shown the consistent success i'm hoping the Astros can have. Oakland has had three good years the last three, but followed the 2006 Division title with 5 straight years without a winning season. Tampa had a good 5 year stretch before last year, but after giving up good player after good player found themselves back to 77 wins last year and the needle isn't pointing up. Heck, guys like Rasmus and Valbuena haven't played a game for us yet, and I've read how it would be great if they could get off to good starts and raise the value we could get flipping them at the deadline. How about this, how about hope they get off to great starts so they can help the Houston Astros be great? I'm just sick of the flip asset mindset which seems to be dominating the sports franchises of this town (except the texans who simply have no clue of how to run a sports franchise at all)
I can see the Astros flipping guys at deadline that are at end of club control, redundant, make room for guys coming up, and/or suck. That said, I would expect Astros to receive guys that are MLB talent or "MLB-ready". I can see Cosart-like trades. Marisnick, while not established, helped the Astros last year. If the Astros would have just brought up Tropeano immediately and benched Peacock, the starting rotation probably would not have skipped a beat. I do see the Astros making more moves like trading Tropeano for Conger, Ruiz and others for Gattis (a.k.a prospects for MLB talent), than the Cosart-like trades (MLB talent for MLB ready/ near-MLB ready). I also would not be surprised if the Astros signed a guy or two with full knowledge of the player that they could be traded at deadline if the Astros aren't competing.
Cosart trades are exactly what I don't want to see We have plenty of depth already, no more trading mlb talent for depth
We probably got our starting CF out of that trade. Can we wait a little while before whining about it again, please?
I tend to like Harden for the Rockets. Drexler also was nice back in the day. If they were not for asset flipping...Patrick Patterson, Marcus Morris, and Aaron Brooks are probably the best guys picked with Rockets draft picks (i.e. Parsons was an acquired pick) that were not acquired through flipping assets. Howard doesn't sign to join a Patterson lead Rockets. For the Astros, flipping assets got the Astros Carter, Singleton, Gattis, Marisnick, Valbuena, Oberholtzer, opened up money for Rasmus, Conger, Santana, and Moran. The let's keep bad talent and finish last mentality, but by less games by over paying for bandaids boggles my mind. Bud Norris was not bringing home a championship. The last time the Astros actually traded an above-average MLB talent was probably Pence in 2011. Yes, the Astros should keep good players. Altuve, Springer, Correa, Appel...these are the homegrown talents that the Astros should build around.
I would put Cosart in with that last group, that is why I don't want more of those type of deals As for trading guys like Bud and the other vets, I was fully on board with it, Drayton ruined the farm system so it had to be done. Drayton is gone now so I'm just interested in how we move forward. Hopefully it's not constant asset flipping and we will have a strong core of longtime players who win again
Dude relax, he brought up the Cosart trade as the type we are likely to see more of, I said I hope we do not. No one is whining (except maybe you?) And while I would much rather have Cosart on the team, the deal has been done and I hope you are right. I hope Marisnik and Moran both end up being all star caliber major league players and that trade ends up being a steal for us I just personally didn't, and don't, like those kind of moves anymore. When we were trading 30 year olds or guys on the bring of their 30s, that was what needed to be done. Trading 24 year olds who have shown good major league ability with much more upside, doesn't interest me. These are the decisions that Luhnow will have to make many of as we go through the next couple of years, gonna be interesting to see if he will be good at making these decisions or not.
It's very debatable who has more upside, Cosart or Marisnick. This was a swap of major league talent, not trading major league talent away for future prospects (even though we acquired one of those as well). You may not like the trade, but these types of trades will most likely continue to happen and, IMO, they should be judged on their own merits, not just on the very fact that they're doing it.
Ok, if you view it that way it's fine. I just don't view a guy with a .227 avg, .264 on base and .300 slugging in the majors "major league talent", no matter how good his defense is. He has been a horrible offensive player at the major league level. The guy we traded away has a 3.25 era in 240 major league innings. If you want to argue that Marisnik "will be" a better player than Cosart that's fine, and I hope you end up being right. But we didn't trade major league talent for major league talent, we traded major league talent for someone we hope can be a major league talent, plus a prospect. I hope it works out this time, but I hope it doesn't continue to happen.
I'm not going to rehash the trade any further but that trade is a trade that contending or non-tanking teams make all the time. It's was in no way, shape or form a trade of MLB talent for non-MLB ready prospects which is what your initial premise was. I mean, regardless of his offensive stats, Marisnick is obviously an MLB-caliber player.
Defensively, yes. And Cosart is very much a young starting caliber pitcher who's never had any arm trouble throughout his pro career (an underrated metric). The trade hinged more on Moran than anything else. Marisnick is a great piece to have when the rest of the lineup is good to go (the Adam Everett role). Starting pitching still very important though. Not all teams make this trade (combination of this front office being enamored with Moran and Cosart being a wade guy (along with Jareds big mouth) likely played a role as well).
All true points. None of this contradicts that this was a trade for MLB talent and not a dump of MLB-talent solely for prospects.
Trading a player of Cosart's ability is not an issue but I think that same trade is there in the offseason when you in theory could get more teams in on the bidding and perhaps increase your return. Also, I am not enamored with trading a No. 3 starter without an obvious replacement unless the trade haul coming back includes an everyday ready player. I hope Marisnick or Moran can be that kind of player.
When it comes to the Cosart trade I'm of the opinion that Luhnow was not in agreement with many of those on this board that his ceiling was high. I think Luhnow looked at some of his own metrics and believed Cosart would never be better than a back of the rotation starter, so he traded him for an area of need and a future prospect. I know Luhnow has sort of said otherwise in the media but I think that is just lip service, PR. And it may very well be he was wrong. Maybe Cosart turns out to be a very good #3 pitcher or even a #2 rotation guy, but I believe the trade wasn't because Luhnow wanted to "flip" a guy for future potential. I think it was all about his own evaluation of our player.
