The Astros have shopped Correa with a number of teams. If he isn’t dealt it is because they Astros didn’t get the offer they wanted. Correa calling on his Honeymoon is hilarious. There is no way Luhnow is going to be truthful to him or the press.
Always appreciate your posts Nook. I'm still really down about the World Series. I have no clue/idea of what to expect for next season but I'm positive Luhnow will get something accomplished.
Angels payroll is about $40MM lower than the Astros after adding Rendon, and they have a much larger TV Deal. Two of their big contracts come off the books these next two years, and they have a heavily-underpaid Mike Trout for the next several years.
Why? It’s not like the Astros lineup needs him or has anywhere for him to play. Woulda been a panic move
May be lower salary, but their roster is significantly lower talent wise as well. At the rate this off-season is going 40 mil doesn’t get you much.
Heavily underpaid at 40 mil/year? There payroll might be 40 mil lower than the Astros but they have no starting pitching that threw more than 80 innings last season and no real threat beyond Trout & Rendon in their lineup
Hang in there CB, all will be good come April. Granted I have no idea what’s coming regarding the SSS but we’re a top 5 team with zero moves. ILWT.
Sure - but none of that has to do with being cash-strapped. The only bad contract they have on the books past next year is Upton. They need to find talent, but their payroll isn't stopping them - it's the young/cheap talent from the farm that's their problem. If they need to pay for additional talent to supplement a core, they have plenty of money to do it. And yes, Trout is underpaid at $36MM/yr. He's the best player in baseball and other players not nearly as good as him are getting that kind of money. Rendon, Cole, and Strasburg are all making that kind of money and are both older and not as good/consistent/proven as he is. At the $8MM/WAR figure people throw around, Trout is worth $60-$80MM every year.
This, and they are spending next to nothing on their starting pitching right now. All of their pitchers are either in their arbitration years or pre-arb years, and six pitchers hit FA this year. The most they're spending on a pitcher so far is 5.7. One reason I thought they'd give Cole a ludicrous deal. The TV money is big. It may have changed since 2011, but at the time, the Angel's signed a 3 billion dollar deal with Fox Sports for 20 years of broadcasting. I think 150 mm/yr is considerably more than the Astros' deal, but I'm not sure.
FWIW, and if you want a giggle, Fangraphs estimates Trout to have around 70 million dollars in production, with his 8.6 WAR. Total production for his career so far, and here's where the giggling starts, is estimated at 560 million. That's how valuable he is. Where the giggling turns into crying, is that they project him to basically have the same year this year, somewhere in the 8.5-9.5 WAR range. Yay. Not quite as underpaid as top NBA players with the max contract system----rationally, you could justify paying Harden something like 75 million a year, based on value----but close.
Cash strapped is having an insufficient amount of money to fill ones needs. Assuming "needs" is enough players to win division, I would consider the Angels cash strapped for at least another year even if they have more cash liquid at moment than the Astros. Edit: Angels would be a lot scarier if they didn't have Upton and Pujols.
Some of these numbers. Wow. Feels like the Astros are stuck in the mud. Our starting pitching is a big question mark. I hope we are not pinning our hopes on McCullers being the next Gerritt Cole or Cole lite.
We aren't replacing Gerrit Cole, you can't replace Gerrit Cole, so if you are gonna look at it that way you are gonna be disappointed. We will add a pitcher, but he won't be nearly as good, neither will LMJ, or Urquidy. We're just gonna try to blunt the loss of Cole in the aggregate. We're at the threshold of our budget, we talked about this all season. Money was gonna be tight and sacrifices would have to be made. This is exactly what we knew was gonna happen. Luhnow is certainly trying to address the issues, but we simply don't have much in the way of spending cash. We're gonna have to let the market cool before we can start making our moves. The team is still the favorites in the division, and will be one of if not the best team in the AL.
