The whole principle of the Astros rebuild effort was to create a sustainable product. They didn't suffer through being the worst team in baseball for 4 years to have a 3 year run of success and tear it all down again.
The people that said that were either trolls or idiots. But can anyone now say Stanton wouldn't make them better?
Sure, that is the plan. Personally, I dont think any plan can guarantee that. But any argument right now is moot given we wont know for many years to come.
Stanton going to the Yankees is about the worst imaginable scenario in this whole situation. Will New York be saddled with his massive contract and likely have to trade away some pieces? Yes. But does a lineup consisting of Sanchez, Stanton, Judge, Castro and Gregorius scare the crap out of me? Absolutely. By no means am I saying that I think the Yankees would be the new favorites in the AL, but at the same time I'm not going to pretend like adding Stanton doesn't make the Yankees a very very very scary team to play in October. I'd much rather see him with the Dodgers.
On the bright side, if Yanks land Stanton, that’s one less team we’d have to fight for come time to sign Correa....hopefully
Also, I absolutely dread the guaranteed unbearable gushing over the Yankees if Stanton is traded there. If we thought it was bad this past postseason, just wait til every single pre-season preview/prediction does nothing but crown the Yankees as the 2018 AL Champs. Obviously just because the media crowns them doesn't mean anything, but it would still be unbearable.
Wouldn’t really be any different from any other year he Yanks have talent. They’re New York, they will always get attention
This is very important. Means the Yankees will have to give up some of their prospects rather than ship off big wasteful contracts like Ellsbury. It wouldn't make any sense for the Marlins, who are trying to shed money, to take on a big contract like Ellsbury's.
Yankees adding Stanton likely means they will enter next season as the best team in the AL. They got lucky that Stanton put Miami in such a bind and that LA and Houston didn’t aggressively compete for him.
If better is improve WS odds without respect to year, this is easy to do except people wouldn't believe the math. If all you care about is next two years and assume adding Stanton (without Marlins mitigating opt in risk) doesn't cause the Astros to exceed budget, Stanton would improve odds for those two years. Granted, if Astros had that kind of money, there are other things they could use it on. With situation as it is, there is a much better chance Astros can get Marlins to agree to pay more post-opt money in case Stanton opts in for Astros adding more prospect talent than the Giants. This could be very good for Astros.
Well damn. Hope the Marlins milked them for money....though Jeter probably gave his old team a happy ending.
Not to have a knee jerk reaction but I do think the Astros need to make an upgrade either at DH or left field plus bullpen help. IMO, the Yankees are favored to win the AL East and compete for the best record in the AL. We saw how important it was for the Astros to have home field advantage other than when they played the Dodgers. I won't say the Yankees are better because I do think Correa and Bergman will be better for 2018 but I think its foolish to think that the Yankees haven't improved altogether.
Why is that a knee jerk reaction? That's essentially the Astros wish list going into the winter meetings regardless of what any other teams do.
The Astros will never be the Yankees or Dodgers when it comes to spending but if they're not going to extend their core now like Altuve, I think it's wise for them to add pieces on short term contracts. I trust the FO will do what they can to capitalize on winning. Jim Crane seems like he is hell bent on winning based on some of his comments over the past three weeks. That normally bodes well but we'll see.
