Yulieski Gurriel agrees to 5/$47M deal with the Astros

I would argue it's no factor, at all.

What they'll probably say, first, is: Damn! The Rangers won that division by 10 games!

I think *adding* players is a selling point, yes. I don't think *not* adding players (which is objectively untrue) is an issue - and, again, if it is, it's mitigated by the fact the Astros are offering a $120MM contract, and thus, quelling any notion that they won't add players.

 

What are the parameters for "consistently winning"? Playoffs last year; playoff contention this year with a young nucleus that figures to be very good for a long time. And Houston *is* a good location: huge, diverse city.

That's a different dynamic; he's already on the team and much more invested in the team's operations.

An outside free agent is going to look, first, at the money, then the team's record and it's location. They are not going to review trades and free agency tendencies over a five-year period.

If that's FA Bob All-Star's perspective, he is grossly uninformed as that is objectively untrue, re: the Astros.

 

The parameters for consistently winning are consistently winning? Over the last five years/since Luhnow took over the Astros the 5 year regular win totals are (including 2016):

HOU: 323 wins (1 wild card birth)
LAA: 400 wins (1 division win)
OAK: 398 wins (2 divisions, 1 WC)
TEX: 410 wins (1 division, probably another one this year)
SEA: 372 wins (no playoffs)

Given Houston's jarringly awful 2011-2013 record and overall measured/steady but arguably sluggish rebuild over the years, I think it's entirely on Luhnow to change people's perception of our team. I know and agree we're on the team on the rise, but we have to prove we're a bandwagon worth jumping on.

I love Houston as much as the next Houstonian, but anyone who thinks it's up there with LA/NYC/CHI/BOS in terms of big market cities attractive to a FA is being naive. Even Miami and Dallas seem to be more attractive to FA's.

Is it? The team has 40% rookies. C'mon.

 

Gomez sucked. Kemp is performing better as replacement. Rasmus got hurt so Hernandez is getting a shot. Tucker has sucked it up so White is getting another look. Valbuena is hurt so Reed is still up. Hoyt, Feliz, Musgrove, Devenski all appear to be helping so no problem with them.

Bregman is the only rookie up that isn't performing or up because someone got hurt or sucked.

Caveat: I could be missing someone.

 

What does 2011 have to do with 2017? Do you honestly think a player is going to look at this current version of the Astros and think, "Yeah, looks good - but, man... six years ago, they were terrible and that's relevant."

Very few people (the list may just include you) think this has been a "sluggish rebuild;" the general consensus is that it's way ahead of schedule.

Spoiler

Lord... Yes, those are whales in the FA game - been that way for decades.

Since a week before last year's deadline - so roughly a year and change - they traded for Kazmir, Gomez and Giles and signed Gurriel to a significant free agent contract, as well as resign Rasmus and Sipp. So, yes - it is objectively untrue that the Astros' GM "would rather bet on a unproven guy."

The vast majority of the team's rookies this year are a component of injuries/performance - and that include Bregman, baseball's #1 overall prospect.

Talk about "C'Mon"ing....

 

And he was baseball's #1 overall prospect who is slashing .295/.333/.477/.811 in his last 10 games.

 

Astros are probably going to promote another rookie named Gurriel soon (someone should start a thread about him). Astros were able to get him cheap so obviously he isn't being brought in to win.

 

I think this is the crux of the my argument. Yes, I do think it's relevant.

Jeff Luhnow has been doing the 'great experiment' and no I don't think everyone wants to join in. People may understand, people may even root for it to succeed. But that doesn't equate to FA's running to join it.

And besides, we're on pace for 83 wins. We're not as good as you seem to think.

To use a political phrase, I keep expecting Luhnow to pivot to the middle. To start to do things a little more traditional now that they're in a more traditional circumstance. To build up some veterans and experience.

-------------------

With regards to me calling it sluggish, yes maybe the Astros are meeting the schedule for a 6 year build. But the Astros were the only one's trying to do it. Plenty of teams did shorter rebuild/reloads.

This year is a setback to the plan. Maybe not a big one. But if they're not making the playoffs this year, they're not a world series contender next year.

(I do watch nearly every Astros game and really don't intend to be a self-hating Astros fan).

 

Astros are not as good as I expected them to be, but I'm not the one arguing to mortgage their future because they have to win now.

I should add that I do think Luhnow will do more traditional moves once the Astros are a juggernaut with more than 3 good young position players (hoping Bregman is 4), but he's likely never going to be traditional. I don't think the 25-man and 40-man rosters are as rock solid as you do.

I will say the Astros are rebuilt. They are going to male playoffs some years. They are going to miss playoffs some years. Don't expect Luhnow to spend too many resources in a years with bad odds.

Honest questions:
1) Do you think Luhnow should spend more resources at deadline when the Astros have better or worse odds to make the playoffs?
2) Based on the last two years, has what Luhnow done match your answer to number 1?

 

Not really.

Here's who won the World Series and what they did the previous year.

2015: Kansas City (ALCS champs in 2014 as wild card)
2014: San Francisco (Missed playoffs)
2013: Boston (Missed playoffs)
2012: San Francisco (Missed playoffs)
2011: St. Louis (Missed playoffs)
2010: San Francisco (Missed playoffs)
2009: New York (Missed playoffs)
2008: Philadelphia (Lost in first round)
2007: Boston (Missed playoffs)
2006: St. Louis (Lost in NLCS)

So in the last 10 years, the World Series champ made the playoffs the previous year all of 3 times.

 

From the end of last year through the deadline this year, Luhnow has treated the roster as if we are still in semi-rebuild mode, with a chance that things go well and we get in again. The trade for Giles was almost a prospect for prospect deal. Yes, Giles had success in the big leagues, but the main thing was he felt he was dealing for a young controllable guy. Yes, it's obviously nice to have guys we will keep around for a while, but it's not like he went out and got a proven lock down closer

He gave the QO to Rasmus as a hope that we get a draft pick (although I do think Luhnow knows Rasmus well enough to realize he might accept). But again, instead of taking those resources and going out and getting a solid major league bat, he took the route of hoping to gain another draft pick

Then for starting pitching he took a shot at Fister, hoping to hit a solid starting pitcher without giving up a big money long term deal. That gamble "paid off", although with it looking more and more likely we won't make the playoffs, i'm not sure how much that really "worked out"

Then for the deadline, we can all assume we know who we were after and who people wanted, but the truth is we have no idea how those conversations actually went. What we do know, is that he saved Crane a few million bucks and sent a message to the team that "hey we want to make the playoffs, but we don't really believe in your guys enough to solidify things like other teams are doing"

Now i'm not necessarily against any of the moves he made, but he certainly wasn't making moves with the absolute #1 goal of taking this team, the 2016 Houston Astros, to the playoffs

 

I don't think I ever said mortgage the future. Even if they did trade an AJ Reed, Joe Musgrove or Martes or some combination of them I would hope they would get a package with some team control. I was a big fan of the potential Hamels deal. Also, as much as I think highly of those guys they're just prospects. They have a bust potential. We can't write all of them down on the 2018-2019 roster.

This may be unrealistic fandom but the Astros didn't undergo historic mediocrity and historic rebuilding to be hit or miss every year. They build the system back up and need to start make aggressive decisions towards winning. If they were 10 games back in the WC, I'd have understood doing nothing. But they weren't.

Answering your questions:
1) This is a cop-out but I couldn't answer this definitively. The Astros were a tale of two different teams this year. One awful team and one blisteringly hot. The deadline is a deadline but there was 4 months to acquire talent and probably a 2-2.5 month period where we were playing baseball as well as any other. If he'd added ML talent during the hot streak who knows what would have happened.

Even if we weren't making the playoffs this year, I would hope Luhnow would have continued to improve the ML club. At some point he has to start putting some 2-3 WAR veterans in the lineup and minimizing the number of unsettled positions.

2) My expectation is that he continues to work hard to improve the organization, emphasis on the ML club. Last year he did. I believe his success metric as a GM is ML wins now.

 

You articulated this way better than me. Great post!

 

In regards to the deadline, I'll go back to the difference between "not actually making moves" and "not trying to make moves"--because that affects what you're saying here. If he was trying really hard to make a ton of moves, and they all required 1 domino to fall (which never fell), I don't think your statement is necessarily accurate. I think, instead, it just didn't work out, but he was trying to improve the 2016 Astros.

I think that's how he approached this deadline (pure conjecture based on how things played out), but I think you're right in your summary of the other moves.

 

I know - because the Astros are your favorite team and you closely follow their every move. It's not going to be relevant to a free agent in 2016.

The 'great experiment,' which, by that I assume you mean gutting the team and intentionally losing, is over. It has no relevance on the current team, and even less bearing on their future. I would be flabbergasted if a free agent referenced their performance between 2011 and 2013 as a reason to not sign with them in 2017.

It's a winning record, and far more relevant than a losing record in 2011.

He's done that! He's more than done that. Gattis, Rasmus, Valbuena and Fister are all veterans; so, too, were Kazmir, Gomez and Giles.

I don't even remotely understand your perspective here - it's been a tough year, performance and health-wise. But this was *not* a team built on 8 rookies.

No; the Astros are *ahead* of schedule. By two years. The rest of this statement makes no sense.

Honestly, you sound bitter about 2011-13.

This is profoundly silly. You don't honestly believe this, do you?...

 

Only if you arbitrarily set a deadline and, by doing so, discount the Gomez deal.

The Gomez deal is, well, the deal breaker here. They expected him to be a plus addition to the team; he was not good last year - but showed flashes the final few weeks of the season. And he was a centerpiece of this year's team. His inexplicable collapse (along with Keuchel's) is what has sunk this team.

But Luhnow invested considerably in him being a factor for 1.5 seasons - there was nothing "rebuild" about that move.

Also, while we're here: the Giles deal was *not* seen as an "almost prospect for prospect" deal; he was expected to significantly upgrade the back of our bullpen. Sure, some of us (coughcoughme) tapped the brakes on taking for granted he'd be Craig Kimbrel 2.0 - but the expectation was that he'd make a good team better. Revisionist history to suggest otherwise. He was *very* good last year - in the Major Leagues. No one viewed him as a "prospect."

 

This is pretty much exactly how I feel

 

Exactly; there's this prevailing notion that the Astros' farm system is soooooo good, it can easily trump any and every deal made and should.

It's fairly obvious Luhnow tried to make a deal; he just felt the cost was too high. You can question that, tactically (although you'd be doing so with almost no relevant information) - but it shouldn't be confused with some organizational mandate to fold on the 2016 season. It takes two to tango, and if Bregman was the first and only name out of every potential partner's mouth, I have no issue with "no" - and neither will anyone else by season's end.

 

No one viewed him as a prospect

But as you say yourself, no one viewed him as getting a Kimbrell type either

Which is pretty much exactly what I said in the post you were replying to

 

I'm pretty sure you are smart enough to know that Bregman wasn't our only prospect with trade value