This is my rough guess for what prices will look like this winter: A true ace with multiple years of control: 1 top 20 prospect, 3 top 100 prospects, and a fringe/complimentary big league piece. I.e, Chris Sale to Astros for Bregman, Musgrove, Fisher, Abreu, and P. Tucker. A fringe ace with multiple years of control but questions or a true ace rental: 1 top 50 prospect, 2 top 100 prospects, and a complimentary big league piece. I.e., Chris Archer to Astros for Martes, K Tucker, Paulino, and Fiers. I think Houston will be involved, but won't be surprised if they stand pat and roll with what they've got for SP, maybe adding a 2nd tier FA for depth. If they could be sure that 2-3 of Musgrove, Martes, Paulino, and Feliz would hit their ceilings, that is probably the best way to go. That said, I hope they make a move.
While the pitching FA class is terrible, there are some interesting batters. Might be more fruitful to trade for a stud #1 pitcher (Bregman / Martes for Sale?), then go after a power hitter through FA (M. Trumbo? Steal Ian Desmond? Edwin Encarnacion?) and resign Valbuena. It's all about balancing out the roster. Lineup of Springer, Valbuena, Altuve, Correa, Trumbo, Yuli, Reed, Hernandez, Castro. Pitching lineup of Sale, McCullers, Keichel, Musgrove.
I apologize, I will hone my theoretical thoughts to a razor's edge next time. Honestly, I thought we were still talking about Drawback and Swindle.
You apparently don't get it. When the offense is cold, it's the fault of coaching. When the offense is hot, it's the fault of the coaching because they should always be hot. When the bullpen fails, it's the fault of Hinch. When the bullpen succeeds it's in spite of Hinch. When he pulls out Gurriel, he is babying him (no chance he has any sort of physical ailment and they are taking reasonable precautions). When Correa was hitting poorly, it is the fault of the coach. When he turned it around it is all Correa. Same with Springer. When Bregman was held in the minors a bit too long, it was stupid Luhnow. Then when he came up and went 2-36 they were stupid for not sending him back down. Then when he continues to play and bat second and starts hitting it is because Hinch "had no choice". I could go on, but I should probably be planking instead.
I don't like the idea of throwing away a lot of prospects for one arm. Seems like an unnecessary bet to make when you have club control over SEVERAL potential high level players and we don't have a timing issue right now. If we had to win right now (2-3 year window), then I'd be more open to it, but our window is more like 5-6 years.
We have more of a window than people think. We have Altuve for three more seasons. Keuchel is a free agent next off season. I'm all for continuing to bring up young talent but the Astros have to continue to look to the present after last years unexpected playoff appearance.
I'm not even going to consider if we should . I'll just try to guess at the price . There are a few variables at play here , chief among them years of club control left and health . If we trade for an ace over the winter it will likely cost more than he would over the trade deadline season. Despite the market being more active during the season, getting a whole season value is worth much more than a half season and therefore will cost more . A few years ago we traded for Kazmir who was having a very good season at the time . However, due to his injury history and impending free agency he didn't cost as much as he could have if without the prior two variables mentioned Each of the guys mentioned so far will all have a different price and it may be worth it to go after them , however I think it will be much better to go after them during the season as we get closer to seeing how we perform next season . For a true top of the like pitcher who doesn't have injury issues and has been performing up to his potential during the season the cost will be great . A guy like Sale is gonna cost a **** ton . The rest of the Aces on big contracts may not cost as much , and typically we could give up for prospects for the current team to take on salary . ( if that was an issue) The guys that are still young and unproven but might turn into 1-2 are still prohibitively expensive because of their club control . Remember the haul we got for cosart ? Remember many people HERE didn't like that trade . It hasn't worked out for Miami and it may not work out for us . Because the cost of these players is so great , I would really like to see us wait for what the free agent market does , and wait until we start playing a bunch of games next year .
Astros free agent schedule: 2016: Castro, Valbuena, Rasmus, Fister 2017: Neshek, Gregerson 2018: Gattis, Marwin, Keuchel, Sipp 2019: Altuve, McHugh, Fiers, Harris 2020: Gurriel, Springer, Marisnick, Giles Looking at their "core" players: C Gattis 2018 1B Reed 2022 2B Altuve 2019 SS Correa 2021 3B Bregman 2022 RF Springer 2020 CF Marisnick 2020 LF TBD DH Gurriel 2020 SP1 Keuchel 2018 SP2 McCullers 2021 SP3 McHugh 2019 SP4 Musgrove 2022 SP5 Fiers 2019 RP Giles 2020 RP Gregerson 2017 RP Harris 2019 So the current core starts to expire after 2 more seasons. They can probably lose Keuchel and still be a really good team, even a contender, but once Altuve or Correa leaves, it's over.
Considering no one knows what acquistions will be made and what players will be used to make them and how the current crop of minor leaguers perform, that is kind of a fatalistic statement. If Luhnow has gone to all the trouble to build the entire system and it will all collapse if Altuve or Correa walks, then he will go down as an utter failure.
