The Rangers don't have a bloated payroll. Prince Fielder's medical retirement saved them $18M for each of the next 4 years. They also have a number of Free Agents coming off the books.
Just a question here, but why do most fans assume the Astros are the ones getting taken advantage of in the Encarnacion situation? This must be a Houston sports fan symptom. I get that people think that Encarnacion signing with another team (Yankees, Red Sox, Jays) means that the Astros appear to have lost out on a guy they really wanted, but what if Encarnacion was never really in the plans? Is it not possible that Astros management entered the negotiations to up Encarnacion's market, with no real interest in adding him in his value went over what they were willing to pay? Who is to say that the Astros didn't stay in simply knowing bigger markets like New York or his current club Toronto, would over pay at the end of the day? After all.. the Astros have been in negotiations for all the big players this off season, Cespedes, Beltran, Hill, etc. potentially doing the exact same thing. To me, this is a win/win. The Astros either get the stud hitter we want (but don't necessarily need), or we raise his cost to another contending team by upping the market through negotiations. At least the Astros aren't sitting at home doing nothing like the Rangers.
I don't think he considers the Rangers as a viable team. Maybe the Rangers go over the top out of desperation but I doubt it.
I think it's more of people are use to the Astros being taken advantage of in prior years when the team was rebuilding. When the Astros weren't doing so well big named free agents, who had no interest in signing with a 55 win team, would leak info stating that a mystery team (everyone assumed the Astros) was offering X amount of money. By leaking this info, teams would then come in and offer more than X amount. However, now it's different and personally I do not see the Astros being used since we have a great young core and should be able to compete in the AL for the foreseeable future.
This. It came up several times, off the top of my head we were #2 or #3 for Jose Abreu, Andrew Miller, David Robertson. In one of those cases the guy signed with the other team even though Houston offered more money. We were just leverage.
What would the Astros get out of getting another big market team to overpay? Those teams have the ability to absorb large contracts and luxury tax hits, and remain competitive. The Astros have likely already made their "max" offer, and now they're shopping around for something more... that's pretty much SOP. The leaks are comical but they do serve a purpose.
I think Astros fans in general are now starting to use the past to figure out what's going to happen. It's a different team now. Be patient.
I'm not so leery of the past... But if you do want to look back to previous trades/signings performed by Luhnow, you'll notice that mostly all of them happened without much "rumor" or "warning" ahead of time. The Reddick and Gurriel signing were examples of this. Likewise, the Carlos Gomez trade happened all UTR. Whenever there's multiple tweets regarding "player X is on the verge of signing with Team Y".... and "sources" start going wild, its all very suspect. I do believe they're going hard after these guys, but I also believe that agents have an obligation to get their players the "best" offer, and unfortunately, most of these teams that are bidding have the ability to go beyond what the Astros are willing to offer. Houston won't get anybody on a discount or because its such an attractive destination... they're going to have to be the best offer on the table (and even then, players have turned them down).
Not shooting the messenger, but I don't understand why they act like our staff is some terrible mess. We led the AL in FIP and WAR, were 5th in ERA, and 6th in QS while having the second highest BAbip against. That was with a down Keuchel and half a season from LMC. We switch Morton for Fister. I don't see why people think we have some taped together pitching staff when basically nothing is changed from last season with more room for improvement than negative regression.
Interesting bump of Springer to CF... wonder if he'll stay there or we upgrade. I'd also predict Musgrove replaces Fiers at the 5 whole by opening day.
The other thing that catches my eye is Colin Moran as #2 at 1B (ahead of Marwin, and even White/Reed/Gonzalez).
While I agree with you for the most part, remember that pulling the trigger on a trade is vastly different than trying to deal with high-powered agents and players seeking contracts north of $100m. Generally, when it comes to signing blue chip free agents, there's usually very little chance that you can do it on the DL. Most media outlets are plugged into the agents, and the agents know full well that the media loves being used as a mouthpiece. Also, just within this same off-season, I seem to remember there being a ton of buzz around McCann coming to the Astros before a deal was ever consummated. While that's apples and oranges, and you can't glean anything off that transaction, it's just something to bear in mind.
