I'm super glad, Luhnow did not budge on Bregman and did not sacrifice the sustained success of the club being a contender over the next decade by giving up 2-3 of the next wave of potential Astros stars like Martes, Paulino, K Tucker, McCullers, Musgrove, Devenski, etc If I'm Jeff Luhnow I'm talking to the agent of Boone Logan right now. If he's considering a 1B still, it's a golden time to land Mike Napoli or Luis Valbuena on a 1-2 year deal. So very few teams are in the market at 1B. The Red Sox have moved on from acquiring a first basemen, Yankees chose Holiday on a 1yr deal and the Jays moved on signing Pearce. The market for Encarnacion has dropped to just the Rangers and Indians, I don't think he gets close to the Jays 4yr 80 mil that was on the table. Teams well over the luxury tax are very reluctant too add long term payroll and with them not in the picture. Smaller market clubs don't have to offer over inflated contracts to compete with the Yankees, Red Sox, Tigers, etc Also, I'm on the phone with 3 teams and 3 teams only. Royals on Wade Davis and Danny Duffy, MLB Network thinks they are more likely to part with Davis first. I'd probably offer Paulino as a centerpiece for Davis. A's on Sonny Gray. He's under team control for a few years I believe. So Musgrove (which clears a roster spot), Martes and probably one of Fisher/Cameron/Reed/etc Tigers on Justin Verlander and J.D. Martinez. Tigers say they aren't as open to trading away as they were a few weeks ago. And it's hard to gauge there value. But, adding Wade Davis & Boone Logan too Giles, Gregerson, Harris, Devenski, Feliz would be an elite bullpen.
I'm not familiar with the blue jays operation but how does signing Pearce ruin the likeliness of them signing edwin? isn't he a utility player. I'm loving this weather but wish Spring was here already just for baseball.
Blue Jays are not expected to significantly increase payroll. They are about 30 million of last year's payroll with 10 MLB players without arbitration and minimum salaries. Pearce plays all over, but it is to get his bat in the game and not his glove. 1B may be best for him. I'm guessing between arbitration , minimum salaries, and Pearce, the Blue Jays are already at their 2016 payroll.
The top Astros prospects in 1998 were: Richard Hidalgo, Scott Elarton, Wade Miller, Lance Berkman, and Daryle Ward. All were on Baseball America's top 100 list. The prospects traded were in the next tier according to Baseball America. None were considered top 100 prospects at the time. Their current comparison would be more like Franklin Perez/Albert Abreau, and Miguelangel Sierra/Gilerto Celestino - really good younger players that hadn't reached top levels yet. Both Garcia and Guillon appeared on BA's top 100 list the next year in the 50 to 100 range.
Exactly how I remember it as well. It gets magnified in hindsight because Freddy Garcia (and to some extent Guillen) went on to have a really good MLB career... but at the time, he was neither the top pitching or overall prospect in the system. Also, Halama was a PTBNL. It was an appropriate trade (value-wise) for a rental. Obviously, the Astros now would have to give up a helluva lot more for anybody club-controlled.... but including Bregman now would have been more like including Hidalgo or Berkman back then, rather than Garcia/Guillen.
Those are offseason rankings. They would have been different in July. Guillen had slipped as a prospect after a lackluster 97 season, but was having a very good year in 98. We were just so damned stacked that we could afford to give up good prospects (like we had before trading so many away the last couple of years). I'd compare it to giving up Phillips & Hader in the Gomez deal. I missed Guillen more than Garcia.
An alternative to trumping the Nats package could be to offer both quantity (by offering 5-6 prospects) and money (in the form of taking back Shields or Robertson). Astros get: LHP Chris Sale RHP James Shields White Sox get: RHP Francis Martes OF Kyle Tucker OF Teoscar Hernandez RHP Joe Musgrove RHP Chris Devenski RHP Michael Feliz Astros get their ace without giving up a core piece. White Sox get their 2 elite prospects and satisfy the owners mandate of "4 can't miss players" as Teo/Musgrove/Devenski/Feliz all had success in the majors last season.
I don't think that the Astros would do that, and IMO it is a better package than the Nats are offering. Martes and Tucker are arguably top 50 prospects. Joe Musgrove was a top 50-100 prospect last year and did nothing last year in the big leagues to hurt his prospect status. Feliz had an up and down year but had long periods of dominance and is a power arm. Chris Devinski had an amazing year and is under long term control. Hernandez is a toolsy, interesting prospect that did alright after being called up. Then the Astros would be eating a lot of money on Shields.
Remember when we dug in our heels and refused to give up Elarton for Roger mother falcon Clemens? Ugh.
Well, it's only a ST invite so really a nothing ventured situation. Riefenhauser has a very small MLB sample against lefties (42 PA), in those PA opponents are slashing... .306/.405/.611. Maybe we saw something, but on the surface he looks like a strange guy to even bother bringing into camp.
So lets see.... Gone Valbuena (6) Fister (7) Castro (5) Neshek (6.5) Rasmus (16), Gomez (9) Feldman (8) = 57 million gone Added Noki (5.5) McCann (11.5) Reddick (13) Morton (7) Beltran (16) Gurriel (14.4) = 67.4 million added Before arbitration it appears that the Astros have increased their payroll by 10.4 million dollars over last season. (Note that this amount includes the balloon payment to Gurriel) The point being, the Astros SHOULD have money to spend if they choose to do so.
Looking at that list.... can't say I'm going to really miss many of the departing players.... I liked some of 'em ok but I think we've improved a lot dumping the blackholes Rasmus and Gomez.
Concerning arbitration, Springer, Fiers and McHugh are all projected to each get around $4,000,000 in raises. Keuchel is projected to get an additional $2,000,000. So, there is another $14 million. Plus a million to Gonzales and 2 million to Harris.
Gattis got a $1.8M raise. Arbitration Estimates: Marwin: $3.6M ($1.6M raise) Keuchel: $9.5M ($2.25M raise) Harris: $2.5M ($2M raise) Fiers: $4.3M ($3.8M raise) McHugh: $4.6M ($4.1M raise Springer: $4.7M ($4.2M raise) Marisnick: $1.1M ($0.6M raise) So that is another $20M over last year.
That puts the Astros at $111,000,000 for this season (according to baseball prospectus) and the Astros were at $99,000,000 last year. So a rough overall increase of $12,000,000 plus additional minimums, etc. I still think the Astros have more money to spend, they would be at 15-20 million below the league average from last year.
Impossible to know without having access to their books and seeing their actual tv revenue and debt service payments, but I agree, on the surface there's no reason Houston shouldn't be able to sustain a payroll that ranks in the 8-16 in MLB, which would mean $140M+ and leave plenty of room to make one more big add this offseason and still have wiggle room to add at the deadline if needed.
