I'd definitely be on board with getting more than Quintana in return. I'm not a huge Robertson fan, but if he comes with the salary relief and is basically free, sure why not?
Agree with the later .... not sure about the former. Obviously, Quintana > Musgrove. But I'd rather Quintana + Musgrove + Morton, et al, than Quintana + Morton, et al.
I don't like Robertson much either, but that would make for an insane bullpen. Jose Abreu would probably be the ideal other player on their roster.
Do we have the depth and prospects to get all three? Who could/would we have to purge from the major league roster or would it likely have to be a package of prospects? I know it's highly unrealistic, but Abreu, Robertson, and Quintana would just cover every flaw or potential flaw we have. I would love to see Abreu hitting in the middle of our lineup... I know, I know... this is inconceivable... a pipe dream, right?
Astros have the quantity of prospects that this should be doable. However, most player for prospect trades don't involve that much quantity. CWS also want quality more than typical of MLB player for prospect transactions. They seem content to keep guys if they don't receive an unreasonable deal, based on how they view things, in their favor. And by content, I mean whining to media how they expected to have more players traded by now every week. The CWS are like a clearance sale in which the liquidators come in and mark up all the prices 300% before "discounting" 50%.
Ultimately it would depend on how the White Sox value our prospects, and what value both teams put on the money owed to Robertson (would the Astros take on more money or would the White Sox be very interested in salary relief). It won't happen, but the Astros in theory could trade McHugh/Fiers, Gattis/Gurriel, and a bullpen arm to offset the prospect cost and clear the roster for the new additions.
Odd, I could see those guys traded minus Gurriel. Not really to acquire prospects, but something has to give if Astros are as active as I expect at deadline.
They would trade them as part of 3 team deals where the prospects go elsewhere. Moving Gurriel would be because we wouldn't have much room to play him, if we had Abreu. We could trade someone like Peacock for prospect/cash and it wouldn't surprise me, but pretty much anybody else would have to be for adding MLB talent.
Three team trades are difficult in baseball and really not needed as no salary cap. I doubt Luhnow would waste time on them unless one fell into his lap. If he needed to make room for a guy, he would just trade someone for prospects. The prospects are fungible and can be used in a subsequent deal instead of trying to match two other teams' desire simultaneously in one deal.
Would never happen, but Houston could certainly address all their "holes" (rotation, 1B, LHRP) and then some in one shot. Again, would never happen as deals that big just don't ever come together, but hypothetically I think a fair value deal would be: Astros get: 1B Jose Abreu SP Jose Quintana LHRP Nate Jones RP David Robertson $12M White Sox get: SP Francis Martes OF Kyle Tucker SP Joe Musgrove 1B AJ Reed OF Derek Fisher SP Franklin Perez SS MiguelAngel Sierra SP Hector Perez OF Nori Aoki Houston's farm would definitely suffer, but it wouldn't be decimated. They'd fall from ~10th to somewhere between 15-20th, and their top prospects would be Paulino, Whitley, Moran, and Cameron.
I would do that trade as it would put us as the clear favorite to get to the World Series the next couple of years But I see no way our farm system would be anywhere near 15th after that deal. That would be an incredible amount of youth to give up in a deal Again, I would do it as i'm of the belief you never really know how long a window to win will be open, so we should be going for it now. And I trust Luhnow and the boys to draft well enough to get the system back up quickly
Paulino and Whitley are Top 100 prospects. Cameron will be if he has a bounce back year. They have 6 of the top 50 international prospects from 2016. They have 5 of the top 100 picks in the upcoming draft. The farm will be fine.
I don't see a lot of team's willingness to pay the price for Quintana changing over the course of the season. If the Astros get to the trade deadline in first place with a real chance to go far in the playoffs and don't make the move to improve then, then i'll be pissed. They can save their bullets until the trade deadline. It's extremely unlikely that the 2-3 wins better in the first half that the Astros would be with Quintana (over musgrove/fiers) would likely make an impact on the playoffs. If they end up barely making/missing the playoffs they weren't a true WS contender anyway.
One aspect I haven't seen discussed is that between now and July the stock of many prospects could rise or fall dramatically. If Houston feels really good about their 2nd tier prospects (Perez, Fisher, Paulino, Cameron, Moran, Reed, Davis, etc.), it might pay off to wait until those guys elevate their standing over the next 3 months. Come 8/1 we might be looking at Franklin Perez and Derek Fisher as the headliners of a Quintana deal.
They aren't unheard of by any means. It is how we got Carlos Beltran. All it takes is the White Sox to not be as high as we are on the prospects we make available to them.
I've mentioned this before but I don't think that approach ever works. The industry doesn't respond fast enough to changes in prospect status like that. Eric Longenhagan of Fangraphs (as well as Nook) frequently point out top prospects lists aren't up to date and are not indicative of the current status of a prospect. Even if Perez and Fisher had fantastic seasons they still wouldn't have the prospect status/name-recognition to get Quintana. What I do think is a reasonable approach is saying: "hey we're going to trade the first tier prospects Martes and Tucker for Quintana and HOPE that our 2nd tier depth continues to develop into 1st tier guys or at-least functional big leaguers". Hypothetical example: trading Bregman for Quintana and then hoping Moran/Davis and Quintana is better Bregman without Quintana. For some reason I feel like that's the STL way: just keeping pumping out guys that can contribute and hope one or two of them can produce an Allen Craig/Matt Carpenter season without depending on stud prospects to be the future.
The Astros way from what I can tell, guess are below. These are general things I see, but aren't strictly followed 1 Draft high floor guys. Be selective on high ceiling guys drafted. 2 Sign high ceiling guys internationally 3 Get a slug of club control guys before spending much on short term talent. 4 Don't sign free agent pitchers for more than 3 years. 5 Build depth through farm to allow money to be used for key free agents at needed positions once team has club controlled slug. 6 Don't go all in unless core is about to fall apart. 7 Balance short term needs without sacrificing future as more playoff births increase world series odds more than a team can increase odds in one season. 8 Accurately evaluate players through scouting and analytical data. 9 Have guys in AAA for injury replacements. 10 Favor balanced approach to Stars and scrubs. 11 Don't ever do a complete farm burn down as prospects needed for depth, trades, and rebuild. 12 Use prospect depth to trade for rentals at reasonable rates (i.e. not Johnson, Beltran like trades). 13 Surround club control slug with average guys in as many positions as possible. 14 Consolidate talent when critical mass of club controlled guys and average players reached without making unreasonable deals. 15 Don't take bad end of if a bad deal because you need "X" since if you need X that bad...you probably aren't good enough anyway. Preferably, build team so there is never a drastic need. 16 draft contact skills and develop power (not always though) as they translate better to MLB though may sacrifice some ceiling. 17 MLB player types don't matter much as drafted players as only care about value and much easier to project MLB players (even contact issue guys) than prospects. 18 actively manage 40 man roster to keep a slug of controlled talent together even if changing core. 19 win trades by getting average and even below average players with lots of club controlled years as secondary player in deal. 20 win trades with good scouting of lower levels for throw ins and PTBNL. 21 Don't trade MLB talent or guys that will be on team in a likely strong year for MLB talent when you can trade prospects in lower levels. (I.e. try not to take a step back to take two steps forward)
I think they've changed and refined their approach over the years as the team has gotten better. Some things have been pretty standard modern team-building principles but a few appear particular to the Stros. General: -Build through the draft, not FA. -Build through the middle (C/SS/2B/CF). Acquiring guys who play up the middle and shifting them down the defensive spectrum leads to better defense. -team control and arb salaries matters: call-ups are either after the delayed FA date or super 2 date -try not to commit a lot of money to the pen -Make good use of the IFA market. Team-specific: -When trading away expendable pieces, target high-upside lotto tickets in the rookie leagues rather than lower upside, high-minors prospects. -Try to acquire high-upside talent/stars via trade to utilize farm system depth over pure FA cash. -Try to acquire stars with control left rather than rentals -Higher avg/year deals are fine in the short time (e.g. Beltran/McCann) -Focus on pitchability rather than pure stuff. E.g. trading Folty and having the lowest avg. fastball in the majors last year -Continually look for new hidden-breakout metrics for both college prospects (e.g. college BB%) and current players (e.g. McHugh's spin rate). Obviously some don't work out; Nolan Fontana's huge college and low-minors BB% was zero indicator of success. As they've gotten better they've gone away from the flawed, potentially undervalued players (e.g. Chris Carter) to targeting more traditional players.
