I would not be surprised if the Astros Nerd Cave see Verlander as an extremely expensive asset who is on a slow decline for the rest of his career. Verlander may be able to pitch like an ace for small stretches in the season, but there would have to be a great deal of luck if that stretch corresponds to the playoffs.
That would be the same evaluation of Beltran and McCann prior to this season as well. If Crane is willing to absorb Verlander's contract, I don't think he'd hurt as much as he'd help... especially for this season. By the time his contract is up would be around the time they'd be looking to re-sign guys anyways. I don't think its cost prohibitive for next year either, with Beltran coming off the books.
This is another reason why I'm high on him. His contract comes off the books right as we will be looking to resign our core. His contract would (should?) not interfere at all with our ability to pay these guys.
I'm less concerned about his contract and more concerned about his possible lack of competitive desire, along with his willingness to play in Houston now or even next year. He's going to get paid either way... and at this point, he's earned the right to play wherever he wants. If he truly wants to win a championship, he'd happily come here (or LA). If he doesn't care all that much, and just wants to be happy wherever he's at regardless of winning, I don't see things moving all that much.
The good thing is that we won't have to find that out the hard way. If he doesn't care about winning, then (I assume) he'll just refuse to waive his no-trade clause.
While I am in total agreement that up to this point, the FO has done plenty IMO, perception doesn't always equal fact. With a lot of folks, how far we go in the playoffs is the only metric. If we go far, then all is great and the FO did a wonderful job. If not, we failed miserably. And "wont do enough to win" implies what the FO will do in the future. The only thing that can be said for sure about that is that the FO will make choices. And how well received those choices will be will once again be highly biased by playoff success or failure.
Pretty much Just like CF posters have differing views on what we should have done at the deadline, whether Luhnow was right to not move prospects, and whatever else.......players are just people too, they have differing views. Keuchel spoke out about it, who knows how the others feel So regardless of how "we" feel about the situation, what the players themselves feel is what matters Of course that all assumes the money is about the same everywhere, cause a very large majority of guys are gonna go where the most money is offered, regardless of the rest of the situation
I doubt the current players on this historic team are ecstatic that we saved their replacements instead of helping them go further in the playoffs. I think they care less about our farm than we do. Just my opinion..
I don't disagree But I bet they care more about money than that issue all together Signing Keuchel, Altuve, Springer, Correa will come down to Crane opening up the checkbook first and foremost If the money is the same then other issues come into play, mainly getting to and winning the World Series. If we win one between now and then, this years deadline won't matter...if we don't, then it certainly could....I don't think anyone is going to leave because of their personal feelings on Luhnow, but if he would have let go of a few prospects and got us legitimate help, our chances of winning it all this year would have been even better, which in turn could have helped keep a guy or two But that's only if the money is the same, or really close ....don't be fooled by anything else, it's gonna be about the greenbacks
How the players feel may matter most. But how the fans feel has some bearing on revenue. What other GM's feel has some bearing on trades. How our own brass feels has a bearing on what we do next. I think it all matters in the grand scheme of things.
That is a very narrow way to look at it, for you could also say that by retaining prospects, we enabled next years team, and the one after that, and so on to go further in the playoffs. Its also possible that some of our retained prospects could help us in this years playoffs. Possibly even more than the guy we would have traded them for.
So next year, when we have this exact same team minus Beltran we will be glad we kept Tucker and Martes? And when we are playing just as good but don't do anything at that deadline either? These prospects we saved are going to replace the players on this team that want too much money when their contract is up.. that means this season and next season we could have added help.
I don't care who their prospects are, they don't have enough pitching help this year, next year and possibly not the one following. And if Keuchel and McCullers can't get past their constant injuries, attendance could soon become a bigger problem than favored prospects.
What I meant by "narrow view" is that your attempting to boil it down to one thing or the other. I.E. Either said prospect(s) are a future replacement player or is in a trade for another player. While that is true in a vacuum, there is much more to consider than just that if your trying to understand and evaluate what we are doing and why. You have to explore not only what playerX could have netted you in a trade, but what he(they) could bring to the team since he(they) remains on it. It could be what they actually do in games. It could be what part they play in future trades. It could be what attitude they bring to the clubhouse. It could be leadership. And these other peripheral factors are factors on the potential trade deadline player as well. Evaluating, IMO, cant be done right just by comparing stats. Determining value, which is ultimately what we are attempting to do when comparing one player to another needs many factors considered. So that leads me to looking at what the FO didnt do in terms of deadline deals, and thinking about how much our FO knows about another teams player that we dont. That is key because we say we (FO) didn't do enough to get X player. But we say that in the context of what we know. And mostly, that is limited to stats comparison. A bit of observation personally (actually watching the player in question) also. But I am betting our FO knows considerably more than we do. Thats when, at the end of the day, we either trust or do not trust our own FO. Sure, sometimes its obvious a particular teams FO does better than most, worse than most, about average, and so on. So when we only offered players X,Y & Z for player W, and player X ends up elsewhere, and we say to ourself we should have offered more for player W cause he could have helped us, there may be very specific reasons for why we didn't.
Keuchel, McCullers, McHugh, Morton is as good as any playoff rotation. Peacock, Fiers, Giles, Gregerson, Harris, Devo, Feliz, Martes, Hoyt, Liriano, Sipp, etc. more than enough arms to assemble what's been one of the best bullpens in MLB for October They have enough help this year and in the coming years with Whitley, Martes, F Perez, recent drafts and whatever they keep adding in free agency. That beats acquiring guys in trades any day.
Not sure if serious.. I need one of those "Just One Before I Die" t-shirt.. at this rate with hoarding prospects and looking towards the future, I might as well get one for my kids..
Keuchel can't get to 6 innings, McCullers is seeing a back specialist, McHugh is returning to form... as a #3 man.. Morton can't get through the order a 3rd time... Harris is on the DL, Liriano has yet to record 3 outs, Sipp was replaced by said Liriano.. and the rest of the pen has been really good at letting the starters ERA go up by scoring all their inherited runners... What pitching staff are you watching? Let me know if it's suddenly better in 2020 with those prospects.
