Unless you're a prospects only guy you have to absolutely love this trade. We kept Tucker, Whitley, Martes and Fisher. I don't like having to give up Perez but I ****ing love this trade.
Crane not getting enough credit. Really had to stretch the payroll to take on another $20M in 2018 and 2019. I could even see them having to do some surprising things to shed salary this offseason (Sipp, Fiers, Gurriel, Reddick, McCann, Morton potential salary dumps).
Looks like Astros slightly overpaid (depending on fine print [i.e. may be PTBNL in deal] based on July deadline prices. Not sure Astros make this deal if McCullers is healthy. That said, McCullers hasn't pitched in MLB to see if he is 100%, the price wasn't so high that waiting for information was that bad, and Verlander has looked like an ace again in August. Kudos to Crane. I didn't think he would okay this deal without Detroit paying more money.
hopefully that's combined with a hitting setback where he reverts to hitting like earlier in the year.
I hate to give up Daz but **** this is amazing. Only question is will UpJugs bring that juice box to minute maid
September is going to be fun! Not only the guys getting healthy, coming together and rallying around the city of Houston, but Verlander and Maybin? This is going to be fun!! Always sucks to give up prospects, but for Daz, where was he going to play? The OF is really well stocked ahead of him for a long time to come. This is a big time win now move. I love it!! Kudos to Crane and Luhnow for doing it!!
Beltran's money likely already spoken for with arbitration raises. This looks like either Crane has raised the budget or Luhnow has promised to trade someone like Gurriel in the off-season. Steep price to pay, but Astros look better this season. Considering the Astros don't make trades just to make trades, paying a steep price every now and then won't hurt for a postseason boost.
Between Sipp, Gregerson, Fiers, Clippard, and not having Beltran and Liriano's salaries on books then they should have plenty of options to offset Verlander and some increases in arbitration without touching key guys, no? Also, if team makes WS then it might not matter haha. First things first, let's retain the top seed! Kudos to Crane though. He did step up.
They have a lot of arbitration raises coming. As of now I project next seasons payroll at $140-$150M depending on how arbitration shakes out. I think that is ~$10M higher than they want. I expect this offseason they will dump some salary. If they are able to trade Morton, Fiers, and Sipp then they should have ~$10M to play with, with potential needs being a lefty reliever, a DH (or catcher), and maybe LF. I would think they'd look internally for the position players given their young upside depth (Stassi, Reed, White, Moran, Davis, Kemmer, Centeno, Kemp, P Tucker, Fisher), so $10M to spend on a lefty reliever works well. I could see them trying to acquire Britton, which would give them an unbelievable opening day roster.
Crane was going to have to raise the budget on arbitration raises alone... as its gone up every year. I agree that LMJ's health is very iffy, although McHugh looking great since coming back, along with the continued consistency of Peacock, would have helped mitigate that. This is insurance against Keuchel having another setback, LMJ never recapturing the early season form, and something else unforeseen happening to Morton/McHugh. This also allows them to finally jettison Fiers from the rotation.
