Astros were in the hunt early and often. They wanted him.... I would say a lot. We couldn’t or wouldn’t match Yankees offer. Orioles didn’t like what we offered. Is what it is. No doubt hurts Astros. We still need a closer. Can’t win them all but I sure thought we would have a quality closer at the deadline. Time for Tucker and Perez to step up and help the Astros win this year.
Buster Olney We'll see what the Astros' offer for Britton actually was this time around, but the fact is that for the reigning champions, there's not as much pressure to make a deal as there was before Verlander deal. Dodgers, NYY are both under more pressure to win WS, and made big deals. An absolute group of turds. Tough to point this out to the Lugnow nut huggers, but he's regressed to the mean after his 4 years of stockpiling top 5 prospects dried up. Nothing to do with not acquiring Britton, but if you look at all the low cost bullpen help that has flown by him after giving away Hader, it's pretty telling. Every GM would love an owner that lets them start out like that. On paper, the Yankees and Red Sox have stronger rosters when healthy. It's going to be an uphill battle in the playoffs without a healthy Correa.
Careful - your post might get deleted for pointing out the obvious http://bbs.clutchfans.net/index.php...vin-herrera-to-washington-for-nothing.291808/
Didn't see me mentioning firing anyone, but once again, I hold him accountable instead of giving him a lifetime of free passes. It's a game of peaks and valleys, not consistently getting it right, so you have to pick out trends and apply pressure in certain areas. Like Buster said, Lugnow has no pressure because he's beat up on weak teams the whole reg season, but the playoffs will be a very diff story. Astros have been the weaker team against strong teams in 2018.
When you refer to people as Luhnow nut huggers you lose credibility with people, except other kids who act the same way We aren’t even to the initial deadline and you are giving up on the season lol
Don't really need credibility from a bunch of nut huggers though, do I? Chase the truth and you'll agree with what I say, otherwise stay in your lane.
Was that the case with Herrera as well? I find it very unlikely the Orioles would turn down Martin for Tate, who at 24 years old started this season in A+ and in AA had only been okay. Luhnow didn’t want to deal his top 10 prospects and that is fine, it took Astros players complaining and the fans getting frustrated to get him to include one of his pitchers to close the deal on Verlander AFTER the deadline. Luhnow knows his players better than we do so he gets the benefit of the doubt. I wouldn’t have dealt Martin for Britton either, but I would have sent James or Perez for him. I am sure knowing he dealt away Hader, who isn’t a free agent for 5 years has to weigh in his thought process when he considers deals players that are rentals. I have a bad feeling that the pen will be our undoing, and although I played college baseball... at the end of the day I’m a fan and Luhnow is a savant.
And actually, you say every GM would love an owner that would let them start out like that. A clear reference that most owners wouldn’t? And you reference that we only got here beating up on bad teams, well last year we were 8-6 against teams that won 59% of their games or more, not exactly dominant. Maybe playoff baseball is different But continue your rant it’s kind of funny
I am not surprised at all. I didn't think Luhnow would out bid pretty much every contender to get Britton. Jared Hughes, Kirby Yates, and Joakim Soria are the guys I expect the Astros to be looking at. All of them are under control beyond this season.
Sorry... not going to. He didn’t get him at the deadline, then got lucky that he cleared waivers and were less than a minute from not getting him at the nonwaiver deadline. He was very lucky. He deserves a lot of credit for how he runs the organization and how innovative he, his leadership style, the quality of the people he hires. He deserves credit for completely rebuilding the Astros farm system. He deserves credit for signing Gurriel and the trade for Cole and everything else. Hell I don’t even blame him for the Gomez trade. The Astros needed an impact move and Hader was a future reliever. However Verlander was not some masterful move by Luhnow. He struck out at the trade deadline and it took a whole lot to fall right for Luhnow to get Verlander. Let’s see how the rest of the deadline goes. I will be curious to know who the Astros offered. It is also possible that the Orioles wanted starting pitching that is months from being ready over higher ceiling guys that the Astros have.
I think not getting Herrera was because he wanted someone better. Our pen isn’t exactly trash, so it’s not like we were/are gonna add multiple arms and get rid of multiple guys already down there. Would guess the Yankees were the same, they also could have had Herrera a lot cheaper I would tend to agree on Martin vs Tate, but you just never know. Tate was highly rated early on then dropped badly. Maybe the Orioles scouts wanted him in the draft, missed getting him, and still love him. It’s just so tough to figure these guys out I don’t worry about our pen cause we have so many quality arms down there, and can place a starter at the end in the playoffs as we did last year. Would I have loved to add Britton? Yes, but I’m not overly worried. I’m glad he went to the Yankees and not Boston if we didn’t get him, Boston worries me more in the playoffs, Yankees rotation isn’t the kind that typically wins it all.
Really dude, Luhnow made a trade last year that helped them win a WS. `(Do you just not like Luhnow, or are you just blind to the way he does business? He only trades for guys with multiple years worth of control. Unless he gets what he considers a fair deal for a rental. This is why I expect Iglesias or Vasquez to eventually become an Astro. I could also see Luhnow standing put with the bullpen and add another big bat. Then if healthy bring Whitley up to put in the bullpen. There's more than one way to skin a cat. With that said I wish Luhnow would've topped the Yanks offer. They certainly had better pitching prospects to offer than what the Orioles got. Sad part is Britton would already be an Astro if not for old man Angelos.
And I would guess the way people view guys like Armenteros, Paulino and some of our guys who are “close” varies wildly. It’s probably actually easier to figure these things out when it’s the top prospects being moved, cause when you move outside of the top 50 mlb prospects the way these guys are thought of varies greatly from organization to organization, as well as from different FO people in the same organizations