Me personally, we adjust expectations going forward. I think Kemp is trending up, while Marisnick is trending down.
For what it's worth, Kemp had a WAR of 0.7 in 295 plate appearances, Marisnick had a 1.7 WAR with 235 plate appearances. Fangraphs had it much closer - Kemp 0.9, Marisnick 1.0.
The problem with Kemp is that he is a 2B and the Astros have a HoF-er ahead of him on the depth chart. Kemp performed exceptionally well for the Astros at the 9th spot. One could imagine a MLB GM seeing Kemp a legit lead off hitter. Kemp may end up being fairly easy to move this offseason for real value.
Reading tea leaves, Kluber is going to the Dodgers, Kikuchi to the Angels, Corbin to NY. Keuchel is going to go to WAS, SD, or Cincy. Greinke seems to make the most sense as Houston’s primary target.
Could go QO crazy for one year and sign Pollock and Grandal. That'd be interesting. Then DH would be a revolving door.
Mariners got C Omar Narvaez from the White Sox for RP Alex Colome. I consider that a steal for Seattle; Narvaez was a player I hoped Houston would acquire as a platoon mate for Stassi. But hopefully Houston still ends up with a superior option (I really only consider Realmuto or Grandal superior to Narvaez; Ramos is a different player but based on age and contract, I preferred Narvaez to Ramos).
One interesting note is that Chris Herrmann was a catcher for the Diamondbacks from 2016-2017 on the same team as Greinke. He was also on the same team as Paxton last season. Maybe that influenced Houston to pick him up, knowing they’d be bidding for both of those guys. Also interesting that Grandal is familiar with Greinke, as they were both on the 2015 Dodgers.
Herrmann was never the catcher for Greinke or Paxton though, but I suppose he's seen them practice/pitch plenty of times
Thank you for sharing that data, but I always felt that WAR is inflated for defensive specialists. Just a personal opinion.
it's a little early to be debating if Kemp should be on the 25 man roster. I need to see who the other 24 are first.
Anyone notice the free internet baseball coverage has taken a big hit in the last year or two? Fangraphs without Dave Cameron and now Carson Cistulli is down to McDongenhangan and occasional interesting Jeff Sullivan articles. Haven't found remainder of the coverage (e.g. Jay Jaffe, Meg Rowley, Sheryl Ring) to be particularly interesting. Canceled my annual subscription the other week. Then yesterday John Sickels announced that minorleagueball.com is shutting down. That was one of my go-to reads for Astros prospect coverage. Is it finally time to pay up for theathletic?
He just means sign multiple players with a QO attached. I could be wrong, but I believe we would lose our 2nd and 3rd pick
https://climbingtalshill.com/2018/11/30/astros-tony-kemp-expanded-role/ Astros: Tony Kemp could have an expanded role in 2019 "Now approaching 2019, Kemp looks to be a lock to be with the Astros full-time." You know what they say about opinions....
