State of free agency, Jan 3: Superstars (2): IF Machado, OF Harper Stars (4): C Grandal, OF Pollock, SP Keuchel, RP Kimbrel Everyday players (6): 3B Moustakas, 2B Dozier, 2B LeMahieu, IF Lowrie, IF A Cabrera, UT Marwin Fringe everyday players (15): C Wieters, C Maldonado, RP Ottavino, RP Britton, SS Iglesias, OF C Gonzalez, OF Markakis, UT Harrison, OF A Garcia, UT W Flores, OF A Jones, P J Garcia, P Anderson, P Miley, P Buchholz There are boatloads of 3rd tier relievers with upside; over 20 free agents have a 10+ save season on their resume. There’s also a dozen or so aging bats with upside and another few handfuls of BoR SP looking for work. From an Astros perspective, Harper, Grandal, Pollock, and Keuchel make sense at certain price points, and I fully expect them to extend multiple NRI to pitchers to come in and compete for both rotation and bullpen spots.
Wouldn’t be surprised to see Houston claim Aaron Slegers, the RHP Minnesota designated to make room for Nelson Cruz. Slegers has upside and options remaining.
Yeah I think someone would bite on him. He is a massive kid, nearly 7'0" but not a strikeout pitcher. If he can get his delivery and command under control, he can be good. I wouldn't be surprised if the Pirates or Rays are all over him.
Armenteros pitched great in winter ball in the Dominican. 1.17 ERA with a 0.70 WHIP. I was kind of surprised to see Framber Valdez last year get the call up over Rogelio. It will be fun seeing those two plus Perez, James & Whitley compete in spring training.
So...if the 5th year doesn’t surface for DK, any chance he comes back to HOU on a 4y deal? I fear NYY will outbid us if it’s for 3 or 4y, but maybe there’s a chance, especially with the losses of LMJ and Morton. Sign DK and fill out the rest internally is what I’d like to do if we can keep it no higher than 4y/80m. Then resign Verlander for Greinke esque remainder (3/90), let Cole walk (weren’t resigning him anyways), and sign Springer as well.
If DK takes up 20mil/year, I’d say it’s a lot less likely that we are able to pay Springer and Verlander to remain.
More unlikely, sure, but I don’t think it’s impossible. I don’t know—maybe we do pass on DK. In all likelihood he’s probably gone. But we do have some iffy contracts coming off the books in the future and we’re relativey clean moving forward. Not a lot of financial commitment and we have a beavy of young, cheap talent. Maybe it can be done—keeping the core together, that is. The key question really is: who is the core? I think we’re set up as well as possible to keep our core players. Hell, Altuve’s contract wasn’t nearly as painful as I thought he would command. Maybe the same will be true for Springer.
It’s definitely a good problem that our core continues to grow. Last year at this time, Cole wasn’t even in the picture, and now we dream of locking him up long term. Next year our we might be insisting on extending Brantley, or we could be saying that Josh James is our future ace. When we have an organization as good as this, good things keep coming.
Between, McCullers, James, Whitley, Martin, Valdez, Perez, Bukauskas, and Armenteros, Houston may only need one SP from the outside after Cole/Verlander leave. Especially considering there’s another crop of fairly high upside arms who could be ready by 2020 (Martes, Bielak, Bailey, Ivey, Solomon, Adcock, Abreu, Javier).
Josh James is our future ace. Next year, we will drop the "future". Caveat: This may be an overenthusiastic post. Though, so far, MLB hitters have made James look like an ace in a small sample size.
I think the price tag for Ray will be astronomical and I'm not sure he is worth it. He has elite stuff, but he has awful command of the strike zone. Ray will likely never be that ace going 190 plus innings in a season. He walks too many guys to consistently go deep in games. In 24 starts last year he only pitched 7 innings one time and 6 innings or more 7 times. He walked 4 or more batters 9 times. Dbacks are going to want a haul worthy of a number 2 starter with 2 years of control. I don't think Ray is worth it, but maybe Luhnow can pull off another Cole style trade.
I think you are probably right about his projected cost. I think the only way that works in our favor is if we take on Greinke’s salary as well.
No idea what their asking price is, but over the previous 4 seasons prior to being dealt, Cole had been a much more valuable pitcher than Ray has been over the last 4 seasons. I would peg a “Cole equivalent” to Perez (Musgrove), Fisher (Moran), Dawson (Martin), and Deetz (Feliz). I would be more than fine giving up those four prospects for Ray, even though based on the Cole trade it would be an overpay. (I would guess Arizona would ask for James instead of Perez.)
Robbie Ray has been really, really good away from their very hitter friendly park. I'm not sure what his price tag will be, but I could easily see him having a Cole like result in our more neutral park, and in the hands of our coaches/analytics team.
Man, we can't afford it really, but a rotation of Verlander, Cole, Ray, Greinke, and my grandma's bridge partner would be winning lots of games.
