Yea. It sucks for Emanuel but helps with one of the 40 man roster moves that are coming up. James is supposed to be close to going on a rehab assignment so if he comes off the 60 day IL that is one 40 man roster move Same for Baez if he ever comes back Same for Austin Pruitt Then you have Martes coming off his suspension which would require a 40 man roster move And of course if Verlander tries to come back another 40 man move needed
Frankie Tuesday rising from the crypt and being an effective pitcher for the Astros this season is a storyline i've been anticipating since Spring Training.
Through 2 months: Gurriel, Tucker, Castro, Urquidy, Garcia, Raley, and Pressly have been better than expected. Gurriel and Pressly should be All-Stars (along with possibly Bregman, Altuve, Correa, and Greinke). Maldonado's bat and the AAAA bats have been pretty bad. Odorizzi, Stanek, Smith, and all their young relievers have been awful. If there's a story thru these 1st 2 months, it's that bad luck and performance from the bullpen has overshadowed an amazing offense and some breakout young SP performances. I still think this team wins 90-95 games.
Looking ahead to next season, the team is going to be really really good. Altuve and Gurriel bouncing back and Tucker blossoming gives them 6 stellar hitters in ink. Urquidy, Valdez, Garcia, Urquidy, and McCullers all pitching well gives their rotation a very high floor, and at this point they’ve committed to Odorizzi, so there isn’t really a need for a SP unless they think they can make a big big move or get Verlander or Greinke to come back cheaply. Their bullpen has Pressly, Raley, Baez, Stanek, and at least one starter penciled in, plus they’ll likely want to keep at least one open spot for a young arm like Paredes, Abreu, Taylor, Scrubb, or Martes. So the needs: SS (my initial list of free agent targets would be Marcus Semien, Chris Taylor, Andrelton Simmons, Brandon Crawford, and Jon Villar, although if one of the big 4: Correa, Seager, Story, Baez drops below $200M I would be ready to pounce) CF (targets would be Starling Marte, Mark Canha, Chris Taylor, Jurickson Profar, and Jon Villar) 1-2 RP (hard to guess who to target) Current luxury tax payroll is around $130M factoring in arbitration. So they’ll have ~$60M to play with in 2022. I actually expect a pretty quiet offseason on the trade front, and I expect they’ll avoid 9 figure contracts. I think we could see multiple extensions to guys like Tucker, Alvarez, and the young SP. I think Diaz offers some flexibility to go cheap at SS as I would be totally fine with him as the 8 hitter as long as the CF was a good hitter.
When I looked it was likely to be closer to 50 million to spend. Odorizzi will hit some of his incentives in 2022 which could add as much as 6.75 million if he throws 160 innings. Also, Castro has already earned a 250k bump and will likely add another 500k- 1.25 million depending on how many games he catches.
Several. Astros have 20 games in a row starting June 15th. I expect them to use a 6th starter at least once to give the starters an extra day off during that stretch.
Click hinted at it as a possibility on a radio interview and specifically mentioned the 20 games in a row when they were talking about who would go to the bullpen when McCullers comes back. I don't expect them to use a 6 man rotation for multiple turns. Probably just one spot start so the regular starters get an extra off day during the 20 game stretch
While I get the concern, no one besides Greinke is on pace for enough innings to even qualify for the ERA title. I'm not too worried about the starters unless we start seeing guys go 7 innings a lot throwing a lot of stressful pitches. I'm more worried about the starters being used in relief getting used irregularly.
I'm not sure how the shortened 20 season would play into it, but based on their pre 2020 numbers Odorizzi, Framber and Urquidy shouldn't really "need" to have their innings intentionally limited from here on out. Urquidy threw over 150 innings in 2019, and was still going strong in the World Series and Framber/Odorizzi have already missed 1/3 of the season. That leaves plenty of ways to shuffle around the other 3 who do need the limits.
Diaz out 6-8 weeks. Not good. Garcia might get a good opportunity. Or if they trade for a CF Straw could be the backup SS.
Yea this is a big blow. Our lineup is as good as any but we have zero depth, this is where we miss Luhnow
Luhnow didn't exactly allocate resources to great backup utility infielders. It's a backup position to begin with. It's like being mad your 3rd string QB isn't up to snuff.
