I don’t think she is referring to a current player in Corpus. There are no host moms now since the Astros are now paying for all their players to have apartments. Also, in a follow up tweet she said “and I was just planning on going to Houston to visit him”.
Also, straw is out of the lineup tonight. Not that it means he’s being traded but an interesting coincidence.
Ronnie dawson was pulled in the first yesterday and isn't in the lineup today. He makes sense for Miami to try in the majors and he's expendable to the Astros .
Straw has what's left of less than 600K Marte has what's left of 12 M Not gonna happen without them eating some salary and likely taking Smith
A few draft picks is part of how the Astros got a WS trophy. I find it highly unlikely that the Astros barely break the luxury tax limit as it wouldn't likely change the Astros odds of winning the World Series this season much. If Crane is willing to break luxury tax big, I'm all for it. I just find it doubtful.
No doubt If we make a deal that gets us into the tax we just added something big, and likely controlled for a while Not sure who fits that
Nick Sandlin is a rookie sidewinder for Cleveland with some heat (95ish sinker), his sinker and slider tunnel very well, and it is almost impossible to hit one if guessed the pitch wrong. Problems are he's got a ton of control left and Cleveland is still competing for the playoffs. Cleveland has not used him in too much leverage as they have some good arms or that much in general so he's a fresh arm. His lack of experience in the majors would make him a risky proposition, and being a reliever limits his upside. If Cleveland craters over the next month, I'd suggest some combination of Lee, Barber, Nova, Brewer, and/or anyone else at A advanced or lower.
Why the threshold matters more to some than others The financial penalty for exceeding the luxury-tax threshold – 20 percent for every dollar spent over $210 million for a first-time offender, 30 percent for a second, 50 percent for a third – is not usually reason enough for clubs to treat the limit as a hard cap. But for the Astros, in particular, the potential losses of draft picks and international slot space create a larger deterrent this season. The sign-stealing scandal cost the Astros their first- and second-round picks in the 2020 and ’21 drafts, so club officials are especially mindful of the consequences of exceeding the threshold for a second straight year. The Astros currently are at $208.8 million in luxury-tax payroll, according to Fangraphs, making deadline additions difficult without accompanying subtractions – and the Houston roster contains little fat. Going past $210 million might hurt the Astros in two ways – first, in the quality of draft-pick compensation they would receive if they lost free agents who rejected qualifying offers; and second, in the penalties they would incur for signing a free agent with a qualifying offer attached. The Astros likely will face qualifying-offer decisions with two players – Carlos Correa, who would be almost certain to reject it, and Justin Verlander, who also might reject it, figuring he could beat a one-year deal in the $18 million range even though he will be coming off Tommy John surgery entering his age 39 season. If the Astros stayed under the threshold, they would receive a pick after Comp Round B, in the 75 to 80 range, for each of those players they lost. But if they went over, that pick would come after the fourth round. Now, let’s say the Astros replaced Correa by signing Trevor Story in free agency after he rejected a qualifying offer (this idea is more of a hypothetical; the ‘Stros under the current system have yet to sign a free agent who rejected a QO from his previous team). If they stayed under the threshold, they would lose a second-round pick plus $500,000 in international slot space. But if they went over, they would lose their second- and fifth-round picks, plus $1 million in international slot space.
The more I think about it the less I think the cap will be a factor. The overage % is tiddlywinks; the draft pick penalties are the real cost. I don’t think Houston will be signing any QO free agent except maybe their own (which is also unlikely at this point). So the value of whatever moves Houston makes over the cap has to account for trading back 2 2nd round picks to 4th rounders. That isn’t ideal, but the difference in real value is probably <$10M total.
The biggest cost with going over the luxury tax is that the luxury tax is a collective bargained threshold that teams get penalized for going over even if the penalties aren't that extreme. If the Astros don't try to stay under when it is close, other teams won't either, and the big revenue teams may decide not to reset their tax situation as often. The way teams treat the luxury tax would be illegal if the luxury tax wasn't collectively bargained. As it is collectively bargained, it is more of a gray area that is probably easily defendable by lawyers.
Crane has signed off on aggressive adds at the deadline in Verlander and Greinke, so I would imagine that he'd be willing to boost the payroll. Since they really only need a reliever or 2, I suspect they'll be able to figure something out that will let them stay under the line. I think that the Pressly deal is a good framework for what they ought to shoot for, though I'm not sure who fits that category. This anticlimactically ended up being Lorenzo Quintana for cash. Between Stubbs, papierski, and Shaver, he would have limited playing time in AAA.
