Leosdany Molina was picked as a DSL All Star. Romero says he will start next season in Fayetteville, and he is usually on point with his info. Molina and Narbe Cruz are 2 under the radar infield prospects I will be watching next season.
Romero should just start covering the Astros minor leaguers full time considering the number of Cubans the Astros have.
As much as I love Luhnow, Click is pretty darn good at finding gems that you can develop. He's a lot like Morey during the early days when he picked Landry and Beverley. He whiffed badly on Odorizzi and Baez so it's not all sunshine. He needs to pull off a Charlie Morton/Cole type transaction for next season and we will be good to go. McCullers Valdez Verlander Garcia (FA/trade)
While Odorizzi wasn’t as good/dependable as we all hoped, he has been worth his contract. $7.8M for 1.1 fwar (104.2 ip, 4.21 era) is a fair deal. I would bet if Houston wants to trade Odorizzi this offseason they would not have to eat any of his remaining contract. Baez was a total bust. But Click appears to have made some moves that make up for it, as Raley and Stanek have been excellent values. And it wouldn’t shock me at all if Maton was an elite reliever next season.
Worth his contract and a legit starter for a WS contending team are two different things. We really need another starter or two (if Verlander doesn't come back). Kent Emmanual looked pretty good for the 17 innings before he got hurt.
The regular season is 162 games. Odorizzi is definitely worth keeping to eat some innings, and he looked good when Dusty cut him down to two times through the order. There is a good chance (Garcia's knee dependent) he starts the ALCS clincher for the 2021 World Series champs (i.e., a legit starter for a WS contending team). That said, I'm not the biggest Odorizzi fan. If he could learn to warm up faster, I would think he may be more suited as a high leverage reliever in the future.
I am a fan in the sense that I think he can be a valuable player. I don’t like his vocal reaction to being pulled etc but I think he was dramatically affected by starting the season late. With a normal offseason and better workload management I would predict him to put up between 2 and 3.5 fwar over 120-150 innings which is excellent for a guy making $8M/yr. But given the conflict and Houston’s projected roster strengths/weaknesses it wouldn’t surprise me if he were traded this offseason.
Being a little b!t@h is part of most starting pitchers attitude. It is just seen as a positive trait and called something else if the pitcher is great.
Odorizzi was a bad move. Him pitching well on Friday, if he gets the start will make up for his bad yr. I would trade him and use that 8 mil to gamble on a guy like Syndergaard.
The problem with Odorizzi is if he does pitch 120 innings next season he makes 10.5 million not 8 million. If he pitches 160 innings he makes 14.75 million. Even if he isn't effective and has a 5.00 ERA but eats some innings he gets PAID. Also, his player option for 2023 is almost a lock to hit all his incentives and be 12.5 million and the buyout 6.25 million. Every appearance in 2021 or 2022 where he gets 12 outs counts as 1 point. If he gets 30 points his player option becomes 12.5 million. In his bad year this year he earned 18 points. So with 12 appearances of 4 IP next year he gets the 12.5 million player option for 23 AND he has innings incentives on top of that for 23. If he pitches 150 innings in 23 he will make 16 million. I don't think that contract is as easy to move as you think.
$27.25M/2yrs is very reasonable for a pitcher who has to give you over 280 innings to earn it. He probably has more value to a contender who may have more options if he struggles. But the only way Odorizzi earns $27.25M from Houston is if he pitches really well and stays very healthy. Also of note is he has a decreased luxury tax hit over 2022-2023. We will have to see how the FA SP market evolves, and surely the CBA will factor heavily into it. The Duffy/Wood/Cobb/Matz tier should give us an idea of what Odorizzi is worth in the open market. There’s a chance his contract might end up being slightly underwater. But for now, even based on his relatively down 2021 numbers, his contract looks pretty reasonable.
I don’t think Verlander is in our future. I’m pretty sure the team wasn’t too happy with him this year.
As long as pitchers can give you innings and be in the low to mid 4 ERA’s, they are at a good value. i think league average for ERA has been hovering around 4.25 since around 2016. ERA’s in the 2’s is stuff that gets you into the CY Young talk. ERA’s in The 3’s are enough to put you in the ace of the rotation stuff. But one thing an ace needs to get you is to be an innings eater. 162 innings by a pitcher pitching average will keep anyone within striking distance,
Odorizzi could make 30.75 million the next 2 years if he hits all the incentives. What stinks is they have to leave that payroll space open incase he does reach it. If he does earn those incentives it may not hurt that much. However, Mike Fiers threw 168 innings in 2016 with a 4.48 ERA and put up 1.5 WAR. Not sure we are going to feel great having Odorizzi make 14.75 million for that kind of year. Certainly not the kind of value we got for Morton or even Miley. If he throws 100 innings his luxury tax number will be higher next year and possibly signifcantly higher if he throws 140-160 innings. Not sure why you think it will be lower. Incentives count and signing bonsues are spread amongst the years equally
I'm with Snake on this one. Odorizzi's contract really isn't that bad. He's def not going to overperform it but if he hits his inning marks even with a mediocre ERA it's probably cuz we didn't have a better option. If he can save some regular season innings next year from LMJ or Framber, big win.
Odo put up a stellar 4.3 fwar over 159 innings for the Twins in 2019 (20th most valuable pitcher in MLB). A repeat of that in 2022 or 2023 would make the contract a steal regardless of what else he does. Ignoring 2020, he’s put up 9.7 fwar over his last 5 season. SP putting up ~2 wins/yr are worth between $12-18M/yr on the open market depending on age and most recent season. His contract isn’t some kind of steal but so far it’s been a decent deal and projects to be a solid value and has potential to be a very good deal for a MoR SP. Y’all expect every signing to be Charlie Morton and that’s not realistic nor is it what the market bears out. Y’all remember what Luhnow paid Scott Feldman and Doug Fister?
If he is 2019 Odorizzi next year he will take the 6.25 buyout for 2023 and would earn 20 million for one season between maxing his incentives for 2022 and maxing the buyout. Then he would hit free agency and get paid again.
Which would still be a fantastic deal for Houston (in that case it’d be a shame he wouldn’t be eligible for a QO).