Even if Houston’s only other move before opening day is a trade for Buxton or Mullins, they will have had a very good offseason. If they somehow manage to do that as well as trade for a ToR SP to upgrade over Odo/Urquidy (assuming they don’t decimate the farm in the process), they will have had an amazing offseason. My current realistic wishlist is a Mullins/Means trade and adding a low k SS like Iglesias or Simmons as insurance.
I expect Odorizzi to be traded and Montero to be non-tendered at this point. That saves potentially 17.85 million dollars factoring in the room needed for Odorizzi's incentives and Montero's estimated arbitration.
Spoiler “Good thing” they didn’t pay deadman because “he’s not worth it and only did it for half a season.”
Having a LH reliever in the pen is greatly overrated, and the numbers bear that out Having said that, Dusty doesn’t understand that at all and will always go to a LHP in a big spot against a lefty….so yea we need a strong lhp in our pen as long as this old man is our manager
I think the Neris deal vs Graveman contract tells us a lot about how Astros view risk associated with deal length.
I do think that has a lot to do with it. I also think Graveman has been bad against LHH, which is another reason to prefer a pitcher that can get outs from both sides of the plate.
I guess you didn't watch the playoffs/WS. Dude have up like one run and that's all that really matters.
If signing a reliever like Neris prohibits the Astros from doing what it takes to keep Carlos Correa or signing another elite hitter to replace Correa’s production, I’d fire James Click tomorrow. One better have no bearing on the other.
you really have to be able to understand the way that our front office is going to run under crane and our analytics driven front office. Correa was never going to come back given his demand for an extended length contract. Any deals that we are going to give out are going to maximize value.
This is what I don't understand about the signing. I guess we will wait and see. It sure feels like the nail in correas coffin though
Neris walks a lot of hitters and has a high HR/FB rate. The expected stats don’t have him as unlucky re homers, and instead the biggest thing driving the divergence between his FIP and expected stats relates to having a very low xBABIP, but BABIP by its nature is a stat that can vary wildly season to season. If what was driving that divergence was the fact that he was giving up a lot of cheap homers in a homer friendly park then I would be be more excited. So there’s upside, but there’s a good chance that, like in many of his seasons, it goes unrealized while the Astros are on the hook for a high AAV for a reliever.
Yes, data matters, but so does what happens on the field. You have to have a gut feeling to supplement the data. Do you think Luhow would've made this move?
The Astros can maximize value and still sign their elite talent. The Astros’ revenue stream has increased dramatically because of the level of winning the team has done during this golden age. That’s something Crane should want to keep going. Right now, the Astros own the professional sports landscape in Houston. Also, what do you think Kyle Tucker and/or Yordan Alvarez are going to command as free agents in four years? They will shoot for similar contracts to what Correa and other elite players in their primes get as free agents. You might be able to retain one at a similar AAV to what Correa will get, but Correa is the better player because of his defense. Correa is the Astros’ best position player and a team leader. By the time you are worried about year 7 or 8 of a new contract for him, Alvarez and Tucker are three or four years removed from free agency, and Altuve and Bregman’s big contracts expired four or five years prior. The Astros’ entire roster will look different by that point, and one big contract won’t inhibit the team’s ability to do anything. The Astros have the resources to be a big market team and keep their elite players while contending. Jim Crane needs to understand that. Like I’ve said multiple times this offseason, if Crane wasn’t willing to give Correa 7 or 8 years at big money, then he should have stepped in and got a shorter deal at big money done with George Springer during the shortened season in 2020. Not to mention, don’t have Buster Olney tweet last week that you are in the market for the elite shortstops, but you instead prioritize signing a mediocre reliever at 8.5M per year. The Dodgers obviously have bigger revenues than the Astros, but they, too, are an analytically-driven front office. They still bit the bullet and gave Mookie Betts 13 years, 390M (30M per season) after trading for him. The Astros need to run their front office closer to the Dodgers’ model than the Rays’ model. If Crane is unwilling to give elite players deals longer than six years, good luck retaining elite players the Astros develop or signing those from other teams as free agents. Without elite players like Springer and Correa, you don’t make the World Series, nor win it. You certainly don’t make 5 ALCS appearances in a row. Right now, there is still enough elite talent for the Astros to win the American League in 2022, but if they keep losing their elite talent when they reach free agency, that will not remain the case in years to come.
The Astros DO run their organization much more like the Dodgers than Rays, at least from a payroll perspective. They have been extremely close to the luxury tax each of the last 3 seasons and even went over in 2020. They just didn’t go WAY over like the Dodgers have/will, because they don’t have the same resources. But their spending is WAY closer to the Dodgers than the Rays. Any fan who doesn’t understand that giving Carlos Correa $250M+ is likely to be a bad decision for any team but moreso for Houston than LA/NY simply isn’t that knowledgeable. LA is very likely to regret that Betts deal.
