No, I’m not saying Martinez would fall apart moving from 8th to 6th in leverage. I don‘t if he would fall apart at any point of leverage as it is usually on a sliding scale. I will say that I don’t think he would be as effective in the post season in high leverage spots as he is in the regular season. I think the difference in effectiveness between Montero and Martinez probably increases somewhat at leverage and role increases. Martinez may prove to be effective as a #2-3 leverage guy and maybe even a number one leverage guy but his margin for error is a lot smaller than Montero. The ability to turn a 9 inning game into 5-6 innings is an incredible luxury and advantage for the Astros. Also when you start seeing the contracts that Graveman, Pressly and many others got - the Montero deal isn’t bad unless you feel it was a fluke.
I must be missing something, but shouldn't you be directing this temper tantrum to the guy who just said he prefers Astros players to be of a certain skin color?
Some people really missed the point I said "I love all my Astros homies". Bagwell is my favorite all-time I did forget to mention Javier's black self. Yeah, I'm loving it Yes, it's missing
Yes, that comment was stupid. But Marshall Bryant ALWAYS finds himself amplifying politically charged **** like this and 90% of the time initiates it. It’s ****ing maddening. Go to a thread looking to talk Astros baseball and see page after page of comments responding to someone I have on ignore, knowing exactly who tf it is.
I'm fine with the signing. As others have noted, he's one of the best on the market this year and he was a key member of a World Series winning team who got outs in the postseason. For those who think it was maybe unnecessary, let's assume you're right and the team agrees. That means the worst case is that we now have a very good reliever who could be the primary closer on many teams signed to a three year deal at a decent price. That's a hell of a trade chip. Don't worry about the money. If Crane has said he'll spend, assume he will. I think he knows history remembers championships, not how well you did relative to your payroll.
Montero is probably our fourth best reliever after Pressly, Abreu, Stanek maybe even after Neris? I'm glad he's back but it feels like a major overpay for a relief pitcher who's ERA typically hangs around the 5's. With that said, this contract BETTER NOT be the reason we can't bring in quality bats, resign Verlander etc etc. I hope this is just a signal from Crane that he will spend whatever it takes to bring the best team back and continue to win World Series'...
That's actually not the worst case. We've seen relievers fall apart millions of times for seemingly no reason (and sometimes put it back together), it's an extremely volatile role. I'm not saying it will happen, but it's always a real possibility.
True but the Stros of late have a much better record 'un****ing' an outside pitcher successfully...... lasting until the pitcher leaves for another team. The only big regression from an outside acquisition who got un****ed by the Astros dev team that comes to mind right now is Playoffs '21 Maton to Regular Season '22 Maton. Sadly plenty of internal guys popped up for moments (Josh James, Enoli Paredes, Andre Scrubb) and fell apart as you said.
Pure speculation on my part but overpaying for relievers smells like Click to me. This may be a deal he set up that Crane was forced to make good on after Click was fired. You can't make on offer and then say never mind we fired that guy so his offer is no good.
Absolutely you can rescind an offer. The offer is not a contract until it is accepted and in real estate, delivered as well. Now if the offer was made and accepted, but not announced, it is a different matter.
Those aren't great examples and none of them had a full season of great pitching or anything close to it. The perfect example of buyer beware of the breakout season is Chris Davenski (although technically he had 2 years of great pitching under his belt before a rather precipitous fall from grace). Then there are the Brad Lidge's that end up with seemingly 2 separate careers and the craziest roller coaster rides in terms of performance you'll ever witness. As someone stated, relief pitchers are highly volatile and unpredictable. If there was word that 6 different teams were after Montero, then I would say we probably got fair market value on this deal. But there is no way that was the case. If we would have waited a few weeks we could have signed him for $8-9 million and the 3rd year being a club option.
I will only say he might have lost him by seeing if that were true. Relievers value appears to be on the rise as more organizations have begun to pay non closer, high leverage guys more. It is a case where the past value does not indicate the present value as well as it typically does. Montero's contract may reflect an owner setting (or at least recognizing) a trend rather than following one.
You may be absolutely right, we already saw Diaz and what I consider a terrible move by the Mets paying that much for a closer. Let's see what other relievers get the rest of this free agency.
Nah, the only reliever on the Astros that is going to definitely be better going into next year is Abreu, assuming they keep him in the pen. Montero and Pressly and Stanek were all similar last year.
Huh? How do you know this? Also, no, the Astros would not have gotten him for 8-9 million with the third year being an option. Lesser pitchers have already signed for that much or more. Montero was probably the second-best reliever on the market.
Crane negotiated the contract with Montero and IMO I think he did fine and what a real GM would have gotten done. When you look at the money the Padres gave to inferior relievers and how few are on the market, the Astros deal isn't bad. There are a number of teams that would use Montero as a closer. All of his advanced statistics show that his performance wasn't a fluke and it was consistent with the fact the Astros tangibly changed how he pitches.
Sorry you cannot make this statement and not expound on it. Chavez who had a great season with Atlanta signed for 1.2 million. Nick Martinez who came up big for SD in the playoffs signed a 3 year deal worth less than 9 million. Montero is already the 5th highest paid relief pitcher in baseball, right behind Pressly who's 4th.
Agree on all of this. As I said previously, there's a good chance they could lose JV, and even if they don't lose him resigning Montero and keeping the depth of their dominant pen is a formula that separates them from every team in mlb right now. Being able to shorten games to 5-6 innings is HUGE!! With that depth it also allows them to keep the pen from wearing down over the regular season and being ready for when it counts the most (the playoffs). Pressly, Abreu, Montero, Neris and Stanek all have swing and miss stuff and they're all playoff tested. Anyone complaining (or thinking) we over paid for Montero isn't seeing the big picture and how valuable this dominant pen is to competing for WS. Montero was DEFINITELY going to get paid!! Glad they locked him up.
Lol, I was just about to post something agreeing with Nook about the reliever contracts, using Nick Martinez as validation of Montero's contract. Martinez had a great playoff run, but Montero was also really good in the playoffs and far superior in the regular season. Montero is the far better reliever. Martinez generated just 0.5 fWAR last season... and that's despite starting ten games and throwing over 100 innings. Montero in 68 IP generated 1.5 fWAR. Chavez, that's not even a semi-reasonable comparison. Production stats aside (0.7fWAR and 3.76 ERA to Montero's 1.5fWAR and 2.37 ERA), he's not a back-end bullpen guy. By leverage stats, he was used a lot like Phil Maton (if actually slightly lower leverage). Chavez and Maton are the type of middle reliever guys you worry get exposed in critical playoff moments. Meanwhile Montero was a lights out setup man and even closed 14 games in Pressley's absence.
