You're a smart guy to know what it would take to trade for someone like a Verlander at the deadline. You've seen the price the Mariners paid for Castillo. Houston traded at the time their 3rd, 9th, and 11th best prospect at the time. Let's not pretend Houston traded single A talent that had little to no high ceiling. The cost now would be even higher.
It depends on the pitcher that is brought in. If the Astros are planning on the 6 current pitchers all starting, then there is no room for a 7th. If the Astros bring in a AAAA type pitcher with options or on a minor league deal, or plan on pitching Brown, Garcia, or Urquidy in the bullpen then that's fine. Otherwise another starter will do more harm than good until/unless one or more gets hurt and misses time. There is also talk of stretching Abreu out this spring and giving him an audition. 5 or 6 MLB starters will work just fine balancing work load management and staying sharp and stretched out. 4 starters or 7 starters is a major problem.
Astros had 7 starters last season. I do agree it would benefit the Astros to get a SP with options if they can cheaply, but that is really hard to do. Also, a SP always gets hurt.
I added it up this way for my 2023 roster projections. F Valdez* 30 starts @ 6-7 innings for 195 total innings C Javier 30 starts @ 6 innings for 180 total innings J Urquidy 28 starts @ 6 innings for 168 total innings L Garcia 28 starts @ 6 innings for 168 total innings L McCullers 20 starts @ 5 innings for 100 total innings H Brown 20 starts @ 5 innings for 100 total innings B Abreu 6 starts @ 5 innings for 30 total innings Total 162 starts for 941 total innings Leaving this pen to cover 9 more innings than the 22 pen did.
Yea. Seems like a lot of people just dismiss the loss of JV up there with the loss of Odorizzi. Yea his World Series or that game 1 against Seattle was nothing to write home about. But his regular season was stellar and contributed mightily to our bullpen being able to lock down teams in the playoffs.
The biggest thing the Astros gave Detroit was the willingness to pay most of Verlander's salary. No team expected Verlander to be as good as he was for the Astros. The prospects were likely added to the deal to get Detroit to pay a portion of Verlander's salary.
Did you see the package Seattle gave up for Castillo? They gave up 4 prospects including 3 in the top 5 of their farm system. The price that was shelled out for Verlander at the time is nothing compared to what it would take to land an Ace 5 years later. That's my point.
There were two reasons why Verlander wasn't traded during July's trading deadline in 2017. No team was willing to give up prospects that Detriot was wanting. There were several teams linked to trading for Verlander. He also had a no-trade clause. He wanted to go to either NY or LA.
Astros had 7 starters but never more than 6 at a time Odorizzi was traded before McCullers was activated. Brown made 2 starts but others had been moved to the bullpen by then.
I will say this if the Yankees or the Mariners get Reynolds we might have some serious competition. He is the guy we should go for
Try this one on for size. Reynolds CF and prospects Gorski OF and Thomas RHP For Meyers, Maton, Garcia, Leon, Whitley, Clifford and Perez. Maton is a salary dump the rest or various need positions for them
He was the stabilizer in the regular season. If the team lost a few games, you knew with Verlander on the mound you had a chance to win no matter how bad the team was struggling. You have that with valdez too but it was amazing having 2 pitchers that you felt that way about. It also shielded valdez from having to be the game 1 starter etc. Lastly I think Verlander struggled when he wasn't pitching with normal rest that is why he struggled in those 2 game 1s
I think the point being that Grayson is out for the year and wasn't major league ready yet so you are looking at late 2024 probably at best for him in the big leagues. So yes, he is a valuable prospect but the delay hurts his trade value.
Then pittsburgh asks for Javier thrown in... They don't have a realistic price on Reynolds right now...
