Along those lines- do you think the STL Cardinals would be willing to trade for LMJ without sending any money back if he has a good first couple starts? If not them then someone else? I don’t think he’d get traded or anything but I feel like I could come up with better ways to spend 18M a year right now than LMJ for this particular team. Of course- first I’d rather spend Cranes 20M in money up to the tax line I suppose.
I don’t think McCullers is a player Houston wants to trade. I think Crane loves him. And if he’s healthy for the playoffs he’s a big time weapon. Hell he can earn his whole salary just by being dominant in the playoffs.
Agreed. I’m just talking in a theoretical sense. I saw someone had LMJ as -40 or -50M in value on the contract and I don’t know that I buy that- I feel like if we wanted to move him someone would take him off our hands without requiring we take back any money.
I think his contract is under water, but not by much. If Houston were going to trade him for nothing, they’d probably be able to find a taker and wouldn’t have to eat more than $10M total, and it’s reasonable to think they’d be able to find someone to take on the whole deal, especially if he came back and threw 3-4 healthy productive starts before being shopped. Fwiw if I had to pick players from the big league roster to bet to be traded, I’d pick Urquidy and McCormick.
I can't figure it out but something is missing on this year's squad, we aren't hitting, our pitching has been mediocre.....just a spark....maybe WS Hangover? DD
Pitching hasn't been mediocre ... they are 2nd in MLB in ERA, behind only Tampa It is a hitting issue, and multiple somethings are missing: Altuve, Brantley, McCormick, Yordan in-and-out. Then you have a catcher who is far over the hill but plays every day and a 1B who is playing as if he also is over the hill (let's hope he is not, but either way it is not a WS hangover). It will improve when health returns, but we are still betting on many aging players and some coming off injury. Whether Abreu rebounds and whether the CF platoon holds up are the wild cards that might swing between a good lineup and a really good one. Pitching will be excellent regardless, and 95 wins should be realistic.
Abreu cannot continue to hit cleanup, he is killing us there. I'm rapidly losing confidence that he is evena league average hitter now, his bat looks slow AF. It seems like every plate appearance starts with him being late on a fastball and his pull rate is the lowest of his career, on top of the awful K/BB ratio. Hopefully he still has something left and can still be an above league average bat, but he needs to behind Tucker. It shouldn't even be a discussion at this point.
It’s interesting to me that the 2 spots that have held this team back in the first month of the season are 2 of the 3 areas they needed to address going into the offseason: 1B and C. They addressed 1B but that’s been a total bust and they did nothing at C. Maybe prolly coulda shoulda woulda been better to maybe have I don’t know maybe a General Manager? Once Brantley and Altuve are back, Abreu should not ever hit higher than 7th in the lineup until he shows some sustained success.
Not doing anything about catcher was disgusting and I made myself a pariah on this board b****ing and moaning about it. It was soooo stupid. As was the Brantley thing too imo. The fact that Meyers and Julks have been good sort of makes that not matter there but the other two spots are so terrible. The good/bad thing is that we probably have a decent internal option right now in Diaz that Dusty just refuses to play- so that could be fixed by injury or resolute action from the GM spot, but don’t think that really is likely. First base Abreu just needs to get better or maybe Brantley takes 2/3 of the platoon there at the end of the season.
I was probably more excited about Abreu than anyone here and it's crazy how bad he's been considering his history and Spring Training. He was smacking the crap out of the ball and now he has less power than Dubon.
Of course hindsight and all that, but imagine if they’d signed Joey Gallo and Cody Bellinger instead of Abreu and Brantley and then traded for Murphy.
I LOVED the Abreu signing. Loved it. Hated everything else about he off-season (not getting Contreras, signing Brantley, giving Montero 12M per and leaving 20-25M unspent) and right now it looks like every single off season decision was horrific, but it’s only 1 month in and it can all flip around without a doubt. Season is still young.
Whose playing 1st- Gallo? The only good thing about Brantley being gone so far and not doing anything else is Julks and Meyers getting time and being pretty good right now. If Meyers ends up a 3 or 4 WAR guy because he gets a shot he otherwise wouldn’t have then it worked out for the best on that part of the off-season. I’d rather Jake is rehabilitated with 4 more years of club control than a 1 year pop from Bellinger. I think I said I’d prefer Gallo on a 1 year 6 or 8M to Brantley but he got more than that, right?
Problem is Dusty will refuse to bat Yordan and Tucker back to back When Pena bats second you have Bregman to bat 4th and split them up, but when Pena leads off he moves Bregman to the 2 hole and there is no legit bat left to split up Tucker and Yordan When we get Brantley back if he wants to have Pena lead off you have Brantley to hit second and it makes it much easier to move Abreu down
Of all the stupid ass Dusty habits we have to deal with this may be the stupidest. Managers bring in lefties to face both hitters all the time. I would say probably 95% of the time the lefty that faces Yordan will stay in to face Tucker, so zero is gained by splitting them up. That's if they struggled against lefties to begin with, which they don't.
Gallo got $11M/1yr, so very close to Brantley. It was a little more than I expected him to get but I still thought it was a good signing for the Twins and would have liked him in Houston for that price. Of course, I liked the Abreu signing and felt Omar Narvaez would have been the ideal complement to Maldy so what do I know.
Gallo got $11M/1yr, so very close to Brantley. It was a little more than I expected him to get but I still thought it was a good signing for the Twins and would have liked him in Houston for that price. Of course, I liked the Abreu signing and felt Omar Narvaez would have been the ideal complement to Maldy so what do I know.
Truth Because usually the lefty comes in to face Yordan and unless he gets Yordan out and that ends the inning, he is still in the game to face Tucker, the 3 batter minimum rule takes care of that It's so frustrating to watch
