But do the Mets value prospects more than getting out from under his contract? What if the Astros offered them low level prospects in exchange for taking on most of his salary? I guess that would be determined by how much the Mets are offered from other teams in terms of prospects and if they are willing to pay for them.
JV going to LA. Still don’t think it’s enough for them to beat ATL in a 7 game series. Honestly, it’s Atlanta WS to lose this year. I just want the ALCS streak to continue, and next year be a WS year.
Jayson Stark tweet says that only the Dodgers are left as an option for a Verlander trade. We’ll see I guess. I’m late to the discussion here. Was Hader rumored as someone the Astros are working on? Are the Padres selling? I’d LOVE Hader
It seems to me that there is a glut of outfield prospects and fringe starters already in the bigs that should allow the flexibility to trade from that strength. Why not trade Gilbert and another prospect for Verlander (with Mets paying a similar amount as they did for Texas)? If you have Verlander and Urquidy coming back it opens up the possibility of trading one of the emergency starters and another OF prospect for a high leverage reliever.
Interesting side note: the top 4 payrolls entering opening day (SDP, NYY, NYM, PHI) are all slotted out of the playoffs.
Mets don't care about money prospects is all they care about. Cohen is on records as saying that his contracts are "money already spent" so how much of it he has to eat is nothing compared to his priority of adding high end talent to the farm system.
The Mets don't care about the contract, they aren't looking for a salary dump, they are looking for top prospects
On the other hand just 1 of those 4 could have been the difference in a possible trade needed now. They have mitigated the issue well but it definitely stings on what could have been. Water under the bridge I suppose.
I have wondered if there was concern in the front office about the farm and if fingers were starting to point. It is easy to write off the Astros lack of top prospects by pointing to the loss of draft picks and the fact that they’ve been buyers at the deadline and picking at the back of the draft. And those factors have definitely had an impact. But: 1. There are no former Astros prospects on any current Top 100 lists. So the buy-side deals they’ve made in previous seasons are not impacting their current farm quality. 2. While they did lose 4 picks, they also have had extra picks (from QO departures and the Cardinals hacking). Generally they have very little to show for their highest bonus signees over the last 5 years: Joe Perez, Colin Barber, Alex Santos, Angel Macuare, Freudis Nova, Pedro Leon, Dauri Lorenzo, and Tyler Whitaker were all given big bonuses and had high ceilings and none of them have become the kind of elite prospects they had the potential to be; that group of 8 guys should have produced at least one MLB Top 50 prospect at this point. (Note: the results since 2022, with Gilbert, Melton, Clifford, Baez, C Diaz, etc. are much more encouraging.) Picking at the back of the draft is a legitimate excuse but other teams drafting from similar spots (Dodgers) have maintained better farm systems. So I am glad to see they aren’t just accepting the built in excuses.
At this point let Verlander go somewhere else or stay in NY. If Chicago is truly shopping Cease and Robert then Houston should offer whatever it takes. Peña, Gilbert, Bielak, etc etc. Get it done.
I was just thinking about this when we were rumored in talks with Detroit. The prospects we gave them for Verlander amounted to nothing useful... that in itself may keep them away from us this time around.
As an aside.... when it comes to farm system rankings, those are not always consistent with actual value. For example, coming into this season fangraphs had the Astros as the 29th most valuable farm system in baseball. Their rankings included Hunter Brown and Yainer Diaz as rookies. This season the Astros have had the following players produce from their farm system: Hunter Brown, JP France, Yainer Diaz, Corey Julks, Grae Kessinger and Ronel Blanco and Cesar Salazar. JP France and Hunter Brown are two of the best rookie pitchers in baseball and are the Astros #3 and #4 starters. Yainer Diaz is going to become the Astros every day starter and has an .800 OPS...... France (2.0), Diaz (1.5), Brown (1.5), Julks (.5), Kessinger (.3), Blanco (.2) and Salazar (-,2) have combined for 6 WAR this season, and that is with France and Diaz playing less than a full slate. Does that sound like the second worst farm system in baseball?
