Under if that’s the group- I take the under. I get what you are saving but if all the holes to fill at the trade deadline I’m in favor of a platoon bat in a walk year and relievers. Relievers are so volatile it’s nice to see whose having a nice year, and platoon type bats in walk years are cheap. if we get a competent backup catcher and try out Whitley, Bielak, Spaghetti and blanco in relief roles I won’t absolutely hate that. We’ve got 8th and 9th on lockdown we just need a 7th inning guy. That could easily be Graveman or Montero who have gotten it done in the past and in the up and down nature of bullpen guys could be just fine. Also, playing good lineup will allow us to bludgeon teams more and keep the leverage guys fresh. Backup catcher is the only place we don’t have a plausible quality solution in house imo, but I would like a LF that mashes RHP to platoon with Meyers.
My big deal is if they dont get a SP1 this offseason then I hope they add another shutdown reliever to replace Neris. They can get by with the SP they've got if they can lockdown things from the 7th inning on.
I'm fairly certain that if we are going to add a 20 million dollar per year player to the roster and go into the tax, it won't be for someone we plan to get around 300 at bats
Agree with most of what you are saying But at some point we have to stop the "we will fix it at the deadline" mentality. As much as some of us on here get excited about some of the prospects on the come, truth is our system is not strong comparatively speaking and the plan being to trade from it every year will continue to take it's toll I don't think we need to make any big moves to be as good as any team in baseball. We were on the brink of another World Series as it is and going from Maldanado to Diaz has the potential to be the biggest upgrade at one position that any contender makes this offseason. My hope though, is that Brown is good enough with a full offseason to possibly move off of a little salary and on to a little more that fills needs. As i've mentioned before, we need a good utility guy to go along with Dubon, a guy that can play a decent 3B/1B, hopefully a guy who fills a platoon need for us too. A little quality versatility that keeps us from giving at bats to guys like Julks, Singleton, Goodrum etc....would go a long way
I agree. Perez is not getting traded unless KC eats quite a bit of his contract (or adds prospects/players to him to even out the value). Perez is not a $20M player at this point in his career. He’s not an albatross but if he were a free agent he would not get $41M/2yrs with a 3rd year club option. He’d probably be looking at something like $12M/1yr. He was below replacement level in 2023 (although he still hit 23 HR). That said, my 300 pa estimate was for a best case scenario where nobody gets hurt. If Perez is an Astro it is very likely that circumstances arise that provide him 500+ pa (assuming he stays healthy). I would really like a trade where Houston adds Perez and Carlos Hernandez as their main offseason move. Wouldn’t cost much at all in terms of prospects and would fit in the budget if KC was reasonable.
I am skeptical that LMJ will be 100% healthy. I think odds are good he is healthy in at least 1 of the next 2 postseasons.
Or looking at the offseason trade market instead of the FA market? The Astros have added bullpen arms before via trade.
2024 Starting pitching is excellent -- perhaps the best in MLB JV - Reliable and should contend for the Cy Young Framber - I'm predicting an impressive bounce back year -- his stuff is too good. Mental issue that can be fixed with psychology. Cristian Javier - 26 y/o and could still be improving. No hitter in Game 4 of 2022 World Series saved the season Lance McCullers -- A top of rotation pitcher when healthy - he should be healthy next year. Is a savage. Has soul! Hunter Brown -- 24 y/o - very young for an MLB pitcher -- has great experience and stuff. Continuing to get better Luis Garcia - Good pitcher tons of experience, 26 y/o - still young (trade candidate). World Baseball Classic took a toll on him and Framber (and obviously Altuve with the injury). Jose Urquidy - Experienced, great in big games JP France - serviceable, had a really nice year for being his first taste of MLB I don't see any sure-fire young starting pitching coming up from the minors... so I wouldn't trade more than 1 of these players. But trading Garcia could yield some nice benefits -- we need to reload a little bit in some other areas.
If Brown and the Astros are to "move off of a little salary" then I have 2 questions. 1) how much is a little? $5M, $10M more? and 2) who gets traded to accomplish this? Per Cots Contracts in AAV Guaranteed contracts: Verlander $18.333,333M Bregman $20M Altuve $23.357,143M J.Abreu $19.5M McCullers $17M Pressly $15M Alvarez $19.166,667M Montero $11.5M Graveman $8M Javier $12.8M arbitration estimates: Framber $12.5M Tucker $12.0M Urquidy $3.725M Dubon $3M McCormick $2.9M L.Garcia $1.8M B.Abreu $1.75M 17 players make over the minimum, Verlander, Altuve, Pressly, and Alvarez simply can not be traded regardless of the return unless the team is giving up on contending this season. Bregman's AAV changes to $30.5M if he's traded so while the team may theoretically still have enough talent to compete without him, it would be a huge blow to the 2023 production with very little return except salary relief. J.Abreu and Montero are coming off seasons where they significantly under performed and simply nobody will want them unless the Astros pay a significant part of their salary which defeats the purpose. McCullers and Garcia need to get healthy before they can he moved for any kind of value. Javier needs to prove he can be a good SP over the course of 162 games to be worth his contract. Graveman is about the right value but the bullpen is already weak so trading him would be counterproductive to contending for minimal salary relief. Urquidy's value is low now after a down year and doesn't make enough to really impact the payroll much. Trading him might be to balance the roster but not reduce salary. Dubon, McCormick, and B.Abreu are very valuable in trade based on performance vs salary but also would only reduce the payroll a very small amount and project to be very important to the 2024 success of this team without proven replacements. That leaves Tucker and Framber who may never again be as valuable as they are right now, but trading either would almost certainly hurt any chances to compete in 2024 significantly, regardless of the likely return. Those are literally the only options. Any other players traded would not reduce salary as they are at the minimum.
I'm assuming if the other team picks up a portion of the contract, it's not just the actual cash, it also reduces what would count towards our tax number? I think Perez would be a good fit and a good mentor for Diaz, but if they did pick up a good chunk of the contract it would cost us more in prospect capital, which is something we really don't need to be thinning out Hopefully Brown is good at all of this, we never had a chance to find out last year because of when he was hired
Altuve and Bregman need to be extended this off season, an amicable agreement with both is possible but Altuve is the priority. If we can not come to terms with Bregman I could see trading him for the right package. J Abreu showed enough in the play-offs to justify his contract and there may be someone out there that just can't live without him. Personally I still see his as a high risk contract and would prefer to trade him for prospects. McCullers may look like a good bet to a GM that is desperate for pitching. The Astros have paid him to hold the bench down for a long time now and I do not think it will float away without him. He may last a few more years in the pen but moving him for payroll reduction may be the most he could contribute this season.
I don't necessarily disagree with your assessments here, but I would have to get a major return if I was going to move Garcia. He never even made it to AA and has two years of 150 innings with mid 3 eras. Not sure what we will get out of him next year, but he still has two arb years after that and if we are going to keep even Altuve and Bregman, not even considering Tucker and Framber, just keeping those two we will need all of the low money guys who can perform that we can find. That would be the key, not just moving Garcia for someone who could help in another area right away. But would have to find that match in a player who makes similar money to Garcia. Coming off of TJ that's not gonna be easy
When I say move off of salary, it would totally depend on who we were going after. We have so little room to add knowing that we won't go into the tax. I agree with most of what you say here value wise, but that's why Brown would have to get creative to do anything with anyone making legit money Say we were going after a LF that fit really well and he thought could make a big difference, then you might have to up the prospect/young mlb player cost going back to get them to take on a guy like Montero in the deal. I won't go into who that might be but there are plenty of teams who have salary room to take on a contract like Montero if the return they were getting was good enough. Same with Abreu BUT I don't think there is much value in even trying to move him. What it would cost to get someone to take the contract on top of the fact that we have no legit replacement waiting...the risk reward there is very much slanted towards keeping him and hoping he was simply injured for much of the season and didn't speak up
On Lance, I have heard a lot of people make similar comments about moving him, but to me it just makes zero sense. It isn't like the rest of mlb doesn't know about his injury risks. A guy like Lance holds more value to a team like the Astros than any other team out there. If he comes back for 100 innings of strong pitching great, but for the Astros we don't even need that. If he comes back from the injury and give us 20-30 regular season innings but is healthy and strong going into October, that would be tremendous. Very few teams are in the situation that they could have him and simply hope for that. Altuve's salary next year is 29 million BUT his salary for tax purposes is just over 23 million. At 34/35 years old i'm not sure how much Altuve would get on the open market (more than 23 million) but I think at best if we extended him we could keep him around longer and not raise our tax number. That would be best case scenario Bregman is complicated. His salary is 30.5 million next year but his tax salary is only 20 million. Any way you work an extension that tax number is going to go up significantly. Then you have the fact that we have NO potential mlb 3B in the system for 2024. So if we traded him, we would have to have a plan in place for 3B. With a tax number of 20 million, I think it would be very difficult to trade Alex, stay under the tax, and make ourselves better for 2024. Certainly long term he could net assets that could help out down the road, but looking at 2024 it would be difficult to move him and be a better team right now. Trading him and then signing a 3B might sound good, until you look at the 3B free agent market
Not really sure where to put this, but I'm really very excited to see exactly what plans they draw up for this. Based on some of the details in the article it sounds like it'll be a upscale hotel with plenty of conference space, bars, low and high end restaurants, and a massive TV screen. I haven't been to many other MLB parks, but I've been to Coors Field and their entertainment district/hotel right across from the ballpark is absolutely incredible. If we can come anywhere close to replicating the quality they have there that would be a huge win IMO. No matter what, this is going to make for a great fan experience.
