A front loaded contract w/ an opt out gives every benefit to the player and screws the team in every conceivable way. The team assumes all the risk. CBT AAV stays constant throughout regardless He gets the big money early If he's good he opts out If he's bad or injured he stays Poor trade value because of the opt out. The best ways to benefit the team are to: Front load without an opt out (trade value) Give a team option (team control) Give a very small player option (lower AAV) In fact, I love player options. It's something I learned from the Odorizzi deal. A) player gets 3 year/ $75M deal= $25M AAV, $75M guarantee. B) player gets 3 year/ $70M deal w/ $10M player option and $5M buyout. = $20M AAV on same $75M guarantee. Player is very unlikely to take option over a $5M difference. Only real risk is injury and its only a single $5M season so minimal. Player gets the same guarantee and small bit of 4th year insurance if injured so is happy.
Yeah between taxes and playoff share differential (likely) he’d probably take home more in houston than Chicago.
Maybe Neris preferred the Cubs but surprised Yankees didn't match or offer slightly more. Glad he went to the NL so I can still root for him. Some Phillies fans laughed when the Astros signed him. Glad he was solid for us and glad he was part of the 2022 WS team. Will miss his energy and twirl? he did when got the 3rd out after being in trouble.
Blame it on the Rain! Hector was good for us, but my fear was despite an awesome year he showed some vulnerabilities in the POs. He didn't get much more than his option was for us and the overall contract is heavily incentive laden, which suggests his market had similar concerns. Glad we signed Hader, our pen is looking formidable.
We have enough in the bullpen with the addition of Hader but hopefully he's successful against everyone but us. He delivered for us
I wouldn’t mind Houston adding Brad Hand on a cheap deal to finish out the bullpen. Bellinger, Snell, and Hand should just about do it to round out my dream roster. 2B Altuve 3B Bregman DH Alvarez 1B Abreu RF Tucker C Diaz CF Bellinger LF McCormick SS Pena Bench: Caratini, Dubon, Meyers, Singleton Rotation: Verlander, Valdez, Snell, Javier, Brown, Urquidy Bullpen: Hader, Pressly, Abreu, Montero, Hand, Whitley/McCullers, France/Garcia
Jesus that Montero contract. We will look back on it 20 yrs from now with the obligatory wtf response. And Neris had a much better track record leading into this free agency. Now I'm not sure which is worse, the 3 yrs or the 11.5 million. Unreal.
He opted out of $8.5m. https://www.mlb.com/news/hector-ner... makes the 34,five free agents this offseason.
It feels like you’ve. Even looking for the astros to add Hand for like 10 years. I have no idea if this is true but when you get old time starts to stretch and compress at the same time.
I think the Astros have brought in enough unproven and semiproven bullpen options that now they just need to give them a chance to sink or swim. There are 13 spots. Framber, JV, Javier, Brown, and Urquidy are all but guaranteed rotation spots. Hader, Pressly, Abreu, and Montero are locked in to the bullpen. France more than likely has a spot based on last year. That leaves 3-4 spots. Bielak, Blanco, Coleman, Cronin, Dubin, Martinez, Mushinski, Ortega, and Sousa off the 40 man all pitched in MLB last year with varying success. We have been told that Whitley will be given a real shot to make the team. There are 10 non roster pitchers invited to spring training. At some point there isn't innings for all of them, and you never know what you have if you keep signing veterans.
Montero was a slight overpay but let’s not act like it’s some organization-crippling move. He has just two years left at 23m total…and we just signed Josh Hader. I wouldn’t worry about the money tied to Rafael. He was a top fifteen reliever in 2022…helped us win a championship (and in the best bullpen performance in postseason history)…and he got slightly overpaid that offseason. Montero rebounded in the second half of last year, so let’s see how he plays out. He won’t be needed for high leverage innings…I think he can have a good bounce back year frankly. Monteros contract versus Neris’ says more about the markets they each signed in. Like Nook said, Astros could’ve brought Neris back if they wanted, and frankly I’m surprised NYY didn’t sign him.