Ahem. Not really. They opted to get rid of Josh fields rather than pay the signing bonus and applicable tax. That was back room deal made in advance with bullshit spun after the fact to cover it up.
I don’t believe that. The Dodgers would not have the motive to do something that risky. It was a major missed eval on LA’s part. Occam’s razor.
It's significant enough that they must consider it. The penalties just get worse if (when) they cross the CBT a 2nd consecutive year. That said, the Dodgers and others are always able to do it so why not the Astros. So much is due to success and the extra revenue that comes from it. It's much easier to pay millions in "fines" and overcome loss of draft picks if you win and get extra post season revenue.
I love the occasional good conspiracy. Heard that one literally at the time, not after Yordan blew up.
I wonder what kind of trade value Javier has? It feel like this team needs to get creative about the talent it trades away in relation to payroll and not pillaging the farm. Probably not worth considering but recovery from TJS is basically considered a given these days, starting pitching value is at an all time high, and he would still have 2 yrs + likely a playoff run @ under $17M AAV. This team needs to maximize the chances to win in 2024 and 2025 before the huge exodus of stars. Is 2 rentals in Christian Walker and Paul Sewald too much? Is his value $0 ?
We’re about 2 weeks away from most teams having to decide if they will buy or sell. The framework for most major trades will start being discussed at the all star break. Lots of teams made moves over the last 10 days. I really only think the Rays, Snakes, and Giants are in position to take things down to the wire. Surefire sellers: White Sox, Angels, A’s, Marlins, Rockies Likely sellers: Tigers, Nats, Blue Jays, Rangers, Cubs, Reds, Pirates On the fence: Rays, Diamondbacks, Giants Likely buyers: Red Sox, Astros, Mets, Cards, Padres Surefire buyers: Yankees, Orioles, Twins, Royals, Mariners, Guardians, Dodgers, Phillies. Braves, Brewers Rays, Giants, and diamondbacks all have good 1B trade candidates, so it’d be good for Houston if they fell out and sold.
No way the Rangers sell They certainly may not waste prospect capital by buying, but with Max back and looking good, coming off hopefully the only Championship they ever win in the history of their existence, they won't sell
I agree they won’t do a major sell off. But I think they are very unlikely to buy, and they’ll very trade away fringey guys (Grossman, Jankowski, Lorenzen, Heaney, any of their RP) that they can get future value for, and I think they’ll listen on Eovaldi, Gray, Scherzer, and Lowe.
I could see guys like Grossman, Jankowski...and Maybe a rental like Lorenzen if the next couple of weeks are horrendous for them But Heaney and that last group, no way. Davis wouldn't let them even if management wanted to. He wouldn't let that be the message sent to the fan base You have to remember, a large large majority of a teams fan base isn't guys like us who know most names on the roster at AAA/AA and so forth. Most would see a trade of a key rotation piece as the team throwing in the towell, and they are making money hand over fist up there right now with the Texas Live venue around the ballpark. Crane is giving away money by not developing something like that around the park and he even bought up and shut down what little we had right there and yet has done nothing with it. In any case, the chances of them dealing one of those guys is less than 1%
Sitting this deadline out is an option not generally included in these discussions regarding buying and selling, but about a third of teams will do exactly that.
The Astros roster, for the most part, is fairly fixed next season as well… even more so since it’s likely they’re not bottoming out or will be out of the race by the trade deadline. They’ll either stand pat (like 2016) or they’ll make another win now trade (like last year).
That’s hard to say All we know about Melton is what the publications put out in their lists Teams valuations can differ quite a bit from publication lists But the bigger thing is Melton is a high upside high risk guy. Some GMs (ours is one) love those types, would much rather have a guy like that than a high floor guy Some don’t get nearly as excited about the upside if they don’t think the chances of reaching it are that great I think Melton is the type that some teams would love while others would have low interest I don’t think we move him fwiw, because he is a Dana Brown kind of guy I think him, Bloss, Baez and Matthews are completely off the table unless we are dealing for a guy with multiple years of control
My only problem with the Vlad talk is he is a poor defender and DH is pretty well spoken for around here Would love to add his bat, but I think most tend to underrate defense at 1B for whatever reason
