So do the Dodgers. I'm sure the Astros, and MLB in general, could easily do a better job of keeping guys healthy, they would also be significantly less effective. It's a pedal to the floor league now and players know the risks. When given the choice pretty much every pitcher makes the same one. Over 1/3 of all pitchers have gotten TJ surgery at some point, and that number keeps rising.
Unless they are using pitch com for every pitch, you have to give Diaz some credit also. He has a pretty good feel of what the batters are looking for and giving them looks that produces a lot of weak contact.
I don’t disagree with any of this. It’s high risk high reward for the pitcher. And since there’s a near limitless supply of minor league arms to work with, not a big risk to the team if half those guys or more get hurt. The percent that don’t end up producing well above their pedigree. Both the Astros and Dodgers are smart to do what they are doing, I don’t know that it’s the only way to build an effective staff, but it’s been working for us.
I'm guessing his last two years arbitration salary would be over 25 million, we are discussing 30 million per year for 3 FA season years. That's a pretty good deal for us since that's what we paid Alex Bregman and salaries have gone up a lot.
Key word..."were". I think that's before Boras got in there. Price has gone way up...so atleast 5 years $150mil
Who knows. It’s possible Pena’s current advisors were aggressively against Pena signing an extension now that he’s playing so well, and Pena is pivoting to Boras because he knows Boras will get the max from the Astros while catering to Peña’s desires, given what Boras did for Lance and Altuve. Of course the opposite is equally if not more likely.
I'm going to believe they were probably talking $105mil/5 before season or early season, but as he numbers looked good...he swapped to Boras to max his value. I'm thinking he'll want a 6 year deal $170+
Makes sense to me, they take a guy like France and make him a MLB starter. France wouldn't be a MLB pitcher without the approach you stated above. The downside is most likely they pitcher they take this approach with are most likely to need TJ surgery at some point in their careers. A guy like Urquidy cashed some pretty good checks though and I'm sure Urquidy's happy with the trade off. BTW, What kind of approach did they take with Hunter?
Who knows. $150M/5yrs that runs from 2026-2030 would buy out 2 arb and 3 FA years. Back of the envelope that’d pay him $20M/2yrs for the arbitration years and $130M/3yrs for the free agent years. Given how far away he is from free agency (2.5 seasons), that’s a pretty high guarantee, essentially $43M/yr for the FA seasons. You can argue I’m low on how much he will make in these last 2 arb seasons (he’s only making $4M this season), but still, it’s a very aggressive/fair offer imo.
Alex was able to sign that contract and still enter FA at age 30. Pena is going to be 30 now as a FA without any extension - he's got to weigh the return on a long term deal at that point (could get $200m+) against any contract he's getting now that could render him too old to get that kind of big dollar deal down the road. I expect an extension will be considerably more expensive than $105m.
I would certainly pay this. Pena is the leader of the next generation of Stros. If you have to let Parades go in a couple of years to pay for Pena you do it.
One of the guys from Apollo posted on an another board that the deal was agreed on Friday for 5/107.5. Peña ghosted the front office Saturday and hired Boras.
A 5 year deal buys out pretty much all of Pena's prime seasons and kills any real chance at a 250 million type deal. I get why a player might have cold feet in that regard....but that is a lot of guaranteed money. I just can't imagine ever truly regretting taking a deal like that, but if something goes south in the next few seasons I could easily see regretting not taking it. If he does play well enough to "regret" a deal like that, he should still be young enough to make even more money on the back end. Stupidly rich is stupidly rich.
