Astros have until 6pm Eastern to decide who to protect from the rule 5 draft. Roster currently sits at 40 so they need to get rid of a player for each one they choose. My prediction is Ullola and Santa. They may actually want to get roster down to 39 to allow room to sign a catcher without DFAing a guy they offered arbitration to. My prediction is De Los Santos, Trammell, and Urias are no longer Astros in 3 hours.
I expect a minor trade. Otherwise I think they DFA De Los Santos, Ort, and Trammell to make room for Ullola, Santa, and Fleury.
Wow Brandon Woodruff accepted the QO. Will be interesting to see if Michael King and Zac Gallen do as well.
Sucks that there is no 60-day for this. I see zero reason to keep Trammell. They could cut so many guys, but De Los Santos I'd agree is the next guy off. LMJ, to me, would be a distinct possibility, though I'd hate it. I also wouldn't keep Whitcomb around if it came to it, as I don't see him as an MLB player. If they were super concerned, it is hard to imagine they would have signed Pearson.
Wow !!! What is going on? Players are accepting the Q.O. left and right. It has to be because of labor unrest? Right?
That really amazes me. He may never get another chance in. It definitely would have hurt his FA, but he's 32 already. Gallen would be crazy to take the offer. He's going to get paid. King could definitely massively improve his market by accepting the QO, but it is such a huge risk as pitcher
Grisham, Torres, Imanaga, and Woodruff accepted. The 9 others rejected: Tucker, Valdez, King, Gallen, Schwarber, Bichette, Cease, Suarez, and Diaz.
I don't think so. Trent Grisham is exactly the kind of player where a QO kills his market. Torres had to settle for 1/$15M last year in FA, and while he made the AS game, he was a big part of the Tigers collapse in the division. I am surprised by Woodruff and Imanaga. Really, they are all a testament to why the union should make sure in the future the FA compensation system does not negatively impact the signing team. It is costing those FA players in the middle a substantial amount of money.
Thinking possible CBA lockout for 2027 and some of them wanted to get locked in at least or getting a better contract with the new CBA?
As the Astros approach the trade market from here, they have the following they can offer relative to the free agent market: The best C (Diaz) The 3rd best 1B (Walker, after O’Hearn and Alonso) The best SS (Pena) The 2nd best 3B (Paredes, after Bregman) The 2nd best CF (Meyers, after Bellinger) There’s an argument that Dubon and Urias would be the best 2B available if they were free agents and marketed as pure 2B. The middle infield market is especially barren outside of Bichette, with Polanco and Arraez more suited for DH roles and Willi Castro representing the next best option followed by guys who best fit as NRI candidates or pure 12th/13th man roles.
I think guys who aren’t in line for 4+ years are gonna lean toward locking up as much money as they can in 2026 to minimize the cost of the lockout (of course teams will be doing the opposite, trying to spread money into 2027 knowing they may not have to pay it).
Wow. I will be very surprised if Alimber Santa is not taken in the Rule 5 draft. Very high ceiling RP prospect. Jose Fleury is also a big Rule 5 risk; he’s one of the top 20 prospects in the system.
Fleury does not surprise me. I always thought of him as having a #3 ceiling and therefore pretty easy to replace. Santa shocks me, especially based on some of the guys they did keep ahead if him. De Los Santos, who has no options, is expected to get $2M in arbitration and had some really poor numbers chief among them.
They have 3 days to trade him but it is unlikely they will. Most likely he will either be claimed off waivers or become a free agent. Seems like a waste, as he projects to be well worth the ~$4M he was gonna make.
