$210M is too much for Cease. Sets the market pretty high and Framber is happy right about now. Fangraphs estimates for Cease were $155M/5yrs and $130M/5yrs. So he blew that out of the water.
Crane’s unwillingness to go over the tax this offseason will keep us out of the ToR sweepstakes. Time to focus on the other tiers
The market is whatever a team is willing to pay a player. The Astros have too much money invested in the wrong type of player to invest money in... and now they literally have no money to spend on anything of quality.
their payroll wasn't that much more than the Astros last year... but they do get more out of the guys they're spending money on.
Exactly. 7 years/ $30 mil/yr avg is WAAAAYYY too much for a 3.88 career ERA and backwards 4.5+ ERA in 2 of the last 3 years. He literally has had only 1 really good season. There was no way I thought Framber would get 7 years but now I'm not too sure after this. If he doesn't get something similar then the entire league is worried about his antics.
This isn’t true. The Astros have about $25M under the CBT as it currently stands. Plenty of extremely good players sign for less than that every year. The Astros have 4-5 underwater contracts and that has taken them out of the top of the free agent pool (which they’ve never waded in even before they had bad contracts on their books), and it’s decreased their margin for error on the players they do sign. But a Charlie Morton 2017 signing and a Michael Brantley 2019 signing would fit in their budget and be all this team needs to be sitting pretty. Pair that with a Gerrit Cole 2018 trade and this roster would be as good as anybody.
You're quoting market forces and inefficiencies that were exploited 7-9 years ago by a forward thinking front-office... as the perfect solutions. (plus those teams were far more stacked from a talent standpoint to where those affordable additions were perfect supplements. This team needs core/foundational players as much as supplements).
Offseason will look something like: -Verlander -Donovan -Backend rotation starter -Caratini It was wishful thinking, but Crane was never going to sign a top free agent arm.
There are free agent signings like that every season. Off the top of my head Nick Pivetta and Ramon Laureano from last offseason. Regardless of whether the teams in those seasons were “far more stacked”, I was just pointing out that your comment about the Astros having “no money to spend on anything of quality” is simply not true.
You are correct, it’s not that the Astros do not have money to spend in free agency, it’s the self-imposed budget constraints to stay below the threshold. With that constraint/control in place, the Astros options are limited. IMO this is the offseason where the Astros need to decide what they are going to do with their own talent, namely Hunter Brown, who is going to be looking to top what Cease just got from Toronto and probably closer to $35-$40 million AAV. Will the Astros be willing to shell out that kind of money? Same with Jeremy Peña, are they going to pay him as well? I’m sure he and Boras will be looking to top what Willy Adama got from the Giants last offseason (7 years, $182 million). If the Astros choose not to pay these guys, they need to take a long look at potentially moving them to get a great return to rebuild/reload with the self-imposed budget constraints. All that being said, I don’t expect any big signings or trades, as I don’t believe the Astros have the prospects to make trades for the players we’d like to see acquired (Donovan, Lowe, etc.).
Deferrals taking the CBT number for Cease to $182M/7yrs. That’s a little more reasonable but still way beyond what most people thought he’d get. I now think $140M/6yrs is Framber’s floor and if I was guessing I would say he ends up at ~$160M/6yrs with some add’l bonuses or an opt out.
Exactly, just go dig up my posts from around the deadline of last season, he’s not a fan of the Astros
There’s no doubt Framber will get his bag, but IMO it’ll be SP2 money as I do not believe that he is an ace and will not get ace money. But you never know, a team like the Mets will over pay for just about any player.
