How? Look who we signed after the Sanchez and Dubon trades. Those trades were necessary just to sign Imai and still stay under the tax. You’re not finding “an average MLB OF” for the $3M we spent on Weiss and Vazquez.
A guy like Soler level talent could have been traded for. Miguel Andujar, etc .... Where Crane is really screwing up is cutting the farm system budget BTW, Dana's drafts haven't been all that great. Although it's beginning to look like K. Alvarez looks like the real deal. I guess I'm really harsh on Dana because of the Janek pick.
Lmao Jorge Soler is making $13M and has negative fWAR for the 2nd straight season. Andujar is making $4M and also has negative fWAR this season. Edit: This team at a minimum needed a Ryan O’Hearn type of player and he got nearly $30M/2yr this offseason.
We'll never know because unfortunately Lunhow's arrogance got him fired before he ever got to the point of having to deal with payroll issues.
My biggest gripe is not getting randy arozarena . That guy killed us on the rays and was gettable . We'd have to have paid him to keep him , he's not a cheap player . But I love his attitude, and think he would've been ok with yordan , Correa (who we didn't get until last year) and altuve . Our only chance to get out of this imo is to have a great deadline . Maybe brown gets to hang around till next year . Espadas gotta be gone . He's just not the manager for whatever this situation is . We need someone craftier and with a real edge .
I did not like the Walker Janek pick at the time it was made. Brown has had the 23,24 and 25 drafts In 2023 he picked at the end of the draft. Two of the picks (Bloss and Jaworski) were used to trade for players at the deadline. Matthews is in the big leagues but it remains to see how good he will be. Tredwell was a late second rounder that was hurt. He looked very good last year but is hurt again. Pecko, Hueza, Ochoa and Hicks are still solid prospects from that draft. In 2024 the Astros did not have a second-round pick. I consider the Astros 2024 draft to be weak. I don't like Janek and the best player in the class, Forcucci has struggled with health. There are a couple guys like Sullivan and Shiavone that could surprise though. In 2025 the Astros again did not have a second rounder. The Astros took Xavier Neyens in round one and he has outperformed his draft position so far. It is early but several others have done well too. So, it looks to me like in 3 years Brown has had 3 late first round picks and 1 second round pick. There are a lot of interesting players coming up but none so far that have become regulars. I think Neyens is a top 75-100 prospect. I think that Matthews is likely a big leaguer for a handful of years. Pecko, Huezo, Frey, Ochoa and Hicks all have a good chance to be big leaguers -- and I expect one of those to be a big league starter. The return certainly not great --- but the Astros draft bonus money has been poor, and they have been picking late and without 2/3 of their second rounders.
Every GM makes mistakes. I would say that winning a WS after being a GM for 3 years, while not aligned with the owner and manager, is not "being wrong". Click did not developed the farm, but the Astros needed a GM to tell Crane that the Astros homegrown talent was good.
I wanted Arozerena as well - but the Rays really liked the prospects they got for him, even though the general feeling is that the Rays valued those guys more than everyone else.
Alvarez and him are the two I'm following the most right now. Scary K rate for Neyens. Power and walks though are very nice.
Click wanted to trade for a different catcher the year the Astros won the World Series --- Click wanted to keep Gurriel off of the playoff roster.... Click passed on making moves at the deadline thinking that he would get better ones right before the deadline and it did not happen.... Click dug in his heels about those moves...... and he was wrong about those moves, and it stuck out like a sore thumb after the Astros won the WS with Maldonado and after Gurriel was very good in the playoffs and the guy that Click wanted (Mancini) did not. We can debate whether Click was a good GM or a bad one --- but that wasn't what I was doing, I was saying that he threw down the gauntlet the year the Astros won the WS about moves he wanted done, that did not or would not have worked out for the Astros.... and right or wrong, Crane did not forget.... and you better believe that Dana Brown is aware of it. I can point out many good things Click did (like not panicking and forcing a deal for starting pitching) and trading for Y. Diaz....... but I can also point out some bad things he did like trading away W. Abreu, fighting with his front office and failing to pull the trigger on some deals at the deadline. At the end of the day, I just don't think that Click was a good fit for the Astros mentality and I believe that Crane resented that he had him shoved down his throat by major league baseball.
I agree with you on the Neyens K rate. No one is really talking about it, but it is very high for a player at that low a level. It is why I think that Alvarez is a class above Neyens as a prospect at this point.
Looking at the bigger picture , deadline into off-season . Imai is a player option , I have no idea what he will choose Pena is due for a raise Paredes making 10 million Walker and Alvarez and Correa are at 20 million Altuve at 25 mil Hader at 20 mil Abreu is FA (meltdown!) You've got a cheap group of guys you hope can produce at the ML.level in : smith , burrows , teng ,blubaugh, Matthews , king , spaghetti #1 lockout - how many games will we play next year ? Less.games is more variance , but ultimately also less money to be made right ? Tough to gauge how crane wants to play things . But we can be a big seller at this deadline , not suffer a full season of losing and maybe even get into the playoffs next year and look even better going to 28 ? We aren't winning this year , that much seems evident . We've got to have 10+ things break our way to have success to get to the playoffs and not be fodder . We have 4-5 big pieces. Walker Pena Brown Paredes Hader Walker is having a great year , next year when correa.comes back it will be nice to play paredes at 1b and Correa at 3b . If we trade pena do we rely on carlos being a stopgap at SS , I hope not coming off injury. Brown is a tough guy to give up , especially if he starts pitching well , but can you get something of great worth for him ? Paredes could.be in play for a trade if you want to keep all of walker and Correa and pena . He also only has one more year of control making this the last trade deadline where he has the value of keeping him beyond the season. Pena we are losing control soon and may not pay. He made a superstar play to win us a game recently . He is going to get paid . If MLB allows altuve to restructuring that would be great . Can we convince a.team to take hader ? Can he throw 92 and be a starter ? Lol Jeez . That was an insane idea by crane unless he was committed to going all out , like others here have said. Hunter brown is on the list because I think we need to consider trading him to get a premium prospect. If we can get a top SS prospect Pena replacement with Brown , get some good prospects with Pena and walker . Convince a contender to take on hader for a mid level prospect. That might save us . Our cheap guys need to step up . But we can spend a.bunch on pitching / offense in FA. Hopefully find a quick internal solution to 1 of SS/ CF/C Go with 3b Correa 1b paredes 2b altuve DH yordan LF Matthews RF smith CF -FA SS -top prospect C - FA Braden shewmake looked like a great find as depth , maybe lamont wade can come back ? Pitching is where is gets tricky You have spaghetti and no one , maybe lambert who may also be trade bait . Teng and King and blubaugh are good ( ok maybe only king is good) multi inning bullpen pieces . Those guys have 80+ innings over the course of a season . If they are managed properly... We have a big injury return list / walter , blanco , javier , wesneski . Imai is in control if he wants 18 million or who knows ..? After that it's Free agency , trade , or internal replacement. This deadline into next deadline (if there is one) is browns big test . But really , he needs to have a vision and sell crane . Maybe that's what he's done . But I doubt losing like this was part of the plan .
I feel like we keep bringing up the same prospect up through the minors - K rate through the roof - and then are shocked when they don't produce. Neyens can get better but I'm not convinced this coaching staff, at the major or minor league level, is equipped to help him there.
Yeah pretty much any prospect who posts a k rate over 25% in the minors is going to have a really small chance of becoming a good major league player regardless of what other tools they have. Whether that’s a guy like Matthews who has 60+ grade power, speed, and defense, or a guy like Neyens or Schiavone who has 70 grade power they are totally reliant on to carry them. I understand swinging for the fences with prospects especially when the org is pressed for star level talent and working with limited resources, but like 2/3 of Houston’s position player prospects have k rates over 25% so far this season.
In an alternate reality: SS Pena DH Alvarez 3B Paredes LF R. O’Hearn* 1B Walker 2B Altuve RF Smith CF L. Taveras* C Vazquez Bench: Allen, Diaz, Matthews, Loperfido SP: Brown, M. Soroka*, F. Griffin*, Arrighetti, Lambert RP: Hader, King, Abreu, Okert, De Los Santos, Pearson, Javier, Teng Those 4 guys have an AAV about as much as Imai+Weiss+ the room they still have.
Mike Burrows, Tatsuya Imai, Kai-Wei Teng and Lance McCullers Jr. have all started between seven and 13 games since Brown’s injury. Burrows’ 5.70 ERA in that span is the best of the bunch. Damn.
There is no evidence the Astros do not win the World Series with a different catcher. Maldonado being on the roster and the Astros winning does not prove that was the only workable path. Click also wanted Chas in center field over Dubón, which was not some fringe position. That was a real baseball argument, and one that looks pretty defensible in hindsight. On Gurriel, none of us were in the room. If Click pushed to keep Gurriel off the roster, it could just as easily have been part of a broader negotiation to get Chas more playing time or to force a different roster construction. And even if Click was anti-Gurriel before the playoffs, Mancini and Díaz clearly did not look healthy or effective once October started. It is very possible Click would have adjusted once that became obvious. The bigger point is that you can list Click’s misses, but he was GM for three years, the Astros went to the ALCS every year, went to two World Series, and won one. He won some internal arguments and lost others. Maldonado and Gurriel were not the only decisions that mattered. He made mistakes, sure. Every GM does. But acting like the Astros won in spite of him because Crane overruled him on a couple of visible roster arguments goes too far. The roster does not look the way it did without Click, and the 2022 title still happened with him as GM.
