The catcher position is very very little about the bat. Its simply a bonus. Because of his hitting potential, Diaz gets a small bit of extra slack but his defense and handling of pitchers not his bat should determine his fate. If the Astros bring in a veteran catcher, I would think they include Yainer in the deal to get him. And I am in favor of that. I don't expect it to happen though. Lefty hitting OF, RH bullpen arm, and playoff caliber SP are probably higher priorities.
Maybe. I am probabiy not a good person to ask because I am pretty closed off to the idea of destroying the future to invest in a pretty mediocre team. So for me to actually embrace a trade on which Houston trades away both Kevin Alvarez and Xavier Neyens it would have to be such a slam dunk no-brainer trade that no reasonable person could even remotely begin to disagree. Like, for an example, Alvarez and Neyens for Skubal and Greene, ok do it.
I get it. And I'm excited for both Alvarez and Neyens. I think in 3 years they could compare to 2015 Springer/Correa. But there is uncertainty with ANY prospect, especially when they aren't even to AA yet. In 2013 Jurickson Profar was a SS and the overall top prospect in baseball. His best pre-FA season was 1.5 WAR In 2021 Spencer Torkelson was the #3 overall prospect in baseball. He is now in his 1st year of arbitration and has 1.9 career WAR including negative WAR this year. Obviously I cherry picked those to make my point but Alvsrez and Neyens are far from certain to be stars. Its tough to turn down a proven All Star level player with 2 1/2 yrs of control to keep them. Just devil's advocate. I'm not saying I would do it.
I really wonder what it would take to get Buxton. 4 war player getting paid 15 million a year with 2 more years of control. He's not young so he could fall of at any moment, but he's been amazingly consistent throughout his career. Cam and one of our top prospects?
Buxton would look good in an Astro uni. But I would not trade Cam for him IMO Buxton's 2 1/2 yr ceiling and Cam's 4 1/2 yr floor look a lot alike.
I'm holding onto K. Alvarez. Everybody else should be available. I wonder what it would cost for Jung Hoo Lee? Matthews/Neyens/Pecko/Whitaker?
That seems like a reasonable (but very costly) package. I’d rather swap somebody for Neyens and include someone better than Whitaker to offset it, but SF probably wouldn’t go for that.
Buxton. I’d do it for him I think. Or trout and money. There’s not a lot of OF’s that are worth a damn this deadline.
While I agree with your thinking here Dana knows he will never be the GM of the team with either of those guys playing on it if we don't make the playoffs this year And not necessarily saying I would trade both, just saying I bet that both are on the table if needed. I don't personally think Dana has done a very good job, but he is a smart man, and he knows his job is on the line
I am fine trading Neyens as the headliner for a controllable star player (like Abreu or Lee or Buxton). But including both guys for a non-superstar, that’s not a move an intelligent GM with integrity makes, regardless of circumstance. I just don’t see Dana Brown thinking “this ******* who hamstrung me is gonna fire me anyway so **** it I will destroy the franchises future for pennies on the dollar in a desperate attempt to save my job.”
Those two are great prospects for our system, but the failure rate of prospects in the back end of a general top 100 rate is high, very high. There is a better chance that neither of them work out than there is that both of them do But to be clear, my initial post referencing those two being on the table is not because I necessarily think we should, it's because I think Dana knows his job is on the line and he will be willing to do whatever he can to make us better this year
LMAO I certainly didn't say he will try to intentionally destroy the franchise future for pennies on the dollar lol I said I believe those two will be on the table in the right deal And Dana job security 100% plays into it at some level. If he felt like he would without a doubt be the GM here in 3 years he would be more reluctant to move either of those guys, but in the current situation he would be more willing to move one of them if he liked the return
IMO, neither of Alvarez or Neyens should be available. Neither prospect will net you a controllable young star, and this team is more than a slugging OF away from contention. I would hate to see Dana Brown mortgage the top two prospects on the farm in an attempt to make the playoffs. I would stay far away from Buxton, the guy is a hang nail away from another visit to the IL.
I know that wasn’t what you were saying exactly, I was just highlighting the nuance. I agree that Alvarez and Neyens should be “available” but there’s a big difference between holding out for a no-brainer return vs being willing to discount them in order to maximize the odds of the 2026 team making the playoffs. As a rule I don’t think any player should be completely off limits. Like I said, I just have a really hard time seeing any team offer Houston enough to justify giving up both Neyens and Alvarez. I really don’t see any team offering enough to justify even giving up Alvarez. Neyens I’m more open to trading because even though he has immense ceiling, he carries a ton of risk because of how prone to strikeouts he is.
I don’t have a feel for his job security, but if he feels missing the playoffs is going to be the end of him, then yeah there’s no reason for him not to go down swinging. We see this regularly across all sports.
