This is the first year since, I dont know, 2006? that their were folks on the farm that MIGHT make us a contender given a few years to develop them. Even if we sign every guy we drafted this year, I doubt we break into the top 10 farms in the majors. Maybe not the top 15. The farm is our future. We dont have any marquis players to get loads of prospects fast. We dont have a team that is 2-3 guys away. We dont have a team that is 4-5 players away. So if we hope to be good enough to contend, you load the farm at every opportunity. Sure, my crystal ball doesnt work any better than yours. But the odds of contendership are much more likely in 4-5 years than in 2-3. So the question boils down to this: 1) Lowrie in 4-5 years will be more valuable to us. 2) The prospects Lowrie could bring will in 4-5 years be more valuable. Given that Lowrie has probably the best trade value right now than he will have in his entire career, 2) is looking pretty tempting. And if the law of averages works on Lowrie as it does most of the time, he will be very average by 2015-16.
If you think there's a reasonable chance he can produce a level reasonable close to his current one - that being one of the best offensive SS's in baseball right now - and given that he's club-controlled for another 2 years, why do you think it's a fantasy to get a blue chip prospect for him? Wouldn't some team consider trading a blue chip prospect for a club-controlled top-tier shortstop? It seems to me you've set up a situation where the Astros would gamble on him being great, but no other team in baseball would do so. I don't think anyone here suggested or would suggest trading him for junk. The idea is that you might be able to trade him for prospects with real value.
At some point, we need good young players to build around or we will continuously rebuild like to Pirates and Royals. Lowrie could be one of the guys to build around.
you aren't taking into consideration how rare it is that a prospect pans out. i think people have it in their minds that the hypothetical return on lowrie has a good chance of being productive at the major league level at some point in time. the chances of that are infinitesimal. as a point of reference, can you name a single other astro put into our farm system in the past 13 years who has developed into even above average major league talent other than hunter pence, ben zobrist, and (hopefully) jose altuve?
My thinking is "swing for the fenses". While the odds are long, a prospect (17-21 years old) with a high upside has more potential to be above average than a 28 year old does whose potential is basically already known. Do you or anyone else think that Lowrie's numbers this year are sustainable? While ill admit there are very long odds it can, id rather roll the dice with low/high "A" player who has yet to show his potential. In a nutshell, the kind of guy Lowrie would bring in a prospect has maybe a 1 in 50 chance of being great, maybe 1 in 10 of being good. With Lowrie, he has a better chance of being good (sustainably) than 1 in 10, but has ZERO chance of being great.
Could? Sure. Should? I don't believe so. They should build around young (24 and under) prospects with lots of team control left. I think their core right now is Singleton/Springer/Correa. Everything should be focused on getting that group to the majors together for the longest time. Altuve will still be under club control when that group reaches the majors. Lowrie will be long gone or at the end of his prime. In three years, the core will be in the majors and then you have to fill in the holes: 2015 C: 1B: Singleton 2B: Altuve/DDJ/Paredes SS: Correa/Villar/Mier 3B: LF: Santana CF: Springer RF: Bench: Nash, Wates, Ovando That's a core.
he isn't proven enough to gamble on him being a top-tier shortstop and give away a blue-chip prospect for. but yes, if he was an established top-tier shortstop under club control, of course he'd be worth a top prospect. i wouldn't offer a top prospect for him if i were the astros and didn't already have him, and i wouldn't trade him for less than a top prospect if i were the astros. he's an extremely unique case, and in an extremely unique situation, and unless a team gets crazy, in my opinion, we cannot get fair value for him in return at this point in time.
I think that's an overly pessimistic view of our player development system (and player development in general). Our system's recent development history doesn't need much rehashing but sufficed to say the group in place now is not who was in place during those 13 years. If the odds were in fact infinitesimal, prospect trades would never ever happen.
I think we're debating semantics now. If Lowrie still has a .300/.370/.550 slash line with 20 hr at the July 31 trade deadline, it'll take a top prospect plus to get him. Unquestionably so. Anything short of that, we keep him. Maybe not a blue chip prospect like Jurickson Profar or Matt Moore, but a solid B+/A- level prospect (top 50) like Jon Singleton is the absolute starting point. I agree we can't get fair value NOW. But if he gets an all-star nod AND keeps up this pace he'll certainly be a hot commodity at the trade deadline. The Rays are one team to look out for. They've got a deep system, are contending and in particular are looking for help up the middle.
this is a different breed of trade. this isn't trading a soon-to-expire veteran contract for prospects, or a trade made by a floundering/rebuilding team who is looking to clear some salary. this is essentially trading a not-quite-young "prospect" who has just started showing the realization of his potential at the major league level and who is under club control and playing a premium position. the only guarantee to come out of doing so is that you are worsening your major league SS for an indeterminate length of time.
Tons of these trades were made just last offseason. Example: Mat Latos, Gio Gonzalez, Trevor Cahill. It wouldn't be the first time a young player coming into his prime was traded.
I'd also suggest that in 2.5 years, Lowrie is going to be a free agent, and given that players rarely take "home team discounts", the Astros would have to be the higher bidder for him at that point anyway. So if they really want him in two years, they always have the option of signing him as a free agent. If you trade him now, you get the prospect and you can still try to sign him. So really, you're really only trading the next 2.5 years of Lowrie for whatever you get in return. So then we have to ask how much do they really need him during that interim period? I would argue he's worthless this year and next because this team is almost certain to be nowhere in contention for those years. So then the question is what do you expect from him in 2014 (the only year when the Astros potentially could be good and Lowrie would be under contract) and what would you need in a trade to equal that? The alternative, of course, if the Astros believe this is the "real" Lowrie, is to sign him to a long-term deal now when they can get a significant discount since he's not proven. I think they would be a fair and reasonable alternative. But just holding him until free agency if there is a fair-value trade out there seems like a losing proposition.
The other alternative that I think the " no trade" people are looking for (myself included) is to trade him next year, when he's closer to free agency but still not there. So that would be some additional flexibility. If he fell off a little bit between now and then, maybe you get a discount compared to what you'd have to pay now on a longterm contract
Oh noes he might be 33 in five years!!! ranked prospects strike out all the time in the majors. And now that you find a gem in lowrie, still 28, you want to trade him? ay ay has to be the internets. The top free agents for this season were 28 and older. Just think of Lowrie as a huge signing in which the astros got over on every team. appreciate the man and what he is doing. the only people that should be traded are lee, the regulator and the not HAPPening This team, with one outfielder that has some pop and one more Good, not ace, just good pitcher, would be in position to take the central. I know last season was horrific, so it's difficult to even imagine the possibilities of the astros being good. But they're headed there fast.
i read somewhere that JD Martinez went from 205 last year to 235 this season, do you think he can continue to bulk and add power to possibly become the DH when we join the AL.. having him somewhere behind Altuve, Correa, & Singleton could be a nice. also did you leave Castro off on purpose..
Maybe JD could? It's still up in the air whether he'll make it as an every day regular. Castro is a solid player this season, but he's not a core player. In three years he'll be close to FA and I'd be fine letting him go if we had something better in the wings.
Because players can't improve their game offensively and defensively? lol not sure if serious, he is going towards his first full season. Yadier molina hit around .217 in his third full season.
