George Springer

When he tears up Spring Training, yet still needs to "work" on things in AAA for a month we'll know how full of crap they are about this being a performance issue.

 

Those quotes didn't seem to involve performance.

 

2013 - the "stashing" of Springer!

In fact, I'm going to nickname George "stash".

2021 vs 2020. At least they're not touting his "2 strike approach" as the reason why he's not up here.

 

“I see him as a guy who’s going to come to Spring Training next year competing for our every day center fielder job, and I see him as a big part of our team next year. That’s really the message I want our fans to focus on, not worry too much about the date he comes up. There’s a lot of factors that go into it, and we’ll make the best decision for the organization.”

That screams of $$$ being the main issue, and extending his free agency year (or possibly keeping him down till next June, and getting his super-2 status revoked). He's backed off from Springer being an opening day starter to saying "he's competing for a job next year."

 

Super II could have to wait until all-star break.

I have to say, I read that same quote as delaying FA as well.

 

I think it's late June if a player has neve logged any big league time. It's basically 86 days. Whenever Will Myers came up this year.

Of course, Myers is 2 years younger than Springer.

 

Fans get excited

Crane gets depressed thinking of this possibly raising the monitary value of springer. Crane shoots off another call to Jeff, just wait till next June on this guy Jeff, save us some money.

 

86 days refers to that season before their first arbitration. They increased the Super 2 from the top 17% to the top 22%. Could certainly be mid-late June, but July is now considered safe.

I think Cosart's promotion waiting until July as evidence that the Astros definitely took Super 2 into consideration.

 

This is the first really disturbing indicator of what the Crane era Astros could be like when it comes to spending money. And don't give me that 40 man roster argument, I've assembled to 40 man and the players that may be exposed are fringey at best.

I've never had a problem with the low payroll, playing young players and not wasting money on a losing product was always a good idea to me. However right now they are simply keeping an MLB ready player in the minors in order to possibly save money 6 years from now. If we are this cheap when it comes to one of our would be cornerstones, how can we expect him to spend big money to fill out that would be championship roster.

The big boys call a player up when he's ready. If he's as good as you hope you extend him early and the final year of arbitration doesn't matter.
It may be nothing, but this feels like a bad sign.

 

Agreed. They won't be able to do this as much with the rest of the young guys (Correa will be up here sooner) as it will start getting pretty transparent and evn Luhnow can't hide behind the "rah rah, we want to build a winning culture in the MINORS" schtick without producing major league results.

But for now, with absolutely nothing in the majors... And a media market that doesn't really question their tactics at all (except for Pallilo), they're going to milk the "stash" strategy as much as they can.

 

Doesn't mean the team doesn't want to keep their prospects. Fringy prospects sometimes turn out to be quality contributors. For a team with no desire to win today, it make sense.

Wil Myers is a very similar case. He was tearing up AAA (led the minors in HRs) and he wasn't called up. He also was not on the 40-man roster. Both KC & TB delayed him and TB needed him to actually be on their team as they are good.

 

So we are gonna spend money like the Royals and Rays, thats encouraging. It wasn't right when Myers was kept down either. We aren't a small market team and we shouldn't act like one.

 

If we are going to wait until next year, may as well wait until after super 2 status, if we are going to wait until after the super 2 cutoff, we may as well wait until September callups, if we are going to wait that long, may as well save him for 2015....and so on and so forth.

There comes a time when you simply have to call up a guy and let him play. That time should have already come for Springer.

This reminds me of a friend I have that buys stuff, but never uses it because he does not want to get it dirty. He will buy a new chainsaw, but will not ever use it, because that might get it dirty and deteriorate the lifespan of the chainsaw. What's the point of having the chainsaw in the first place then?

 

But isn't Myers quite a bit younger than Springer

 

Myers being only 22 allows a little bit more of these shenanigans to take place. The Rays still don't draw fans, thus they kept him down till near the all star break to get out of the super-2 window. Now, they're in a good position, and Myers is playing at an MVP level... you can't tell me that they would be worse (from a purely baseball standpoint) if he had started the season on the team.

Springer will be 24 before he will have his first MLB AB. He'll be older than Berkman and Pence were, and I thought they were both delayed as well.

This goes beyond delay for me. I don't think Springer should be looked at as a "prospect" anymore. He's a player that's clearly playing in a league he's to advanced for.

 

The "where does it all end" stance has weighed on me quite a bit with this case. At first, I figured he'd be called up in late June/early July to get out of super-2 status for THIS year. Then I started to realize it wasn't going to happen this year to get him another year of free agency... now I could see the super-2 being an issue next year.

Probably why I feel its best to just call a player up when he's outperforming his peers at each level.

What will be really annoying is if he has an injury that further delays his progression. The way he's playing RIGHT NOW may be the most dynamic he ever is. While the clock hasn't started on his MLB service time, it has started on his overall career.

Its not unprecedented for a young player's best season to be one of his first... in fact I think it happens quite a bit in baseball compared to the other sports.

 

At this point there's nothing fans can do if they want to agitate about Jim Crane's penurious conduct of our baseball franchise.

The way MLB's collective bargaining is set up, there's simply no incentive for a team to try to win if they can just coast with a 15M payroll and recoup the whole thing at season's end. We might need an official decree from the commissioner, which isn't likely to happen, before our owner starts spending any money.

 

Don't confuse the two issues being discussed. I doubt anybody here wants to spend money simply just to raise the payroll to the respectable level. THAT does not lead to significantly more wins (ie - signing Kaz Matsui, Clint Barmes type players).

The concern is that when our young home grown players start succeeding, they will be traded off or simply be let go when they are due for significant pay increases. THAT is the sign of a cheap franchise... and it can get even cheaper if they start skimping on the types of players they sign in the draft (ie - drafting only "signable" players, not the best players).

Delaying Springer due to $$$ issues is not a good sign... it may not mean the above doomsday scenario occurs, but its still not a good precedent.

Then again, they make movies and write books about teams that do well with low payrolls... also plenty of high payroll teams disappoint more than succeed.

 

They should take the Luhnow/Crane approach... Send Trout back down to AAA to get a winning mindset/culture and then bring him back up when he is 25.