a) you misspelled my name; b) don't be a dick. User names serve a purpose, know what I mean, CometsWin That's not an "oh, by the way..." afterthought; it makes a significant difference. And Quintana's ERA is *still* better. Another significant difference: age. One was an established veteran with 77 career starts under his belt; the other was a rookie. If you lop off Quintana's first year and do their four best consecutive seasons, two things should stand out: 1) Quintana has a 7-point advantage in WAR; 2) looking at their individual seasons, see if you can spot why the comparison is so meaningless (and why age is so important), first using ERA+: WR: 119, 136, 110, 109 JQ: 120, 113, 116, 125 Now WAR: WR: 1.8, 4.7, 2.3, 2.5 JQ: 5.4, 3.5, 4, 5.2 One is trending down, the other up. Big difference. Quintana right now is younger than Wandy at the start of your sample. Finally, put aside the fact Quintana ranks among the best pitchers in baseball, statistically - if the rumors are true, the Astros obviously view Quintana favorably or they wouldn't be pursuing him, and the White Sox obviously view him favorably or they wouldn't be asking for a Sale-like package for him.
Not that anyone asked, but this is what I would personally do if I'm the Astros: If the White Sox insist on Martes, Kyle Tucker, and Musgrove, I would counter with insisting on Jose Abreu getting incorporated in the deal as well. I would counter with: Martes, Kyle Tucker, Musgrove, Reed, and a 12-15 type of prospect for Jose Quintana and Jose Abreu. That's a lot to give up, but we would essentially be set for several years. Our rotation would be: Quintana McCullers Keuchel McHugh Morton/Fiers And our lineup could be something like: Altuve - 2B Bregman - 3B Correa - SS Abreu - 1B Springer - CF Beltran - DH Gurriel - LF Reddick - RF Gattis/McCann - C That's a really deep and talented roster. Add in a stout bullpen, and there are literally no holes on this team. At all.
I think there's way too much emphasis placed on draft position in baseball. It's not the NFL or NBA where there's a significant drop-off in talent and they don't have a minor league system to adequately develop their players. As long as the Astros continue to invest in their developmental scouting, they'll be able to find more Kyle Tuckers.
Quintana could give us 4-5 WAR for 3 of the next 4 seasons, and if Tucker and Martes produce close to their upside; there will still be criticism unless the Astros win the World Series. If the Astros do not get an ace, then there really isn't any defense of it . I personally would insist on keeping Musgrove because he is part of the existing rotation. I would offer a number of other possible prospects (not Perez) and let them pick a few of them. I would also work Nate Jones into the deal. He has very good stuff and is on the cusp of being a shut down reliever. That was if the Astros decide to use Divinski in the rotation, they have another top relief option. Jose Abreu is a good player, but he still has associated financial costs and his bat speed fell last season. A rotation of: Quintana/Kuechel/McCullers/Musgrove/Divinski has a lot of upside. I would keep Fiers as a long man and spot starter for when McCullers inevitably gets hurt again.
Unless Quintana is good and the Astros are better for it. That mitigates things significantly. The Astros gave up two extremely good future Major League Baseball players (Garcia and Guillen - and a third, Halama, had a 9-year career) and I doubt many regret the Randy Johnson trade (which, of course, is different because of the contract). Another factor: it's a defensible trade. The Astros (likely) need a TOR starter; if it blows up in their face, I can't fault the intent; this isn't bringing in Woody Williams or Jason Jennings on a mediocre team. The Astros are a legitimately good team and Quintana is a legitimately good pitcher. If people want to b**** and whine - especially after the fact - f**k em.
I've seen this sentiment expressed elsewhere; it makes sense. He projected to ~1.8 WAR last year; if you assume incremental improvement, he could inch his way into TOR status in 2-3 years. I can understand the Astros being reluctant to do him *AND* Martes - that (coupled with VV, Appel & Hader deals) guts their pitching pipeline the next 3-5 years.
I also think that the Astros have enough other prospects to make a deal without Musgrove appealing to the White Sox. The only other minor leaguer that I personally wouldn't make available to substitute for Musgrove is Franklin Perez.
There is a huge drop off. You can find great players later on, it in international free agency, but there is no question picking high is very valuable in MLB draft.
The best player in baseball was not only the 25th pick in his draft - but second from his own team... I don't mean that to end the argument; I just think with the extra years of development, high draft picks don't mean *as* much as high drafts picks in other sports.
Not entirely untrue; specifically, I value the known over the unknown. I *understand* all the ramifications of having available prospects, and I by no means advocate the Drayton McClane approach to building/maintaining a system. But the *ONLY* function of your minor league system is the build a winner at the Major League level - and if a player that helps me accomplish that is made available, I don't spend much time calculating future value of players that, on the whole, are less than 50/50 to make it. And that's in large part because, between the annual draft and international pool, I can throw 50+ players at my system and replenish it. As long as the Astros do that, they should jump at the chance to make their MLB team better. The Astros should officially be out of the "potential" business.
Agree with juicystream. There is a substantial drop-off from the top group to the mid-to-late first round. There have been several analytics articles on this very topic, i.e. the expected WAR value of a draft pick. Consensus high-first rounders typically perform well and are thus very valuable. MLB isn't too different from the other leagues in that you can find talent in plenty of other places than the top of the draft, but the most RELIABLE method is still drafting high. The Astros are a perfect example. Among the core 4 position players (Altuve, Correa, Springer, Bregman), three are high first rounders. Hardball Times article. Once you get to the mid-first round it really becomes more about team preference and this is where the outcomes really vary.
This is an aside to whether it's worth trading a large package of prospects for an established star, but I don't agree with that idea. If you look at the all-star team rosters, most of those guys were either high first round picks or expensive IFA's (equivalent to a high first round pick). Exceptions to that rule are probably as common as non-top 10 draft picks in the NBA or non-1st rounders in the NFL making their respective all-star games. Martes, Tucker, Musgrove is imho a much stronger package than the Sale package. No one prospect is as good as Moncada but Musgrove is already a MLer (with upside) and Martes/Tucker are top 20-30 prospects.
Just saying, Martes came from international. Musgrove was drafted 46th, and Tucker was drafted 5th... I think we can replace them without having to get 3 early first round picks....
And Tom Brady was a 6th round pick... I'd say there is less certainty in the MLB draft, but they mean a lot. The baseball system makes it easier to find diamonds because of the development system, but those diamonds are still few and far between. I definitely think we can continue to develop good new prospects, but it isn't easy. We can't trade Tucker, Martes, & Musgrove and expect to replace them quickly. It is hard to draft/sign 3 guys that are basically Top 50 prospects year in and year out. Trading prospects is a good idea, but if we constantly do it, the cupboard will eventually become bare.
If Tucker was the deal breaker then the deal just needs to be reworked to take out Tucker and add enough value to get it where the White Sox are comfortable with it. Are Fisher and Cameron enough to get it over the line? The deal would be Quintana for Martes, Musgrove, Fisher, and Cameron. Would be hard to believe that Tucker is worth more than Fisher and Cameron combined.
So basically, you don't think about prospects because you view almost all of them as less than 50% odds to help team. You scoff at future value..but future value is what will get teams wins and championships. Quintana is one of the most valuable players in all of baseball, past, present, and future with years of club control. The fact that the CWS would take Tucker, Martes, and Musgrove for him doesn't make you think for a second that maybe these guys are more valuable than your blanket less than 50% of prospects make it value. The fact that the Astros said no doesn't cause you to pause and think that maybe the team that knows these players the best knows something. We're talking Quintana here....and two MLB teams are basically saying they would rather have Tucker, Martes, and Musgrove than Quintana. Two teams think those three guys will cause them to win more games...but those guys are not worth your time to even consider that they could be valuable. Astros will get value form draft and international market whether they trade those guys or not. Tucker, Martes, and Musgrove will all be gone from minor league system is less than 2 years so they don't need to be replaced as they are gone from system one way or another. I don't care about their production there. I don't get why you keep bringing up replenishing the minor league system. These guys are likely to help whatever MLB team they are on win approximately 70% more games over the next 7 years than Quintana's current contract. These are not run of the mill prospects with a low chance of being successful. Baseball is fickle so these guys could all bust. However, if a team consistently trades "unknown" future wins for significantly less "known" future wins....they are going to lose more games than they would have if they just kept their prospects. That said, the team has to be good at evaluating minor and major leaguers. According to many here, the Astros are better at evaluating minor leaguers than major leaguers. Granted, Quintana's an ace and I would love to have him. I would love to trade low level guys that aren't almost Astros. I would trade more prospect value for MLB value as I do value less variance (i.e. less unknown), but not 70% more expected wins for more certainty. Send out guys that aren't going to help the team in 2017 and 2018.
For the first time in over a decade, Astro fans are dreaming with the title chasers. However, There is no reason to go all in now, like there was a ticking time clock. There is ample time to gauge what the team truly needs. If the deal was Martes or Tucker and Musgrove plus two guys in the 10-20 range, sure let's deal; but that's me. I'm glad Luhnow is being diligent in his dealing. Someone mentioned that out of all the minor league guys Luhnow traded away, maybe only Vince Velazquez amounts to something. Yet, the guys graduating into the Astros system are showing tremendous upside. This shows Good judgement by Luhnow. Sure some guys have faltered along the way, but that's to be expected. The core is all home grown. Humm, maybe Luhnow's saber metric model is telling him something he should trust. And he is trusting the system. I like that Luhnow isn't emotional about his choices, after all he unloaded Appel once he stopped progressing as they'd liked. You've got to trust the data. Quintana is a pitcher I'd like to have on the roster. But if the Astros run the data and have to pay $3 dollars for every dollar in return, per their info, let someone else pay that steep price. FYI minor league players are very expensive to develop. Signing bonuses, years of personal coaching, years of assessment data as they earn the RIGHT to move up the system. Most of the Allstar players are 1st round picks. Not to say you don't find all stars in the later rounds, but that's the proprietary data you've got to trust. You don't get emotional and disregard your own perceived value.
