Not sure why Luhnow wouldn't be high on Moran. 2016 was sub par, but 2017 he was back to making a lot of contact except he started hitting the ball harder and in the air. He got his career MLB K% under 25% and his ISO to 0.176. Those aren't great MLB numbers, but they are usually enough to be a bad MLB player.
That makes sense and is reasonable. But two things come to mind. 1) You can bet that the Dodgers, Yankees, Red Sox and on down are not going to sit tight. They are going to try to get better in any way possible. Can we afford to add a reliever and call it a day? 2) In the 2015 off-season we concluded similarly. Just needed a closer. Got Giles. 2016 didn't go so well. Our starting rotation is full of guys with injury history (DK, Morton, LMJ). I think we better be open minded.
On 1, a lot of Astros players are just entering their peaks, and they are not losing anyone substantial. Astros are pulling away in talent without doing anything. Baseball is fickle so anything can happen once the games start. From an off-season standpoint, the Astros will have best AL team on paper entering the season by a good margin which is about all you can ask for from the front office. On 2, Astros showed they can win World Series with Giles as a closer. Baseball is fickle and tough to plan for every thing. That said, Astros 2016 team was projected to win about 87-88 games preseason. Early projections without adding relief has the Astros at 98 wins. There is a very good chance that the Astros set their franchise record in wins in 2018. They have any luck, and announcers will be talking MLB franchise record is possible all year. Granted, baseball is fickle and even if the Astros are best team ever, they are not likely to repeat...though they will likely have the best odds of winning WS in 2018 entering the season.
Without any outside additions to the team, we have opportunities to be better with less injuries to key players (Correa, Springer, DK, LMJr, etc.) for extended periods and with improvement from young players (Bregman, Martes, Fisher, Moran, White, etc.). I think these two areas will be key to whether we have an opportunity to repeat. I feel pretty good about our starting pitching going into next season, but we obviously have to figure out how to improve our relief pitching. That could be a combo of internal moves and a key signing and/or trade or two. I don't think we make any big signings in the OF or DH because we have plenty of folks to potentially replace Beltran with. With Klye Tucker maybe only a half season away, I think it would be tough to spend on a JD Martinez. However, I've learned to trust our GM, he's done some truly amazing things in his time here and deserves a ton of credit for bringing us our first World Series win.
Forgot about Otani. If one of the other AL teams sign Darvish and Otani, there is a chance another team gets to the Astros level on paper and won't need a lot of luck in games to compete with Astros for AL home field advantage.
Astros proved they can win an ALDS + ALCS with Giles as the closer NOT a WS with him as he did NOTHING to help them win it. He was benched.
The only AL teams that can possibly match Houston’s talent level next season would be NY, Boston, and Cleveland. No team in the AL West can compete with Houston even if they add Otani and Darvish unless Houston has some kind of disastrous combo of injuries and slumps.
The other contenders haven't begun their upgrades yet. By spring, it could look different. Sure, the FO has done well. I just dont like the thought process of standing pat (mostly). I wasn't picking on Giles. Just a case in point to where we do little because we think we dont need much.
I dont think you stop trying to be better, regardless of what things look like on paper. In addition, we have a window of opportunity financially speaking before we have to start signing our core to big contracts. We can offer 2-3 year deals now before that happens. In 4 or 5 years, and I am saying it now, there will be some heart broken fans. The chances of keeping all of Altuve, Springer and Correa are very slim. Bregman as well. Add to that at some point, a starting pitcher or two may need/become a core player as well. No way this team can carry 4-5 $25M/year players at once.
I don't know that you a wrong but I don't see why. Young team ready to compete for many years. World Series champs with best odds to win again next year. Multicultural city with connections to Asia and Japan specifically Multicultural team In the AL Can offer full time DH Can use rotation help Learn from two vet starters one hall of famer on how to transition to mlb Very reputable pitching coach History with Japanese players No state income tax and no additional millionaires tax Similar weather to where he's from ... I mean I could go on and on .... honestly this would be the smartest choice.
Otani also increases a team's fanbase worldwide - like Yao did with China. A key for major profit is reaching beyond local.
When did Houston have a Japanese connection? Or a history? Japan and Houston’s weather similar? Your other points are valid though.
The 2015 team had lots of holes - the bottom half the offense was horrific and the back of the rotation had issues. We knew that - we expected the 2016 team to be better, but not best-in-baseball good. The 2015 didn't even win their division. The Astros' just didn't feel 2016 was an "all-in" year to go for it. So they made some changes then, and then even more in 2017 once they had added more pieces during the 2016 year to reduce the holes in that team (Bregman, Yuli, Devo, Musgrove, etc). But the reason we won in 2017 is that the Astros built a team that simply has very few holes to fill, so it's much harder to improve them. Other teams will have an easier time improving because their rosters aren't as deep - most teams have a few crappy hitters in their lineup, a bad #5 pitcher, etc. The bullpen is the one area where the Astros can really try to improve and move more towards a Yankee/Dodgers type pen with more power on the backend, though we saw that even those elite pens failed miserably in the playoffs.
I was just respOnding to the previous comment about other teams Handicapping Otani’s market: Start with these 2 assumptions: He wants to play both ways. Based on that he has been a 2-way player so far and all profiles describe him as a 2-way player. He is most concerned with on-the-field factors. Based on his desire to get here before he is eligible for a significant contract and his reputation as a baseball rat. With that in mind, NL teams and non-contenders start off at a big disadvantage. As a contending AL team, Houston should theoretically be in the mix. That said, as a mid-market team located in Texas, they have some things working against them. Otani is a total mystery otherwise, and when a valuable player’s destination is a mystery, I always assume he ends up a Yankee. I’d rank the top 4 contenders for him in order of Yankees, Dodgers, Mariners, and Angels. But there’s a big group in the next tier that have a reasonable shot, including the Astros, Rangers, Cubs, Red Sox, Giants, Blue Jays, Nationals, Mets, Indians, and any teams with personal connections to him, his agents, his coaches, his trainers, or his family. IF he’s as good as they are saying he could be, he’s a 7+ fWAR player and will have a dramatic impact on whichever team he signs with. I am skeptical he even comes over this season but if he does I think the Yankees would be the big time favorite which could be bad news for Houston. If he were to sign with the Astros he would put them in dynasty mode if they’re not there already.
