Jake brings energy to the clubhouse and was one one of the faves. Should give them enough to pursue the best pitcher on the market.
LOL at reading into Click's comment. What's he going to say? "I am completely desperate to make a move. We don't have anyone to play center****ingfield. I'm ****ing panicking over here. These agents won't even call me back!"
Leon vs Straw in spring training. Let the new #4 go Hunter Pence on the Grapfruit League........ I hope you meant Carlos Rodon and not Hector Rondon. I don't think I can deal with Baez and Rondon on this team. Doubt we have the payroll flexibility to pay a closer 8 million plus right now. Maybe they take a gamble on Osuna with a minor league offer that has a bunch of incentives for appearances..... if his arm makes it through spring training. My feeling is that we are going to need at least 10-11 starters during the season. So stretch Javier out in spring training, but put him in the pen to start the season because he has shown he can do both. He seemed to fade around 80 pitches last season. If we can get someone like Carlos Rodon I don't have a problem with letting him be the 5th starter. If he bombs then slide Javier into the rotation. We need a ton of innings and nobody in our rotation except Greinke has thrown 150 innings in a season. In 2019 we had 14 different guys start games. That's with Verlander and Cole each making 34 and 33 starts respectively. Yes, some guys were just one time openers but still.... try and go even 12 deep for starters in our system right now. It will get pretty ugly after 7-8 guys. Greinke, Valdez, McCullers, Urquidy, Javier, Garcia, Pruitt, Whitley, Bielak (barf),etc????? That's 9 and I'm already at Bielak and Pruitt is still recovering from surgery. I read that as.... I'm done paying fair market or slightly above market to fill holes. If/when prices drop and I can get value I might pull the trigger. Otherwise, stop including the Astros in rumors because it isn't true.
Saving $ the rest of the offseason likely gives us a higher chance of focusing on a Correa extension.
I am thinking they have <$10M total left to spend, and even that would only leave ~$5M of wiggle room to add at the deadline, depending on what happens with Correa’s arb case. I still think a Benintendi trade can happen. He’s owed $6.6M but his tax hit for Boston is only $5M (not sure how that works when players are traded). Outside of a trade for a cheap player like that, they are probably waiting out the free agents, seeing whose price drops. The best case would be Pillar, with Marisnick being a strong possibility. I was also hoping they’d add a SP but that is lookin pretty unlikely, unless it’s a NRI type. I wonder how much Carlos Rodon will sign for.
Man I hope we can sign Correa to an extension. It is just a matter of time before he puts it all together and becomes the superstar he was destined to be. Wouldn’t be shocked if this the year he puts it all together, plays 95% of the season. Let’s hope he has signed an extension before that happens or he will be the next $300 mil player to sign somewhere next offseason.
The only franchises that have spent significantly more money than the Astros over the last 4 years are the Yankees, Cubs, Dodgers and Red Sox. Unlike the NBA, there's no salary cap to protect you from the titans in this league. Even with Covid crushing his gate, our spending hasn't really fallen off. Anybody that still thinks Crane is a problem really needs to adjust their expectations.
I don't think Crane's spending is a problem... but the Astros *should* fall into that category where they are in the top 5 or so in spending. Not for a select 4 year period, but every year. There are only 3 larger cities in the country. There are only 3 media markets that are significantly larger. Teams like Philly and the Rangers and Giants have been in rebuilding mode and haven't had the same incentives to spend big. He's spending the way he's supposed to spend. I don't think he should get credit or blame for falling in the right spot. The Astros shouldn't need "protection from the titans in the league" - they should be one of the titans.
Last time I did the math which was a few years ago, I estimated Houston should be able to sustain a payroll between 5th and 10th in the league. But that has a lot of assumptions built into it. For one thing, judging payroll by rank assumes all teams that can afford to spend do so, and that they spend as much as they can afford, neither of which is true. The reality is that probably half the teams in the league can afford to continually spend up to the luxury tax threshold. Where I tend to end up is that I expect Houston to spend up to close to the threshold until they need to rebuild, at which point they should tank for a max of 2 seasons before getting back up to the luxury tax. I don’t expect Houston to need to rebuild until at least 2024, so until then they should start each season at around $200M (to leave a little room for deadline additions) City size has little to do with what a team can afford. TV deals are the biggest factor, followed by how supportive the city is to the franchise (fan attendance, competing interests, etc.). As long as their are draft pick penalties for exceeding the luxury tax, no fan should be mad at their team as long as they are within 90% of the threshold.
Berryhill is not a great return for Perez at first glance. But he is an interesting prospect. Signed as a draft eligible sophomore, was drafted in the 13th rd but got a bonus more like a 10th rounder. No minor league stat samples worth analyzing. Scouting reports that I saw indicated questionable defense, plus raw power, questionable hit tool. Tyler Krabbe and Alex Holderbach do not like this trade.
I thought highly of Perez and that he could contribute. I feel like he never really got much of a chance.
You kinda want Hand to go to the Mets so they have a slight struggle to get JBJ. They are also looking into Bauer for a two to 3 year deal. So its kinda good if they land him
