[Official] Astros Off-Season

Don't be stupid, sign Correa

 

In the event of moving Brantley and losing Correa, they could switch focus to signing Kyle Schwarber to a big deal. He's a power-hitting LFer with 30+ homer potential and had his best year this year. He slashed .266/.374/.554 with a .928 OPS combined for both BOS and WSH, and is in a bit of a sweet spot age wise at only 28 years old. He's expected to test the market and said he would not rule out signing with anyone this offseason.

 

I'm told by someone who would know that Strom primarily worked with McCullers and the guys under him were working with Garcia, Urquidy, and Valdez...

 

I don't think a guy who hit .203 on the road last year is getting 25 million a year...

I prefer Aledmys over Story...

 

I hear ya man but he’s a career .272 hitter with a full season average of 29.4 homers per year. I’m not too sure about the defensive metrics but the eye test tells me he’s much better defensively than Aledmys Diaz. Story is 28 years old and if he was coming off one of his typical seasons, his price would be much higher. Hitting in a lineup like this one, with half of his games at MMP, seems to me like it would be a good fit. There were a lot of questions about Lemahieu and Arrenado’s splits away from Coors field and they’ve had levels of success that cause me to optimistic about Story away from Colorado moving forward

 

Arenado and LeMahieu were much better on the road.

He has some power on the road still, it's his ability to get hits and on base that is the issue ..

 

DJ had his best season in 2016. He hit .303 away from Coors with a .747 ops.

He did struggle more his last season hitting .229 on the road with a .698 ops.

Arenado's last full season there was 2019. He hit .277 with an .866 ops.

Story last year was .203 with a .717 ops.

For his entire career outside of Coors he's a .241 hitter with a .752 ops.

If you want him for his defense, there are cheaper defensive shortstops who can hit .240... 25 million is a top of the rotation pitcher, not a mediocre shortstop....

For comparison, Diaz for his career road numbers is .276 with an .809 ops. He actually performs better on the road than at home.

Sample size on defense for him is an issue since he hasn't seen much time at ss since he got here... for his career:

.969 fldg%
3.77 rf/9

Story is a .979 fldg% and 4.32 rf/9.

Does that added defense make up for worse hitting and a front line starter or 2 dominant bullpen arms? I doubt it...

Turner is a much better option but may cost more... he could also improve the leadoff spot from Altuve and drop Altuve back where his power helps more...

 

FIFY.

 

I am tentatively pencilling in Jeremy Pena/Aledmys Diaz on the Astros 2022 SSs.

If Pena can deliver league average numbers with his bat (defense is a given), this would be a huge win for the Astros and their farm. Pena's bat in the minors has shown above average potential, but may take a season or two to develop in The Bigs.

Pena working out would free up monies for other areas of need like ToR pitching.

 

Liking Yuli resigning. He's lost some pop but still a good player. Obviously we need to do more, but we'll see.

 

thats a lot to give up for a season of Buxton

 

In my fantasy offseason, I purposefully avoided signing guys with a QO attached - I want those comp picks.
DeJong is under the radar compared to Story but I like his defense better and I explained why I think he'd do great at MMP.

Also, Taylor Jones, Brandon Bielak, Bryan Abreu, and Garrett Stubbs are all candidates to get the "JD Davis treatment" IMO. As in, trade to a needy team who's high on them, in favor of mid-level prospects to reload the farm.

 

And the Astros player development gave us Garcia, Urquidy, and Valdez, which can be not overstated how important that was for the last two years playoff runs.

Losing Strom hurts, but the Astros as an organization have handled and developed pitching prospects

 

my recollection is that DeJongs plate discipline is garbage. He would stand out in this lineup in a bad way. He isn’t the kind of player that’s a meaningful upgrade over letting Peña play.

 

Houston’s upper level pitching depth and 40 man crunch seems like it would push Click to pursue at least one “talent consolidation” trade. Here’s the list of SP who would be in AAA if opening day were today: Brown, Whitley, Dubin, Abreu, Solomon, Bielak, Ivey, Emanuel, Bermudez, Solis, France, Conine, Donato, Mushinski, Record, and Torres, with Hansen on the DL and a full bullpen of guys like Scrubb, Paredes, Ferrell, Blanco, Scheetz, Hernandez, and Tejada. Very few of those guys seem like release candidates. Of course only 5-6 of those guys are the types of prospects that could net significant value via trade. But there’s plenty of excess talent there to consolidate half of dozen of those guys into an elite reliever or ToR SP.

 

Yep. If Houston isn’t going to sign Correa, Seager, Story, Semien, Baez, or Taylor, they just need to roll with Pena. Adding someone like Villar or Galvis or Leury Garcia as a 13th position player to have some insurance in case Pena struggles would make more sense than paying to trade for DeJong to block Pena.

 

There’s bound to be a lot of variance in how much value Meyers and Whitley have. On the one extreme, Meyers is a surefire 2 win CF with upside to be a 3-4 win player, and Whitley was once the top pitching prospect in all of baseball and still has true ace potential. On the other extreme, Meyers was a non-prospect 12 months ago and profiles to k quite a bit, while Whitley is a head case who hasn’t pitched in 4 years and just had surgery.

I wouldn’t object to that trade package, especially if the Twins covered some salary. Rogers is an elite lefty reliever and Buxton is one of the 5 best CF in baseballl. Meyers is a big potential piece to give up but the pitching prospects can easily be replaced (especially if you’re not a believer in Whitley). Keep in mind Buxton would also very likely net a draft pick after he leaves. I would peg Buxton’s surplus value at about $25M, and Rogers at about $8M. Meyers’ value could be anywhere from $10M to $40M depending on opinion. Whitley’s range is even wider. Abreu and Ivey are 2nd/3rd tier pitching prospects who probably carry $2-5M in value each, although it wouldn’t surprise me if teams valued Abreu much higher (possibly even higher than Whitley).

 

Yeah when he was talking to the media he said this. He said everyone was gone besides McCullers and all the current guys were with the other coaches.

 

Alright, I've had a couple days to process the end of the season and I see the offseason playing out in one of a few different ways.

1. We re-sign Correa to a deal of 7+ years at $30+ million per year. We extend QO to Verlander and he declines. We then address the bullpen by re-signing Graveman and maybe bringing in another arm or two. Maybe we stand still on starting pitching, but I think there's virtually no way we go into next season without addressing the rotation to some degree. So in this scenario let's say we package some of our prospects like Whitley, Abreu, McCormick, Meyers, Leon?, Brown, etc. to a team like the Reds for Castillo. Or package them to another team that would be looking to move a young controllable starter. Lineup would be the same 1-7, Meyers/McCormick (whichever one isn't traded) starts the season in CF and Leon comes up at some point. Peña begins to get work as a LF to replace Brantley once he leaves after this season.

2. We don't re-sign Correa. We extend the QO to JV and he accepts. Not sure how likely this is, but in this scenario you don't need to address the rotation any further so you can focus on re-signing Graveman and adding some bullpen pieces. You could either roll with Peña at SS or if you're not comfortable with that then you could go try to get Story or Seager or Semien. I don't see that as very likely though. So let's say they roll with Peña at SS. That gives you a lot of money to spend on the bullpen and maybe even start looking at extending Tucker/Alvarez (we're gonna have to start thinking about extending these guys pretty soon).

3. I think this might be the most likely scenario. We don't re-sign Correa, JV or Greinke. We have a ton of money freed up. We roll with Peña at SS. We re-sign Graveman and address the bullpen in relatively smaller signings (don't think we'll ever be the type of team to spend a ton of money on the bullpen). Then we have the rotation. We could choose to address that through trade like mentioned earlier. You can save money that way. Or, you could decide to pursue one of the several high quality SP on the FA market. DeSclafani, Gausman, Robbie Ray, Stroman, Rondon are all FA. Any of those guys wouldn't completely break the bank and would really solidify the rotation.

I think there's also an outside chance they look at signing Kris Bryant. This would require a lot of moving around of positions though. You sign him to play 3B this season. Move Bregman to SS (don't know how well he would actually do there), Peña gets another year under his belt and gets some experience as a bench guy. Once Brantley leaves next year then you put Bryant in LF, Bregman back to 3B and Peña at SS. I just don't see any way this actually happens though.

Anyway, those are my thoughts as of right now. It is sure to be a fascinating offseason no matter what!

 

This was just my proposal. DeJong would not get 5 years and $100M, and we move Odorizzi too. The thinking was to add a thumper to the lineup, and he has 30+ HR potential. Also don’t think Pena, even if he does indeed pan out, is quite ready yet. I understand the drawbacks but I like his power potential at MMP. And as I said, if we do trade for him but he doesn’t work out, the contract is not a killer.
Schwarber is another interesting option if we do look for a thumper, which I think we should. While Gurriel and Brantley are great contact hitters, 1B and LF are historically positions associated with power, something they really lack. I know there’s way more to hitting than just home runs, but only 2 homers in the WS (both from Altuve) was just sad.