I absolutely love that Dubon has gone from "solid utility guy" to "this guy ****ing sucks, DFA him" to "he should be a platoon starter in CF" in the span of about 2 weeks.
I admittedly don't watch too much baseball outside of the Astros. My kids are getting old enough that I can't get away with it.
There's a pretty good crop of FA outfielders available next year. I'm not saying we're getting Judge, but Benintendi, Nimmo, Pederson etc. might be good replacements if Mancini leaves (and he might opt to stick around - playing for a contender in a good hitting environment has to be pretty appealing after his time on the O's).
Brewers designated Dinelson Lamet for assignment after getting him in the Hader trade. Wonder if he is a guy the Astros could fix. He has been awful this season. Find some of that Montero magic maybe. https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2022...lson-lamet-pedro-severino-for-assignment.html
We need to sign someone who can at least play a decent CF. I hope Meyers figures it out/gets healthy or whatever, but we need another legitimate option
Dubon was an underrated move. Good utility flexibility, speed, and contact ability with club control for a blocked catcher who got DFA'd a few weeks later. And I say that while he's got a sub .600 OPS. His bat probably still has more upside to it than he's shown.
I posted the W% vs under .500 teams of the Yankees, Dodgers, Astros, Mets and Braves recently (these were the teams with an overall .600 W%). Ours was in line with the others (game or 2 here and there)
People are acting like the idea to trade Urquidy came from guys on the forum and they pulled it out of their butts. The rumors were out there with Jeff Passan and Ken Rosenthal both reporting it. Astros were shopping Urquidy or other starters for a CFer or Catcher with years of control. So yeah people here are going to come up with trade scenarios based on the rumors. Doesn't mean everyone wanted him moved. https://theathletic.com/3456688/2022/07/28/astros-padres-trade-deadline-starters/ https://www.si.com/mlb/astros/news/...ing-trade-starting-pitcher-mlb-trade-deadline
Nobody wanted to trade him because he wasn't performing. People were thinking he'd give us the best opportunity to give us a significant upgrade (still under team control) at a position of need while not having to sacrifice too much from a position of need. It's honestly not that crazy to think Urquidy would have been shopped.
This. Urquidy's post game interviews made it clear he was thinking about whether or not he'd be traded as well. Ultimately, i think the Astros ran into a problem in that they wanted to trade for players that could make a bigger impact in the postseason, but the teams willing to trade those sorts of players wanted higher ceiling talent with more control. They pulled off one three team trade, but there's only so much they could do. The new CBA encourages teams to have players in the rookie of the year running, I think it would be pretty cool to bring up Brown just as soon as he wouldn't exhaust rookie eligibility. He could potentially be a weapon in the pen, and they can get an idea as to whether or not he's ready to compete for a starting spot next year.
The DH situation makes Vazquez at 1B and Gurriel at DH preferable when both start. Late in the game when when you are only pitching relievers 1 inning at a time anyway, you can bring Gurriel to 1B for defensive purposes and Dubon in at his best OF position, CF or LF to hold a lead.
I think the reality of this trade deadline is that, with the expanded postseason format, combined with our lack of early round picks (in addition to prior trades during this extraordinary window, and our incredible and unexpected promotions department) left our organization with an inability to really compete at the trade deadline. Our farm is in a great position all things considered, but we were in a weird spot where we’re obviously not going to trade young MLB proven studs like Garcia and Urquidy if the receiving value isn’t there, but we also don’t quite have the high end prospect depth required for what’s available. Either we overvalue Brown, Leon, et al, or other teams don’t like em as much as we do. That, and there was a pretty weak CF market all things considered. I’m glad we came out with what we got in hindsight. Like had been said previously, looks like Marte would have been perfect in hindsight in the off-season, but we were waiting on Correa and there’s no way to have known…all in all, I’m not too worried. Let’s see how this season shakes out.
Teams not wanting Urquidy are dumb. He’s a really good pitcher. Just because he’s our 6th or 7th best starter in the org doesn’t mean he’s not a pretty good arm that would profile to 2 or 3 on your team. I don’t know though, I always said I’m not sure I wouldn’t rather trade Garcia. Maybe the answer should be sign some guys in FA next year.
