Santander is a league average corner OF w/ 2 years of control. Nothing special about him and he would create a roster crunch but the Astros could likely get him easy enough and cheap enough if they wanted. Rodriguez is a 60 rated prospect and #4 prospect in all baseball. Those are rare and expensive. Generally it would take 2 55 rated guys to equal the value of a 60 rated guy. The Astros only have1, Hunter Brown. So just to play along and extrapolate let's put together an offer Baltimore MAY actually consider. Santander = a 45 and a 40 rated prospect. = Misail Tamarez and Ryan Clifford. Rodriguez requires a 55, 50, and a 45 since the team has only 1 55 Hunter Brown, Pedro Leon, and Joe Perez. Westberg requires 2 50 rated players: Yainer Diaz and Colin Barber. I still think it's 50/50 if Baltimore accepts it but a FAIR offer for Santander, Rodriguez, and Westberg Is Hunter Brown, Pedro Leon, Yainer Diaz, Colin Barber, Ryan Clifford, Joe Perez, and Misail Tamarez. Whitley and Maton have no value so would not be acceptable. Meyers could be but would just replace one of the lowest level prospects like Tamarez in this deal.
Could have been longer! It was missing the Wild Card win in 2015 and Correa's extra inning walk off HR in game 2 of the 2019 ALCS.
Id love that move. If Abreu can be stretched out, you’ve added another potential ToR to the rotation while maintaining a strong bullpen. Also makes a lot of sense from a cost perspective. The offensive question marks are not a pressing issue. Our 1-8 are as good as any in baseball. We can address any potential holes that exist or develop at the trade deadline.
I’d really love a LH bat off the bench (and Profar seems like the best available and a LH Reliever (and there’s Chafin and a few others with better than league average ERA, Ground Ball rate, K rate, etc) Getting Valdez and Javier for a few years of free agency (at around 100 mil each) is winning the offseason with the insane money lesser injury prone starters are collecting. Not too mention 6 starters locked in for 3-4+ seasons. I like keeping some money around for the deadline and give some young guys some reps and see what sticks and what doesn’t. Jake McCarthy is my favorite OF, I imagine a good amount of catchers will be available, etc
Extending Javier, Valdez and Tucker seems to be the smart play here. Not sure anyone on the market is an upgrade over guys we already have.
Do you think Valdez is negatively affected by the new shift rules? I feel like while he likely won't implode, he is probably going to not repeat last year's numbers. Javier's style of play is far more sustainable (very K-heavy) but some people question if he can handle a 180 innings/year load.
I think the more ground ball dependent a pitcher is, the more the new rules will effect him. However, I think it will not be enough to take a Cy Young calibur pitcher to an ineffective one. He may not be Cy Young contending but I bet he still is All Star calibur. He still Ks quite a few batters and I just see 1 additional single per 10-12 innings.
Valdez is still gonna have that filthy curve and a 96-97mph fastball to go along with it. I think Javier showed enough last year that he can carry that over going forward.
Yup. Astros have spoken to the agents for a lot of guys on the team to see what they can get done. Valdez and Javier aren’t a big surprise. It will be curious to see if Javier takes the money now after turning it down before, I would assume they will offer him more now and buy out 2-3 years of free agency. Framber will be harder because of his age. Astros have spoken to agents of some surprising players. They have spoken about Chas McCormick, Brown, Abreu and Pena. They are going to talk to the agent for Bregman as well. I was told Tucker and Framber may be hard to sign.
Valdez has matured into a complete pitcher with amazing stuff. I would be a little worried about doing a full extension on Javier though. If he loses any lift on his fastball he's just a AAA pitcher with a 93 MPH fastball. I don't claim to be an expert on any of this just my opinion.
3 go ahead home runs in the 6th inning or later with your team behind in the score. Nobody can say they have done that twice in their entire career. Yordan did it 3 times in just a single postseason.
