I’m really not interested in mortgaging the entire farm system for Ohtani unless he agrees to a long term deal prior to the trade. I would rather the Astros look at bringing JV back for a much cheaper price, then going after a top flight reliever.
Bryant (and Rendon) utterly sucking will influence what teams are willing to pay a guy like Bregman since it looks '19 was the outlier.
They’re not trading Tucker. Robert would be sweet, but I think Brown is focusing on pitching 1st, starting and relief. There’s ways to restock the farm if you give up a bunch in the next 2 weeks. You could trade Gilbert and other high end prospects for what we want/really need with years of control left. Then trade bregman in the offseason for a great prospect haul. Put this years 1st pick at 3rd, sign a decent 3b FA for a year or 2 until he’s ready. I think bregman is gone after 2024 anyway. Altuve resigns for 3-4 years. And if the 19 under guys are as good as y’all say and one turns into a high end prospect by 2025 then maybe you shop tucker then. Personally, I’d throw Javier in a trade if it helps get a guy like Cease. Maybe I’m crazy, but my gut is telling me WS game 4 was his peak.
9 more days. State of the market: Full sellers: A’s, Royals, White Sox, Royals, Tigers, Nats, Pirates, Rockies Sell/Buy (sell short term assets): Mariners, Angels, Guardians, Mets, Cards, Cubs, Padres Players I expected to be traded: C: Diaz, Grandal, Gomes, Sanchez IF: Kemp, Cron, Candelario, Santana, Bell, DeJong, Vogelbach, Carpenter OF: Bellinger, Renfroe, Hernandez, Lane Thomas, Seth Brown, Laureano, Profar, Pham SP: Ohtani, Snell, Giolito, Stroman, Montgomery, Blackburn, Lorenzen, E Rodriguez, Hendricks, Keller, Flaherty, Smyly, Lugo, Hill, Lynn RP: Hader, Pierce Johnson, Bard, Suter, Hand, Barlow, Cisnero, Graveman, Lopez, Middleton, Fulmer, Moore, Karinchak, Sewald, Hicks, Stratton, Ottavino, Robertson, Raley, N Martinez If Houston is shopping Meyers, he would be the 2nd best OF realistically available after Bellinger (I don’t expect CwS to actually trade Robert), so they should get really good value for him. I suspect there will be other good teams offering up MLB pieces similar to how Houston is operating; Dodgers could trade Michael Busch, Yanks could trade IKF and Oswaldo Cabrera, DBacks could trade Alek Thomas, etc. I think we will start to see some RP and other lesser trades in the next couple days but any good players will likely not be traded until <72 hrs before the deadline.
Yep. You know your history, I will give you that !!! That's what has happened every offseason since FA began. The owners and GMs are frugal and spending just keeps shrinking and shrinking because they see how contracts worked out previously. It's amazing any players ever file FA anymore.
If he maintains his pace and if he is in the CY Young mix and if he is near the homerun lead, he still wouldn't by any metric be the greatest player of all time. He hasn't been in the top 10 in MVP or Cy Young voting prior to 2022... he's only been near (within 15 homeruns) the homerun lead once prior to this season. So IF he maintain the pace from last year and this year, his prime years at age 28, for 10 more years... he'll be the greatest player of all time? Cool.
This post spurred me to look at the Top 15 biggest FA contracts from last offseason. Chas is beating 12 of them in fWAR this season, slightly below 2 of them who have a ton more PAs, and slightly below Judge who has had injury issues. Basically, teams signing a high dollar pitcher this past offseason would have been more fisically responsible just to light $20M dollars on fire.
When determining whether to trade for and/or sign him as a FA, the financial impact simply can't be ignored. Because of his world wide popularity he brings tourism and additional revenue atbthe stadium and from "gear" He also brings unique promotion opportunities. For example if he is traded for, and the team makes the W.S. they could schedule a thank you/tribute game for him when his team comes to MMP in 2024 and offer a limited addition add on such as a replica ring. I'm not saying the Astros should trade for him. It will certainly be a dear cost in players and/or prospects but it's not as straight forward as a typical player.
You keep changing the goal posts. I said that would be the greatest 10 year run in the history of baseball which it would.
I'm not disputing or even referencing that. I'm simply saying that owners and GMs have never passed or reduced spending on a healthy FA because of contract history. So it's extremely unlikely that Rendon's, Bryant's, or anyone else's past contract keeping Bregman from getting a huge FA contract.
Yes, inflation is a thing. Not counting last season, the luxury tax was working as the owners intended to reduce FA costs relative to inflation. If memory serves, players percent of earnings went from about 57% of baseball revenue about 10 years ago to about 53 or 52% prior to the CBA change. Owners are going to still give out big contracts, but I think 2023 offseason will be a big increase and subsequent years payrolls will not rise with inflation.
Rendon and Bryant have ZERO affect on a future Bregman contract. Just because they all play (or at the time of FA had played mostly) 3B means absolutely nothing when it comes to a Bregman contract. Alex is going to get paid. He is very good defensively at 3B, and while Astro fans (well CF Astro fans) love to rip on him, dude is on pace to drive in 100 runs in a year that we haven't had our offense healthy around him. Alex, as much as anyone, comes across as really loving it here. It would not surprise me at all if Brown worked out an extension for him. I know Crane has stuck on the 5-6 year max, but maybe Brown can convince him to extend that just a bit. While I don't see Tucker taking anything less than 10 years +, I could see Alex agree to a 6-7 year extension if Crane would do it.
I've argued this before but to me just about any contract over 5 years and very high dollar amount is just about a guaranteed loss. The risk alone is not worth smart franchise sustaining model. For a very random examples Yu Darvish sign a 6 year 108M ext. He has been ok but I the Padres are not looking bright now. Rendon already mentioned still 3 more years after this one. Trout has 7 more seasons after this one. I'd bet Judge won't look so hot in 3 years. Strasburg 7 years was a bust, 3 more to go and he hasn't hardly been on the mound the last three years. Lindor has been so so but he has 8 more years to go at 32 million each. Carlos Correa anyone. I think that's going to come back to bite the Twins and they got the smaller deal of what was actually rumored before his Medicals came out. What about Stanton in New York last two seasons he's been garbage. Yes four more years to go on that contract. Saying all that there's no way I give any player on the Astros more than 5 years. I'm pretty sure that's what Crane believes and that's why the Astros are going to continue to be very competitive over the next decade. It really hurts and Springer go but ultimately it was probably the right decision. Cole has done very well so far but what good did it do to overpaid Yankees. Astros keep finding young guys to step in year after year. That's how you sustain Championship baseball. Not overpaying from years and years on a couple players.
If we can get off of the Cease+Robert thing and talk rational possibilities Offensively Bellinger is probably the only player out there we had a better than 5% chance of trading for that would move the needle for fans. Other than that I could see us add a Seth Brown type to have a reserve/pinch hitter vs RHP on the bench. .775 OPS vs RHP and was even a little better last year. With health our offense is great, just need a legit situational bat that isn't a Hensley/Madris type Jordan Montgomery is my favorite of the rental SP on the market, but I think our chances of getting him are slim. The Cards #1 and #2 and #3 wants are controllable SP. I just don't see the match there, unless they really think a guy like Araghetti is ready and will be better than anyone else offered to them. They might have interest in JP France, but whatever we may think of how he will end up, truth is he has been really good and we need to add a SP to him, Framber, Javier and Brown, not swap him out for another (unless a Cease type) So I really think our best chance to make a move to legitimately help the rotation is either Snell or Stroman. Snell's trade value is likely quite a bit more than Stroman just because of the contract. Snell is a true rental, if Stroman were to have a significant injury he could pick up his option for next year and a team would be on the hook for it. That has to matter a little in trade talks So my question is this Would you be willing to put Gilbert in a deal for Snell or Stroman? Astros get: Snell, Steve Wilson Padres get: Gilbert, whatever 21 or worst ranked prospect they want Astros get: Stroman, Leiter Cubs get: Meyers, Dubin, Whitley Framber, Javier, Snell, Stroman, Brown, France Pressley, Abreu, Neris, Leiter, Wilson, Urquidy, Bielak, Maton With a healthy offense, i'll take my chances against anyone with that
Agree in general, but the Astros have been able to do it in part because we had a strong and deep farm system when all of this started. Hopefully Brown builds that back up, but there is going to be a period here for a few years where we aren't likely to be bringing up many top level everyday players for a bit. If we can keep Altuve and Bregman around to help bridge that gap, that is our best chance of keeping this rolling for another 5+ years
No. You don't give up your number 1 prospect for a 3 month rental unless you are the favorite and there are no other questions to answer. In other words, if we were leading our division and all we needed was a 4th starter to be the odds on favorite, then sure. However, Snell would not answer all our issues. He wouldn't even guarantee us catching the rangers.
