In hindsight, Verlander is a bad idea for the Astros. Cohen is eating the entire contract regardless of what any other owner thinks or intends. At that point, you're just getting in an unwise bidding war with the Dodgers, another team that can eat bad contracts for prospects. Would much rather try to swing a deal for Dylan Cease and attempt to pull off a Gerrit Cole 2.0 trade with a cheap owner like Reinsdorf.
Jeremy Peña and any pitching prospect not named Spencer Areighetti give or take other players with potential for Dylan Cease makes the most sense to me right now. I don’t think Tucker is resigning so hanging on to Gilbert makes sense.
I find the idea that Jim Crane won’t pony up to trade for Verlander because he wants to save money to extend Tucker, Framber, Bregman, and Altuve to be pretty disingenuous. There is a 0% chance Crane extends Tucker or Framber; both of those players are going to require in excess of $200M, a number Crane clearly won’t accept. And I consider it extremely unlikely they extend Bregman, as he too is very likely to exceed Crane’s self-imposed 5 year limit. Altuve is the only player they are likely to extend and adding Verlanders contract won’t have a material impact on that.
Well of course you'd rather get Cease than Verlander if you can, there's a reason Verlander is a LOT more available than Cease.
If the botton feeders spent $15M more on average, the wealthier teams would likely spend ~15M on average. Players would get richer, but owners would just shoot themsleves in the foot. Sure, if one bottom feeder spent a lot, it isn't going to change much. Even then, Padres might not make the postseason this year and they did more than just a little bit more spending. Money has a much bigger affect on the floor of a team than it does at raising the ceiling.
Maybe Verlander has told the Mets he'll only accept a trade to the Astros. Dodgers fans will turn on him in a hurry if he struggles. Does he want that? Or he can go back to a city/fan base that him and his family enjoyed.
I'm pretty sure his family enjoys LA though. It would be great for the Astros if that happened, and I can see an argument for it, but I don't think it's reality.
If the Mets are paying some of his 2023 and 2024 salary (presuming it's anything like the Scherzer deal), I'm not sure why the 2025 salary would be such a big hang-up. The Astros would be getting 2 full years plus a playoff run form JV for less than they were willing to pay for just 2 years of him in the offseason.
This shouldn’t be an issue with “OXY” plastered everywhere in the stadium! It was an eyesore last night, to have Oxy spray painted on the field, and it’s own pillar above mother train tracks, and of course on our uniform. Oxy bring us JV damnit!
Would Bielak be the arm we include to give NYM a starter for rest of the year? He's a NJ boy who went to Notre Dame. Obviously he wouldn't be only thing we give up, but he's someone I wouldn't mind losing who gives them some help this year. Also, could we get them to take a Colin Barber instead of Drew Gilbert? Maybe we include another pitching prospect to juice up the return. Just trying to figure out what the return would look like.
Main piece in a JV deal would be Gilbert. More than likely it's coming down to 1. Money 2. Does someone else make an offer they deem better than Gilbert 3. Money
We have other OF prospects that may not have the "prospect ranking" of Gilbert, but could very well be better prospects We have no option to replace Pena at SS
To get an ace you trade Pena and go with Dubon and Kessinger at SS this year. Then look to trade for a SS this off-season. I would trade Gilbert and a guy like Knorr for JV. Then try to trade Barber and a pitching prospect for Hader. How would y'all feel about a Gordon and Ullola for Burleson trade? Load up on Pitching.
Whle I agree that the Astros won't trade Pena, I think Dubon is probably closer to Pena's value (for this year and next year) than Julks is to Meyers. I absolutely hate seeing Dusty put Dubon in the OF as the Astros have a plethora of guys that hit and play defense better. That said, I like watching Dubon play IF.
