5-6 relievers will regularly pitch meaningful innings for a team all year, we should have 3 really good ones if they stay healthy...and a giant pile of trash in which we hope to find something serviceable. He can drop 95 million on Hader, however much on Snell, big money for Montero and Abreu but he can't spend a couple million on a reliever that we can count on to not be terrible? He's not cheap, he just has a very weird way he chooses to allocate his funds.
I really don't know. He paid free agent outfielders well as long as it wasn't for more than a few years. The only time we didn't pay was for Correa, Springer and Cole. Only Cole has been a good signing for their team but may not be if this injury is bad. Springer probably would not have come back anyway unless we gave him obscene money.
Has this really been an issue year after year though? Intentionally skimping on a part of the roster and just throwing anything on the wall that sticks? I also don't think Crane is as hands on for the depth or injury replacement portion of the roster. That's the GM's job. Whether it was acquiring Stanek/Maton/Liriano/Clippard/Joe Smith/Biagini!/Raley/Graveman... or overseeing promotions/development of Devenski/Abreu/Josh James/Paredes... I think Crane trusts his front office/staff to do the job necessary to optimize those lesser-flashy parts of the bullpen. But that also doesn't necessarily mean they have to go spend $5-8 million on a handful of guys who aren't expected to throw many high leverage innings... ideally you'd want those guys to come from your system or be minor league roster type signings. Worst comes to worst, you trade for them... as the Astros prior regimes have done with regularity.
I disagree that Crane has nickel and dimed on anything. Luhnow and then Click stocked him with cheap options that allowed him the luxury of not spending market price for roster spots #10-26. Just because the roster is filled out by guys who haven't made it to FA yet does not mean he is "nickel and diming". There is a good chance that guys like Seth Martinez and Ronel Blanco, etc are just as good at the bottom of the bullpen as any $2-3M (Ryne Stanek?) signing would be. Also relief pitchers are notoriously inconsistent year to year, so its always smart to limit how many not elite guys you pay above min salary for. He has made generous AAV offers as players have moved up to FA but has not been willing to cripple his ability to contend and add salary year by year by having bloated dead money long term deals on the books. It's no coincidence that the Astros have been competitive for 9 years and among the elite in MLB for 7 while most others (Cubs?Red Sox?Nationals?) are good for a few years and have to rebuild or reload. It's sound philosophy and it's certainly not cheap.
But why do it at all? That's what is so weird to me. In years past we've stayed under the threshold, choosing to save on the pen to allocate elsewhere makes perfect sense. However this season he was clearly willing and able to spend well above the cap. He gives his GM's a budget to do their thing, but if he wants something it's like extra money. I'll spend on this and only this, if we don't sign that guy the money isn't going elsewhere. If we had been outbid for Hader, I'm not sure we would have signed anybody else for the pen.
Not Crane's fault, that was Berkman/Biggio/Bagwell/Bell/Bielak/Bill Spiers or some other B person who was playing GM
Weird post is Weird. "we should have 3 really good ones" CHECK Who is this magical 6th inning middle reliever "that we can count on to not be terrible"? Maton? Stanek?
But is he really telling his GM's not to spend? Or is he relying on them improving that area of the roster via the methods his previous GM's have done? And him being extremely selective on who he feels is worth splurging on or not has been his MO ever since the first JV acquisition. He will gladly overspend on stars, especially when they're shorter deals that still allow for year to year (or intra-year) flexibility. Hader was a splurge largely in part because of the increased revenues this team has accrued with attendance being as strong as it has been the last 3 years... but he's also Pressly's eventual replacement, and we are squarely in an era where every contending team should have a ton of redundancy for high leverage innings. Reminds me of when they acquired Greinke even though they had the best team by far... and while he added to what was already a strength (JV, Cole, Keuchel, Miley), he was also going to replace Cole as a front-line type starter/innings-eater.
Because Crane viewed Hader as the clear best on the market that would make the team better. If he feels nobody else accomplishes that why just spend to spend? If I have a nice pot roast, pork tenderloin, some chicken breasts, and rib eye steaks in my freezer then I may splurge for a rib roast or fillet mignon if I have a chance, but getting a NY Strip doesn't really add to what I already have. And I certainly won't spend $15 per pound for sirloin steaks.
Exactly... also they're already locked into Montero who actually did have some decent stretches last year, mixed in with the awful ones. He's not "done" by any means, even if he may not live up to the 2022 season that got him this contract. So with 4 bullpen spot locked up, and previously looking to have a possible 6 man rotation... we're talking about 1-3 guys that he's not spending average salary money on?
Alright I get it guys Pressly, Abreu and Hader will be available to pitch the 7th, 8th and 9th inning of every meaningful game we play. They'll never need a day off nor will the 6th inning ever matter so the other guys in the pen are completely inconsequential.
I dont believe the front end guys in our bullpen will be significantly worse than years past. Montero won't be as bad as last year. Martinez can get guys out and when/if mccullers and garcia comes back you can allocate France, Blanco or Bielak to the long inning role. I don't see this as a hole.
Crane operates with his GM like I do with my wife. She wants to buy a purse, makeup, etc. I don't care, do what you want. Now you want to buy a new car? Let's talk...LOL
