Dana should ask Anthopolous how we do the thing where we acquire Joc Pederson, Jorge Soler, Adam Duvall, and Eddie Rosario in a 2 week span for spare parts.
He should also ask him how he went about locking up a bunch of their young players instead of waiting until it's too late (Astros have Hunter, Diaz + Abreu).
This. If there’s an area where I would like to see Crane adjust it’s this. I don’t need him to start giving out deals longer than 6 years to FAs. But I think we could benefit greatly from him being willing to give deals of 7+ years as extensions to our young guys. The risk of a 7+ year deal is much lower when it’s an extension early in a player’s career. Acuna, Olson, Harris, Albies, Riley all received extensions of 7 years or longer early in their career, allowing the Braves to lock them in for a few FA years at relative bargains. IMO, this is the way. Obviously it takes two to tango, but it’s not like the Braves have some secret sauce that the Astros don’t. It’s simply a willingness to take the slight risk and give a player that deal early on. I think Yainer would be the perfect candidate right now for one of these extensions. I have no idea what the dollar amount would be, but something like a 6 year deal at $12 million/per would be great for both sides. He’s paid like a top 5-10 catcher and we get two years of his FA at what will probably be a bargain by then.
The Braves were able to do that before the Ohtani and Soto deals gave every player visions of sugar plums. Also, the Braves had a bunch of guys come up in their early 20s who could take an extension and still have hope of reaching free agency in time to potentially still get another big contract. Houston hasn’t called many guys up before their mid 20s, at which point buying out free agent years just means buying post-prime years. I agree Diaz is a good candidate but he probably thinks he’s a $300M player at this point. The Astros need some fast moving teenagers who are open to extensions; there could be a wave of those here in 2-3 years with Gomez, Jaworsky, Ochoa, etc.
Yeah those are all good points. I do think we will see guys move through the system faster with Brown at the lead. Already saw it at times last season. But you certainly have a point. Re: Diaz, I’d be shocked if he thinks he can get $300 million, that would be far and away the largest deal ever for a catcher. But your point stands, there’s a decent chance he will want to try and maximize his earnings by hitting FA when he’s still in his prime.
Just from an economic stand point, international free agents and lower level draft picks, are your best options here. If a player has money in the bank, he's more likely to bet on himself and pursue free agency. Also, the longer you wait, the more money a player has and closer he is to free agency. It's a delicate balance. You need to be confident in the players future performance which requires time but the more time you take, the less incentive the player has to agree. Also, the longer you wait, the fewer min. salary years you get in the CBT payroll and the larger the AAV ends up being. I think for most players, the season they are playing on their first arbitration salary is probably best. They get a bit of extra money in their pockets so see what money can do, but extension money is still 2+ years away and looks much bigger. I think if I were Dana Brown I would sign a guy to his 1st arbitration deal then negotiate a 5-6 year extension that covers 3-4 years of FA.
If they offer Diaz 7 years 150 mil he should take it because catching is a position that is an injury prone position.
That’s insane. He’s making 30M tops over the next 4 years. That would be a 3 year 120M deal in FA for a 30 year old catcher. A good extension for him would be something like 8/100.
Will Smith is the likely comp for an extension. 10 yr/$140M Covering 2 arb seasons and 8 FA seasons. $5M per season deferred brings AAV down to $12.24M. Smith was coming off consecutive 4+ WAR seasons and never less than 4 WAR per 162g @ 4.090 years of MLB service time, averaging exactly 5 WAR per 162. Diaz has 2.035 MLB service and averages exactly 4 WAR per 162g after consecutive 3.2 WAR seasons. He has a year of pre-arb remaining and then 3 arbitration years, which will likely total about $20M. We will just call that 4 yrs/ $21M Even if they offer $25M per FA season, over that would make the 7 yr deal = $96M Typically, there is a reduction in guarantee money to offset the risk of career ending/altering injury and/or simple regression. Not to mention that Yainer has not been near the player Smith has. I think he would jump at a 7 yr/ $90M extension. (12.86M AAV) that covers his ages 26-32 years
There you go again. Crane is not going to do contracts that long. Not last month not next month. Just not.
I think he would do a 7 year extension for the right player if 3-4 of them were pre-FA seasons. In fact, he NEEDS to eventually unless Brown does an unexpectedly great job of finding and developing talent. If the Astros never have a chance to sign any star level FAs between the ages 25 and 29 because they won't offer contracts that meet their wants, they simply must find a way to hang on to their own stars a bit longer.
I think the Astros have a set plan in mind that works for them, and will continue to follow it until it doesn't. Not many teams can say they gave up on their home grown talent that they were very successful with for virtually nothing in return and still won. I don't see the Astros playing into the agents hands as other teams have, ripping away their powerhouse status for one or two players. 6 or 7 year deals will be hard to come by in an Astros uniform until they are forced into it. And honestly, I'm okay with that as long as the formula works.
Exactly right. It's amusing when people insist the Astros need to be more like x-team, when x-team has never been as successful as the Astros. The only team in MLB that is comparable is the Dodgers, and they have unlimited financial resources. The Astros model may not keep working but it seems silly to say "they just gotta spend money and do long-term contracts" when that model hasn't worked any better than the Astros' strategy. The Astros have been very disciplined about not paying for the downside of anyone's career in a long-term disastrous way. They've had a few bad contracts and mistakes, but they make sure those are short in scope and not debilitating for many years. I don't see why they would or should change that.
