I’m speaking in terms of facts. The Astros had the third highest payroll in MLB in 2024 at 251,000,000. In 2023, they were seventh at 237,000,000. In 2022, they were eighth with a payroll of nearly 184,000,000. Teams like the Pirates, Guardians, Royals, Rays and Athletics are small-market teams. Jim Crane’s Astros are not. Small-market teams do not sign Josh Hader for five years, 95 million dollars to go above the first competitive balance tax threshold when they already have one of the best postseason closers of all time in Ryan Pressly. Crane’s Astros did. Under Drayton McLane, the Astros were run like a mid-market team. Jim Crane’s Astros operate like a big-market team other than Crane does not believe deals longer than six years at big AAV’s make sense and will not offer them. Because of Crane’s stance on long-term deals, Correa and Tucker are no longer Astros. In Correa’s case, they had Jeremy Pena ready to play shortstop at the major league level. Springer had a bad relationship with Lunhow and the front office because they weren’t interested in a long-term deal with him during his arbitration years. They also had Kyle Tucker and Yordan Alvarez along with Bregman, Correa and Altuve still in their infield at the time. Finally, Alex Bregman had a higher opinion of his worth than Crane did, especially coming off his worst offensive season of his career.
Don’t hate the player, hate the game, my guy. All he is doing is his job, which is to get the best deals for his clients per their wishes and specifications. And he appears to be, by a large, quite good at it.
Boras by all accounts is an *******. I've never heard good things about him. I'm not saying he doesn't do his job, just that he's a bad person.
Boston taking the risk here. Unless Bregman completely falls off a cliff, which I don't expect, he will still likely make what we or Detroit were offering with some room for upside in the long term. Better deal than I expected him to get. This would have put Crane well into the LT, and paying that on top of Bregmans flat salary is a lot of money for production that probably doesn't justify it.
I guess the next step is to wait and see if the Arenado talk is real. At this point, I would just as soon go with the current roster. For the future of this team, they simply must find at least one prospect who can make a hitting and/or defensive contribution. Brown said that Dezenzo would play both LF and RF ( and 1b) in ST. Let him compete with Leon for the primary RF job. To start the season, Gamel, Altuve, and Dubon share LF. Gamel plays vs RH pitching. Altuve plays when Framber and Hunter pitch, facing a LH starter. Dubon starts the rest. That gives Altuve some LF experience but keeps him primarily at 2b. Yordan can occasionally play LF to keep him happy and give Walker (Singleton or Dezenzo is primary backup 1b) a day off or Altuve a DH day. Meyers and Chas share CF. Meyers starts vs all LHP. Espada needs to choose between them based on matchups vs RHP. Chas and Dezenzo or Leon share RF. Chas starts vs all LH. When Chas is not in CF and they face a RH, Espada will need to choose between he and Dezenzo/ Leon. Dubon plays 2b vs LHP when Framber or Brown start. If Dezenzo or Leon can hit like Meyers or McCormick did when they first came up in 2021 RF should be fine. The overall production of the OF will still rely on Chas returning to pre-2024 production though.
Take your $40 million a year and he’s gone. Great. No loyalty Bregman. He can’t live on $26 million a season. Good riddance.
Baseball’s salary system completely blows. I don’t understand how small owners and/or their fans put up with it.
For his legacy, this is also a smart move. In Boston, a preferred market and storied franchise, baseball writers will be more inclined to consider him for the hall of fame (if he continues to have good seasons). A hit in New York/ LAD / Boston is more valuable to them.
I agree, but glad we didn't do it. That's insane for a guy who doesn't hit till 2 months into the season.
Adios, puto! And before everyone is like dude what the ****, I'll remind people not to take some of my posts all that seriously. Good riddance, pendejo!
Stupidest take ever So, he should take $14M less per year just to stay in Houson? Let's see you turn down a 54% larger offer if you were choosing between 2 employers to do the same job. If Crane and the Astros wanted him as much as Boston did, they would have matched it. There's no salary cap in MLB.
