Unless you're doing a tear down/rebuild why on earth would you trade Hader? Whose idea was this? I say, "Boo that man! Booo!"
Considering a farm system completely turns over an average of something like every 3.5 years, and Houston will essentially equal their bonus pool from the previous 2023-2024 drafts combined (or the total from the 2020-2022 drafts combined) this coming draft could represent ~50% of their talent in their farm system once they get everybody signed. Combined with the fact that their 2025 draft included a huge amount of HS talent (mostly Neyens, but also Mitchell and Arroyos), and how much value Kevin Alvarez represents, and the Astros could be poised to see a meteoric rise in how their farm system is rated over the next 10 months. One thing I don’t know is what their next international class looks like. MLB Pipeline quit including which teams those prospects are expected to sign with in their top 50 lists and I haven’t seen that info anywhere else.
Previously in MLB he was decent at generating weak contact but otherwise pretty mediocre. Signings like this will be huge if Houston intends to trade from their near-ready SP prospect group to supplement the ToR or lineup.
You might be right, but if they do get love from other media outlets, I haven’t seen it. When it comes to baseball coverage, it’s a love fest over the Yankees, Red Sox and Dodgers ( the pontificating over Ohtani is just too much).
The hader/abreu combo can't be touched unless everyone is being traded for a full rebuild. If you're trying to compete, those 2 at the back end are one of the biggest positives of the entire team.
Abreu showed me this season he’s not on Haden’s level. He is an elite elite setup man but appears to not be an elite closer. Still, overall I agree with you. But I’d be more willing to trade Abreu for a meaningful return.
Do you think there's something to Abreu not being able to close? He had those 2 awful consecutive outings but outside of that he only got scored on in 1 of his other 19 august/sept appearances.
Between the ears. He's just not used to doing it, I'd guess. Pitchers are weird creatures of habit, RP are extra weird.
Ya, certainly possible. I wouldn’t write him off as a closer though because he had 2 bad days. I also very much want hader here as well
https://www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/mlb-power-rankings-way-too-early-2026/ Key free agents: SP Framber Valdez, C/1B Victor Caratini ... Better health in the lineup and rotation means this is probably the best team in the AL West. It's a well-rounded roster, albeit not an elite one. #8 by CBS Sports in Power Rankings 2026
Part of why the league hasn’t caught up is a lot of organizations probably don’t want the injury rate tha comes with our pitching methods there is no doubt we can make them better, but for how long?
Oh no, wasn't saying you should close the door on him as a closer, but he'll either figure it out or he won't. Badass setup men are just about equally valuable (in baseball terms, not in salary terms)
I agree with almost all of these, the only ones I don’t are Hader: As much as we owe him and with the unknown on the injury, getting out of that money would be nice IF it happens early enough to use that money elsewhere Meyers: Only because I think he brings more value than most think. Dude does a lot of things that lead to winning Javier: With our current pitching situation, his upside is something we badly need. It would cost huge $$ to go get someone who has his type of upside
I am assuming Hader’s injury is not significant. If I’m wrong about that and Houston can swindle another team in to taking him on then I’d be for it. I have Meyers in the “will trade for fair value” category and I think he’s a solid everyday caliber CF with 2 years of control remaining, so fair value is pretty high. I would be asking for a controllable SP4, or a controllable 8th inning RP, or 2 prospects from the 6-10 range of an org’s prospect list. I waffled on Javier. I agree with you that he is an important part of the pitching staff. But he is owed $42.8M/2yrs and there’s no way he would get that on the open market. The free agent SP market is pretty deep, so if some team wanted to take on 90% of Javier’s remaining contract, I’d be down to swap him out for somebody with less risk.
This is kind of a shocker. Wasn’t as great in 25’ as he was in 24’ but certainly a solid MOR guy who’s capable of eating plenty innings and shutting down lineups.
