Understood, but I said it in the context of Pena being traded which would leave us extremely thin at SS. I don’t think they are trading Pena, because I don’t think Correa or the Astros want to move him to SS. Dubon would probably close to the best backup SS in baseball. Don’t get me wrong, I was glad to see him traded, because of Espada’s tendency to play him too much.
Dubon also had to play more due to the injuries. Dubon is a vital piece for a contending team, but becomes overpaid for a middling team that has to use him more regularly due to roster issues. The Astros were a middling team last year and can’t afford higher paid role players because of other pressing needs. That’s more a referendum of the state of the current team (and not in a positive way).
He was my son's 15U coach a few year's back, was very cool and great with the kids- hopefully he has his life together.
Paredes has shown he can hit MLB pitching well enough that his defense could be "My eyes! The googles do nothing" bad, and he could still play 2B. Cam has not shown he can hit well enough to play CF, and he has not shown himself to be a defensive savant such that hitting is irrelevant. If a player can hit MLB pitching, teams, even those that value defense, will find a way to get that bat in the lineup. Where Paredes plays....I think that depends on others more than his particular defensive aptitude at different positions (i.e., he's going to play and likely at a position he doesn't know how to play).
Dude went from 2 years of below replacement level production to earning a $22M payday. Prices are sticky high. Might not be until the new year where we start to see bargains.
They were who they were for a variety of reasons. It doesn't change that Dubon played as much as he did because he was generally better than the other options available most of the time he played.
And Yordan was out... and LMJ will never pitch again (and shouldn't have even bothered last year)... and Yanier struggled... and the rotation never got solidified by the other injury re-inforcements everybody was counting on.... and and and... Middling teams have lots of "ands", "buts", and "what-ifs".
These are the prices based on MLB revenue going up... along with every owner is about to save a boat-load of salary money during the work stoppage.
I don’t think it’s a coincidence that a lot of these contracts that seem like overpays are 2 year deals. These owners know there’s a good chance they won’t have to pay that 2nd year.
This is certainly one way to look at it - and I largely agree with this. I think Cam Smith showed himself to be an excellent defender last year though, and in his first season. Paredes is an adequate defender at 3rd, and likely a good one at 1st - and second base is not as demanding a position when you have Walker and Pena next to you.... so he should be fine there when he spells Altuve. Having said that --- The Astros think that Cam will hit, he had an 800 OPS right around the break, and nose dived in the second half - but he has never played this many games before and is very young. Defensively Cam is already very good and should get better until age slows him.
Dubon did not have to play as much as he did last year - he is good with the leather, but not with the bat. I don't think he is that vital of a piece of a contending team or there would have been a line of teams to trade for him and there wasn't. He is a nice utility player. As far as being a middling team last year- that is harsh. They were not in the top 2-3 teams as in years past, but that is largely due to injuries. We will have to see what happens this season, I think a lot of it is up in the air right now.
The Astros had the worst injuries in the league last season - and the worst in franchise history. Unless you believe that the Astros are made of glass, they had a lot of bad luck on the injury front.
