Depends if he faced the same budget constraints and had the legacy aging veteran contracts that they do now.
Yup - and if Brown balks at adding Hader or Tatsuya, it isn't as if that money saved will be spent later on someone Brown wants.... it is a take it or leave it situation. Even the Verlander trade with the Mets was like that.... Verlander comes over because Crane loves him and then Brown tries to fill the other holes with pennies.
Nah, he hasn't been good for 3 years now and we can no longer say it's because he is on the CWS and needs a change of scenery. He just sucks. Adell at least hit 37 homers last season and 16 of those were in August/September last season.
Correa as well. As a fan, I liked bringing Correa back and I still think he's a very solid player but I'm certain Dana would have rather not created a log jam while also limiting himself financially in replacing Framber.
We have two elite OF defenders. You can hide him in LF, especially at MMP. Edit: And if you read above, you'll see this discussion was based on who I'd rather have dumpster diving. The bar is pretty low here.
Addell in the past has been solid as a RF - but he is terrible in CF and LF...... and this year, overall he has been bad, and has played RF. He does one thing well at this point --- he hits very well against left handed pitching.
*slightly mitigate his sh!ttiness Also, MMP is not an easy LF to play, it's just smaller so range is not as much of a factor. If you have donkey instincts and skills the scoreboard, LF corner, and LCF edge of the Crawfords back to the fence is no recipe for fun. Agree with your edit. Keep diving I can't imagine watching that guy for the next 2.5 years
He is really good against lefties. Like should be in the heart of the line up against lefties. The problem is that it gets really old cobbling together line ups and using guys that cannot really field their position. It is fine when the rest of the offense is set and you have a single platoon and don't have the DH tied up....... but that isn't the situation for the Astros. The Astros are after him because he is CHEAP and can at least do something -even if it is only one thing.
A Wade/Adell platoon should be an elite combined hitter. But like you said between DH being blocked and the lineup being so shallow Houston really can’t afford to roster 2 defensively limited platoon bats. Or at least that’s not going to solve their real problem.
Either go All In, or All Out. This 'middle way' is a recipe for failure. We had one aging star-addled owner try it already, and I'm not eager to do it again. We keep saying Crane is the best owner in Houston history. That might have been true in the past, but he is actively spending all of the goodwill he banked. Espada is definitively bad as his job. Brown may be as well, but it is hard to tell because Crane has recently been a definitively bad owner. His previous success doesn't buy him 'best owner in Houston history' leeway once he strings together years of excess interference, unrealistic expectations, and poor hiring / firing / retention decisions.
The competition for best Houston owner isn't exactly a fierce one LOL. The only person even in the same zip code is Les Alexander. Drayton is the only other owner that wasn't absolute dog s**t. Both can be true, he's the greatest owner this city has seen, and is also a bad owner currently.
Crane has to realize you can’t be both budget-conscious AND committed to winning with an aging core. You’re either the Yankees/Dodgers or Brewers/Rays. The middle doesn’t exist. For this team to have been on par with the winning teams from 2017-2022, he would have had to spend probably another $200M. You can’t bank on your GM being some kind of wizard. It’s not realistic to be like “Why didn’t you sign Mike Soroka and Dustin May instead of Imai and Burrows?!”
On your last point, we don’t even know who he would have signed if it was entirely up to Dana. It’s pretty clear the Imai signing was heavily influenced by Crane. After that, he wasn’t even left with enough budget to sign a Soroka or May. He signed Weiss because he was cheap. He traded for Burrows because he was cheap. If money wasn’t an issue, who knows if he even makes that trade. All I think he needed was somewhere in the $60-$70M range this offseason and this team would look completely different. He could have signed Cease or Suarez, O’Hearn, another pitcher like Soroka/May, and a decent bullpen arm. Instead he was forced to go dumpster diving. It’s truly impossible to grade Dana’s tenure as GM because of the restraints he’s had on him.
"Jim, you wanted Imai and paid him nearly $20,000,000 this season. Mike Soroka? With what money? He got $8,000,000 this year. I was shopping in the liquidated clearance section. I had Weiss money, like $2,000,000. Don't get started on Dustin May. He cost $12,500,000 this year..... I got to spend $800K on Burrows and $2,2 million on Weiss.... that was my budget." - Dana Brown
This. Dana has had say on the changes made within the scouting and front office departments, within the limited financial means available. He also had limitations in that Crane wanted most of the people in house to remain. He has had control over non-roster invitees, minimal contracts and a few of the trades at the deadline. He did not have control over getting Hader, Verlander or Tatsuya. It isn't clear on Walker. He did support Espada as manager after no one outside of the organization really materialized - and Crane was lukewarm on Espada when he was hired. I think an argument could be made that Brown should be more stubborn and push Crane more --- but Luhnow long ago discussed that it was hard pushing back against Crane, and Click lost his job over pushing back and being wrong. Crane actually asked Click if he was willing to bet his job on it.
True, but Dana needs to hit on trades if that's the way Crane wants to operate. So far the Burrows, Sanchez trades have been terrible and the Tucker trade has been meh, I'm beginning to wonder if Cam is as good as some on here think he is. You're not going to be able to convince me that after saving money on the Dubon, Sanchez trades Dana couldn't find a MLB avg OF and stayed under budget My problem with Dana is not that he's not a good scout because he is IMHO, it's his inability to admit he was wrong about Espada and his inability to think outside the box
Most teams are pretty competent these days so hoping to “hit on trades” isn’t exactly a great strategy.
