And a great contract for the team. His final tally i believe is 15 years for 144.5 millions, we are going to give our farm system, starting with Bregman.
Longoria gets 10/5 rights after 2018. Very unlikely they trade him this season but next season and especially 2018 if they aren't contending they will probably shop him.
I don't know anything about Mauer, but he is at the point in his career where he might be willing/happy to leave the only place he's ever played for a chance at a ring. But that doesn't mean he'd be willing to come to Houston; they're not in 1st place and I'm sure some players are still hesitant to come to Houston. But I'd certainly be willing to take on his remaining contract and give up a couple 2nd tier prospects (I.e. Brady Rodgers and Teoscar Hernandez) for him. Can play DH, 1B, emergency catcher, emergency LF.
And it's becoming good for the Rays. That deal looked horrible for a while. He had 6 great years and then 2 straight with a huge power decline. Was starting to look like it might be a new norm...and then he suddenly came back this year. If we were looking at '14 and '15, that contract would be rough, and he wouldn't be a great trade target either
Anyone seen/know of Yulieski Gourriel? The guy has put up serious numbers in Cuba. Some (including Cespedes) called him the best player in Cuba.
He's in his age 32 season so he's more of a stop gap then anything else and plays 3rd base where the Astros theoretically have Moran and Bregman ready barring a trade. I'd like to see him but if the Astros are going to spend it'll likely be elsewhere.
It's a shame he didn't defect 8-10 years ago. Their family is pretty much baseball royalty in Cuba, so I'd imagine politics played a huge role in that.
Yeah, NYM seems like the perfect landing spot. Cespedes is urging the FO to ink him, and they need infield help with Wright out.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Here are some teams that are "in" on Yulieski Gourriel: Angels, Giants, Dodgers, Mets, Yankees and Astros. <a href="https://t.co/geZnLeQGlN">https://t.co/geZnLeQGlN</a></p>— Jim Bowden (@JimBowden_ESPN) <a href="https://twitter.com/JimBowden_ESPN/status/745270267912478721">June 21, 2016</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> White Sox should trade Chris Sale
Gourriel can probably fit in LF or 1B (not to mention 3B and DH), so if they think he's the real deal he'd probably be a good fit/signing.
Man, both of these developments would please me. Trading Bregman and Reed for Sale would hurt, but you are getting a legitimate ace cost-controlled (on one of the more team-friendly deals) for a few more years. On the free agent market, you are not adding an ace for anything less than $30M per. Sale is 27 years old, in his prime, and signed for: 2016: $9,150,000 2017: $12,000,000 2018: $12,500,000 (team option) 2019: $13,500,000 (team option) Getting an ace for so cheap would allow the front office to use the $20M or so in savings to address the offense. $20M goes a lot further towards position players than it does towards starting pitching. And since many fans wanted to call up Bregman to boost our 3B production, just go ahead and sign Gourriel for that. Give him a 2 or 3 year deal (ideally 2 years, with a 3rd year team option), and he provides the perfect stop gap until Moran proves he's ready. If/when Moran is ready, then we Gourriel could slide into LF (a position we don't have a guy penciled in for next year), or even DH. Adding Sale and Gurriel, while losing Bregman and Reed makes a ton of theoretical sense, and could really propel our chances for the next 2-3 years. It's risky, and nothing is guaranteed, but I'd welcome these moves and hope for the best.
Valbuena is on a very nice offensive roll in May and June with an OPS over .880. Now, if he 'regresses to his mean', then we'll see a repeat of April later this year, but for now (even including April) he is in the middle of the 3rd base pack offensively.
The overall 1B/3B situation could be a lot better though. We end up playing Marwin in bad situations for him because of it. If we could acquire a good solid everyday 3B and platoon Marwin and Valbuena at 1B, we would be much better off
I don't disagree. Just pointing out that Valbuena hasn't been as bad as some folks think he has. EDIT - personally I'd like them to target an offensive outfielder first.
