Soto is like Trout. He can be the best player in baseball and still ask for too much to field a competitive team.
Trading Odo for farm help seems like a no brainer. I’d be fine moving off of Chaz. Wouldn't move off any other starting pitchers. what to do what to with Brown? He’s ready for the big leagues and we don’t have a slot in the rotation for him. Could argue we won’t have a slot for him next year. Could argue we need to make a spot for him now, but a bird in hand (our quality rotation) is better than 2 on a bush. do you look to replete some out your farm talent by trading him? Do you force him into the league as a reliever and let him force his way into the rotation?
I would be more than fine giving Brown a shot as a RP this season if they don’t find a good value in using him as trade bait; he profiles to be elite in that role and it’s a good way to see how he does against big league hitters. Houston has 8 viable SP that would be in the vast majority of the league’s rotations. That’s not “too many”, but certainly given the facts that they already have a pretty deep bullpen and that SP always carries a premium at the deadline it seems like the situation lends itself to trading away at least one SP. Whether that’s just flipping Odorizzi for a decent prospect, or packaging multiple SP in a blockbuster trade, who knows. But I expect at least 1 of those 8 SP to be traded in the next 9 days.
Agreed. I’d put pretty low odds on the stros being involved in a blockbuster this year. Click strikes me as Uber fiscally conservative and more focused on replenishing the farm than eating another big contract. Can’t say I blame him considering the success this team has had in letting big name players go while maintaining a top tier club year in and out.
I would agree that trading the farm for Soto would require no brain.Baseball is not Golf. One guy alone can't win.
I think McCullers to the pen has been brought up at least 50 times in this and other threads on here. If that was the case he would already be on the MLB roster. He already threw 40 pitches in his first rehab start. They are stretching him out. He will be a starter.
Lance would be on a rehab either way. He hasn’t pitched in game action all year until this week Whether he would agree to go to the pen or not I have no idea, nor do I know what Click and Dusty want him to do But certainly he would be on a rehab either way
They could have started the rehab earlier if he was just going to be a reliever. No reason to get to 40 pitches throwing live ABs. Considering Lance blames his "routine" being off as a major factor in his injury, I see a 0% chance the Astros would make him be a reliever and not on a regular starter's schedule. On another note... I wonder if the White Sox become sellers and make Abreu available. He's having a solid season and would be another option if the Astros can't land Bell.
They start the rehab when he is ready to face live batters He may well be ramping up to start and that may well be what he does But it wouldn’t affect when he started his rehab Sox are 4 back of the final wild card so the next couple of weeks could certainly affect what they do at the deadline
I believe the hold up in that deal was Luhnow’s reluctance to include Josh Rojas, and Crane said let’s get it done. (AKA “f*** them prospects”)
I will beat this horse into the ground Odirizzi and Maton to the Cards for Thompson and Burleson Bell to the Astros for Metajevic Solomon and Ivey Castillo to the Astros for Urquidy, Santos, Leon, Bermudez and Melendez Lopez and Kjerstad for Urquidy and Whitley
The thing I like about Crane is the plan to become a perennial winner and not a window winner. It may have looked the same to the average fan, but not paying for past performance or unreasonable future expectations makes him a master of STRATEGY. He will pay for talent, but only for 2-6 years at a time or a little longer just before arbitration. It's hard to let players walk when other owners are playing the overpay window game.
I'd like to think it was my idea after posting that the Astros were NOT on Greinke's no trade list of 15 teams before his name was brought up elsewhere. But it would be the height of stupidity to actually believe that. It's one of those great minds things. Check the box, but look outside the box as well. And before you say it, my mind used to be MUCH sharper than it has been lately. I'm not sure if it's just old age, old eyes or the onset of diabetes related dementia which got my Grandmother and Father. Believe it or not, I really do appreciate those who catch and correct errors in my memory. It allows me to see if and when it's getting worse. At some point I won't appreciate it and THAT scares me,
