The catcher position is very very little about the bat. Its simply a bonus. Because of his hitting potential, Diaz gets a small bit of extra slack but his defense and handling of pitchers not his bat should determine his fate. If the Astros bring in a veteran catcher, I would think they include Yainer in the deal to get him. And I am in favor of that. I don't expect it to happen though. Lefty hitting OF, RH bullpen arm, and playoff caliber SP are probably higher priorities.
Maybe. I am probabiy not a good person to ask because I am pretty closed off to the idea of destroying the future to invest in a pretty mediocre team. So for me to actually embrace a trade on which Houston trades away both Kevin Alvarez and Xavier Neyens it would have to be such a slam dunk no-brainer trade that no reasonable person could even remotely begin to disagree. Like, for an example, Alvarez and Neyens for Skubal and Greene, ok do it.
I get it. And I'm excited for both Alvarez and Neyens. I think in 3 years they could compare to 2015 Springer/Correa. But there is uncertainty with ANY prospect, especially when they aren't even to AA yet. In 2013 Jurickson Profar was a SS and the overall top prospect in baseball. His best pre-FA season was 1.5 WAR In 2021 Spencer Torkelson was the #3 overall prospect in baseball. He is now in his 1st year of arbitration and has 1.9 career WAR including negative WAR this year. Obviously I cherry picked those to make my point but Alvsrez and Neyens are far from certain to be stars. Its tough to turn down a proven All Star level player with 2 1/2 yrs of control to keep them. Just devil's advocate. I'm not saying I would do it.
