While I think it is coin toss on who the best pitcher is for the Astros....that last sentence is so different than how I expected Framber's career to be after the 2019 season.
He is the Astros' version of Kershaw. Absolutely dominant pitcher overall, but in the playoffs, he's had some absolutely epic meltdowns. He's been awful the last two years as well as 2021, and arguably ended all 3 of those playoff runs for the Astros. Amusingly, after each of those seasons, lots of people wanted to trade Framber and be done with him. On the flipside, he was lights out helping the team win the WS in 2022. Similar also to Hader in the sense that he has always had crazy good numbers overall, but basically lost 3 or 4 playoff series on his own with untimely disasters.
Janek has had a pretty good season what I've been following... and I know you don't trade potentially elite future catchers/pitchers. Wonder how that factors into the re-sign Caratini vs. trade Yanier vs. trade Janek calculus? I don't see Brown trading Janek if he's somewhat attached to his first few high draft picks he's overseen (Matthews, Janek, now Neyens)
Given how many pitchers are having TJ, and how durable he's been, I got to believe some team will offer him at least 5/150 or 6/180.
But even his 'disasters' get slightly exagerrated compared to others... and he gets almost zero slack for the good outings. 2021 is a pretty good example of his meltdown vs. excellent starts... in the tiny sample size vacuume that represents playoff baseball. The ALCS start against Boston in a hostile fenway, for an Astros team that was somewhat on the ropes after getting blown out in games 2 and 3, in a series that was still looked to be fairly evenly matched going into that game 5... was as pivotal and dominating as any Astros starting pitcher has shown in the golden era (2017 ALCS game 2 JV tops the list for me). I also see some playoff performances dependent on the total health/durablity of a pitcher (which tends to suffer as some of these pitchers accumulate miles throughout long seasons without a DL stint.. see 2019 JV/Cole as well as 2022 JV.). In the end, still tough to make mass extrapolations only on playoff numbers (even worse when things get taken further to simply world series stats)... and Framber now has almost just as many stellar playoff starts as questionable ones....but the ability for any pitcher nowadays give you 200 quality innings/year consistently needs to be looked at as the most important aspect when making these sorts of massive investments. Even with a potential of losing 1-2 years due to an expected UCL or some overuse injury, its still worth it (similar to the Yankees now getting almost a steal for Cole when looking at 2019 dollars).
(I think he was being facetious... Framber on the open market should be at least $200 million if not more).
I'm going to use Aaron Nola as a comp (7/172). Both 31 when FA. I guess we'll find out. Some owner like Cohen may throw 200+ at him. Fried got 8/218 from the Yankees (he was 31 as well).
Man- extreme ground ball pitchers age in dog year right around the age Framber is right now. I understand what you are saying but I’d have said the same thing about a bunch of other guys that were really good until they were not.
Absolutely - the same is all true of Kershaw. But for superstars, you're expected to be somewhere between good and great. So the awful ones are the ones that are remembered - and he has a lot of them. In 2021, he pitched 19 total innings of 7+ ERA and lost 2 of the 4 World Series games, never getting out of the 3rd inning. He had an ERA of 9 in 2023 and was not what you hoped for in his only playoff start last year. That doesn't make him not-valuable, but it's part of the larger picture to look at when it happens in lots of years. Its similar to the Killer B's and how people were thrilled to get rid of Tucker due to his playoff performances. But its magnified with SPs since they single-handedly affect playoff series so much. Agreed - but this is not a good stat for an ace pitcher. You shouldn't have half your starts be somewhere between bad and awful. Also 100%. His value in the regular season is unquestioned and why it was crazy for anyone to want to trade him before the season. He will absolutely help you make the playoffs every year. He might also lose you a playoff series and end your season. How exactly to value that, I'm not sure. But this is the 3rd year in a row that many people here wanted to resign him during the season and after the last two, people wanted to trade him after the season ended.
His stuff (sinker/cutter/curve) can age well. If he drops from 95/7 to 94/5 does it really matter as long as the ball moves the same?
Framber is very different from those guys, though. The ones I'm thinking about are the Dallas Keuchel types that had minimal stuff. Framber touches upper 90s and had dominant secondary pitches. I can't think of a good comp for him, honestly, in terms of combining the stuff and the extreme groundball profile.
I can't really say how Brown views Janek now, I do know in the past he hasn't been listed in the group like Matthews and Melton and Ullola when it came to players the Astros were requiring a star back to move. Janek has had a good bounce back season, but remember he is in A+ ball this year as a college draft pick. If he produces an 800 OPS in AA, then he will likely be a hot commodity, but at this point I think he is someone they would deal for an elite rental or a pretty good player with control left. Right now there is a lot of difference of opinions within the organization on which players are the top in the minor league system. Some of this is because some of the Astros best prospects are in the lower minors or were just drafted. How high is Kevin Alvarez? How high is Ethan Pecko? Really hard to say right now. Based on what I have heard from people around the Astros, they would probably protect Alvarez more than any other bat in the system - but who knows.
Maybe Joe read this lol Yainer on the bench tonight. Perhaps I’m reading too much into it but it feels like the right move for right now.
