Feldman will make more on this 3 year deal than Nolan Ryan made in his entire career. How baseball has changed in the last 20 years.
Tall pitchers have a longer development and maturation curve than short pitchers, so it's very likely that Feldman is still improving. There are many baseball purists that adhere to innings pitched as the single most important metric in evaluating the performance of a starting pitcher. Feldman pitched over 180 innings last year, which is very good (although not quite elite).
Just read tweet saying that Luhnow made comment that he is working on bullpen now, and expects to have some moves made in that direction sometime next week.
I like the move. Feldman was actually shuffled back and forth from the rotation to the pen during his time in Texas, last year was his first to work exclusively as a starter and he turned up his best year. Good, solid middle of the rotation guy is likely . .
Sub .500 career record. 4.62 ERA... And you guys are praising this move? Wow, what kool-aid has Jim Crane been spreading around to get certain members of the fan base praising the acquisitions of average to below-average players like Fowler and Feldman? Unbelievable.. You could likely bring up someone from OKC or CC and they could give you similar numbers...
Oh yes the mythical minor leaguer who will throw 180 quality big league innings. If these pitchers existed there would be no need to pay any starting pitchers over the major league minimum.
His WAR is still way beyond anything the Astros had in the rotation last season. You lose 100+ games 3 years in a row. You gotta outbid other teams.
We may have guaranteed him 3 years when other teams may have offered 2, but we didn't outbid anyone. He got paid what the market says he's worth. Maybe he had 3-4 offers and his wife said, we are going to Houston.
I don't know about the "chemistry" aspect of baseball, but I'd imagine it helps the youngsters to have a veteran pitcher on the team. Assuming this guy has a nice personality and willing to help out. The thing is you can't just have old, washed up players in this role. Young guys aren't going to respect veterans they're better than. In this case, Feldman fits the bill because he likely is better than most(if not all) of the current starting pitchers here. Also, the contract is enough where 2 years later, we can trade him away for something if we wished. Overall, I'm good with the signing. Starting pitching position becomes a lot more relevant with some of our younger arms trickling up to the big leagues.
This certainly isn't an albatross contract, he's had 2 good years, 3 bad years and one injury year since becoming a starter. In his 2 good years he was a reliable middle of the rotation arm, in his bad years he was terrible. We knew we would have to overpay to get somebody here, I don't feel strongly either way on this. Money shouldn't be an issue the next 3 years anyhow.
Why spend 10 mil on a no 5 starter. Baseball salaries are so crazy. I would much rather pay a top of the line starter 30 mil then a number 5 starter 10 mil. Is a guy who will have a 5 era better than some guy from the minors.
---- Scott Feldman is probably a fourth starter in a good rotation, a third in some others. But for the Houston Astros, who return just two of the five members of their 2013 Opening Day rotation, neither of whom -- Brad Peacock and Lucas Harrell -- is a lock to remain a starter all year in 2014, he's their de facto No. 1 after agreeing to a three-year deal reportedly worth $30 million. Feldman offers the team the capacity to soak up some innings that their young, developing starters won't be able to handle, with nobody else as much as even money to get to 200 innings. That means the Astros probably need a couple of additional arms, either in the rotation, to push guys like Peacock to long relief, or in the pen to take on multiple-inning workloads. In front of an average defense, Feldman is probably a 4-ERA starter, avoiding walks and getting ground balls with his sinker, which improved in 2013 along with his curveball. The latter pitch had better angle and depth than in previous years, giving him the closest thing he's ever had to an out pitch and driving the best strikeout total and second-best strikeout rate of his career. Houston's defense isn't going to be average, at least not to start the year, except at third base, as Matt Dominguez is the team's only plus defender at any position. That will improve in time, but could mean some disappointing results, at least on a superficial level, from Feldman because he allows more balls in play than your typical top-of-the-rotation starter. The value he provides to Houston will be more about the flexibility he provides when handling the likes of Jarrod Cosart, Brett Oberholtzer, and soon Mark Appel and Vincent Velazquez and Mike Foltyniewicz, too. This leaves the market for starters thin after the top tier of Ervin Santana and Matt Garza; you've got a few guys who will only consider specific markets, like A.J. Burnett, followed by a big dropoff to Paul Maholm, Jason Hammel, and Bronson Arroyo near the end of my top 50 free agent rankings. That should speed up the race to sign Santana and Garza for any contenders still in the market for a starter who can make some impact rather than just making 30 below-average starts, while also possibly clearing the way for more starting pitcher trades at next week's winter meetings.
Feldman will likely be the #2 for the Astros next year. Starting Rotation: 1. Cosart 2. Feldman 3. Oberholtzer 4. Peacock 5a. Keuchel 5b. Harrell 5c. Clemens 5d. Wojciechowski 5e. White Bullpen : FA Closer Qualls Fields Lo Zeid Chapman Martinez Cruz Valdes Downs
I'm not fond of the $10 million per year, but if that's the going rate for pitchers of Feldman's caliber...oh well. Sometimes you gotta pay to play. At least it's not an albatross contract.
