Yep. They had lots of plans, haven’t executed on any of them and are deciding to go wait and see. maybe it works out. It’s certainly possible it works out, but more likely than not we have an auto out in the playoffs at the catcher spot for another year as Dusty has less than. O interest in handing over the job to a guy who shows up at the all star break.
I plan on living long enough that I will see plenty of 88 and 92 win teams in my future. I am pretty sure this is the only shot I will ever have to root for a dynasty in my life and I don’t want to leave one single crumb on the table at the end of the run. This is unprecedented **** and when you get gifted w situation as wonderful as Luhnow gave us it just is imperative that you squeeze every last drop of juice out of it and maximize it to its greatest potential. this team has greatness in it and that needs to be honored and respected and cultivated and enjoyed and admired and remembered. Leaving 25M unspent and big black holes in a lineup isn’t doing what I said in the last sentence. We literally had a chance to have a lineup that competed with the Murderers row Yankee teams and a staff as good as the Maddox Braves, with a bullpen as good as the Nasty Boys reds mixed in. That’s a team that people will talk about 100 years from now.
Sure. I’m not taking about one at the expense of the other though. Contreras would have helped us the next 3 seasons fill a spot that projects to be our biggest problem. Hanniger would have been a 3 year solution that we decided to plug with Brantley. Any extensions help extend our window into 26 and 27 to give us a shot at more titles.
Jesus what the hell is going on here? You're the same person low balling (to the point of absurdity) every potential contract extension you'd like us to make/offer.
I wanted Goldschmidt, but the Cardinals didn't play bad enough to rebuild and move on from him. But Abreu was my second choice.
Not true at all. Literally just Framber bc of the reasons I posted about extreme ground ball pitchers. The Abreu thing was a joke bc rhe other poster confused Brian with Jose. Do better with your reading comp. For about the 5th time my offers would be: KT- 10/250 Bregman- 5/150 Altuve- 3/70 Abreu- 7/50 Garcia- 6/45 Urquidy- 5/40 Peña- 10/100 (but is probably go 9/100 if that was necessary to get the deal done Brown- 8/80. Framber- 6/85. B/c don’t really want any part of extending him. None of those are lowball or unreasonable. I think all of those are about what it would take to get something done.
Which is likely why they prefer to go with Maldy and the young guys, give it a few months to see if Lee/Diaz look like they can do it, and if not you address it at deadline.
I think the process is GREAT. Ever since Crane purchased the team, there has been a plan to make the Astros a winner. And not just for a window, but with sustained success for the long haul. I did not like some of the compromises moving to the AL or giving up on some of the players we did, but I can't argue with success. (well I can, but it it becomes a poor argument) But to continue your analogy, it's like splitting your hand with a pair of aces with the dealer showing a 6 and the dealer winds up holding a 5 and drawing a 10. You played the process right but lost anyway. Think 2018, 2019 and 2021. But we still got to the WS and won 2 because of the process.
My two disagreements with you are length of contracts and ignoring or minimizing Arb Year (and CC) numbers. Doing this over values the early years or undervalues the discount for these years. I actually find your AAV values reasonable for shorter term FA years.
I remember wanting to trade for Realmuto before he became a FA. That idea has taken a couple of turns concerning it's likely outcome since, but you never know what decisions, good and bad, would have been changed if that had happened. It's easier just to imaging this team WITH him still here and ignore all other likely differences and say I told you so. That's the benefit of a filtered memory.
I would lay odds he would not come here in the role he would be given. It's the same reason Yuli keeps looking for a team where he can start at 1B. They want to have starter playing time if they can find a team that will give it to them. And we have to face the challenge of finding players willing to take a lesser role and still improve this stacked championship team. Even Hensley, should he continue to rake, will only be here until he can transition to a full time role after he gains leverage. The Bench tends to be made up of young guys without leverage and veterans in a short window of usefulness before they retire (or should).
I have arbitration factored in. Those are all what I believe to be maximum that the astros should be willing to go on a player in both length and money. thats 7/210 for tucker 3/30 for Abreu 2/25 for garcia 2/20 for Urquidy Who knows for Peña and Brown- way too early to project arg numbers.
As far as Dusty Baker not agreeing to a new catcher at the deadline, I wouldn't make that assumption. First, Click was terrible at internal relationships and that includes Baker, but more importantly includes Crane. Click was never really Crane's guy, there was no confidence there. If Brown wants to trade for a catcher, Crane is more likely to side with him than Baker, and Brown also has a pre-existing relationship with Baker that is strong. They actually both have long liked each other.
I would argue with regard to catcher, their plan was to upgrade Maldy if possible at a reasonable cost that doesn't hamstring them in the near future and doesn't give up too many prospects that would result in the team dropping off a cliff in 4-5 years. They didn't make that upgrade this offseason, possibly because players like Contreras just chose a different team (just because he signed one place for $20MM doesn't necessarily mean he would have agreed to that for Houston), or possibly because the Astros felt the cost of the acquisition was greater than the player was worth (the huge prospect cost of a guy like Murphy in trade). Because the team decided that the price was too high doesn't mean they didn't execute their plan. I for one really appreciate that this team seems to have a pretty good idea of what they value and what costs they are willing to pay. It has worked out really well these past 8 years, so I trust them to continue to make mostly wise decisions. I guess saying they didn't execute their plan makes it sound, to me, like they tried to upgrade catcher and when they weren't able to now are lost. They've got other plans, and I think they will work out just fine (as evidenced by last season's success). I realize now I've typed a lot of words arguing what is probably just a semantics argument, but it does bother me seeing as much criticism of this team as there is in this thread considering the success we've all enjoyed recently.
It’s a fair point. Just like it’s a fair point to give this off-season a C+ and still consider then the favorites to win 100+ games and a World Series. Both can be true. I’d rather overpay a little bit in money to fix a glaring hole then have to overpay in prospects down the road when it becomes completely untenable, but maybe Lee will surprise or Diaz will deign to care about catching
Sometimes people don’t enjoy success unless that success was obtained in exactly the way THEY think it should have been
I know I’m wasting my time posting this, but the Astros don’t see catcher as a glaring hole. Just because they were going after one of the best in the game doesn’t mean they see it as a glaring hole
