@Nippystix captured it perfectly: Known v. unknown - it's simple, and I'll never understand why too many people favor the unknown. You can land an elite TOR starter or HOPE your prospect becomes an elite TOR starter. Why is that a difficult decision???
My post didnt say players X and Y were pitchers. My point was, half the teams in the league had a significant player that was hurt and another that under performed miserably.
Another thing often overlooked is a known commodity on a great contract vs not looking at the contract. Quintana gives the Astros one of the most consistent pitchers in baseball at a GREAT price during window number one. Tucker is someone I want to keep... But I hope the front office is open to a Tucker or Martes trade for someone like Quintana.
OK, name the teams that had the whatever-your-equivalent-is of the #1 and #2 SPs getting hurt + sucking.
Your being a little myopic here. But while we (you) are doing that, lets drill down on our (supposed) #1 SP a bit. 2012 - Bad (5.27/1.55) (ERA/Whip) 2013 - Bad (5.15/1.54) 2014 - Very Good (2.93/1.18) 2015 - Excellent (2.48/1.02) 2016 - Mediocre (4.55/1.29) I dont see an established career of being a #1 SP. He definitely managed that kind of performance in 2015 and arguably in 2014. But your view, in the way I am understanding it, paints the picture like Dallas in 2016 was an outlier, a sudden deviation from his norm, and thus, was unexpected and a miserably underperforming one in the light of his career as a whole. When you look at the numbers though, its just as likely 2014 & 2015 were outlier years for him and 2012, 2013 and 2016 are his norm. So if you take his career ave. of 3.78/1.26, he is merely good and not much more as a whole. In fact, his 2016 performance isnt that far off his career averages. So you cant make the claim that we should have been so much better last year had Dallas been himself when what he is is unclear.
Nobody - not you or I or the front office or anyone in baseball - went into the season thinking Dallas Keuchel was going to be a mediocre pitcher. Career averages are irrelevent when talking about young players who showed marked improvement over a handful of seasons. Maybe Keuchel will suck going forward and 2014-15 were abberations, but no one expected it going into 2016. To claim otherwise is just revisionist nonsense.
Perhaps Arizona if you believed in Corbin. (and Greinke.) Or Shelby, though I never bought into him. I agree, but I think he's talking about looking at 2017 with 2016 as a data point, and saying now we have an additional data point that suggests Keuchel might be less than #1 quality going forward. Personally, I tend to view growth over time differently than an aberration, and it seems clear that 2014 and 2015 represented real growth for a young player gaining experience, and 2016 looks easy to explain by extended workload and decreased velocity. The evidence is there. It remains to be seen whether he'll gain the 2 mph back and revert to his 2014 self (even if 2015 was an excessive variance), but 2014 is still #1 quality. I feel like that's being sold short in jim's posts
I dont claim otherwise. But moving forward, we cant assume or think that he will be the 2015 Dallas. And it seems some are counting on him being at least his 2014 self for our rotation to work as it is currently constructed. If Dallas really is a #3 SP guy, we need to be honest when evaluating what we need for the future. IMO, counting on him to be more than a #3 would be a mistake. If he regains his 2014 form or better, great! But for anyone to make the statement "all will be well with the rotation if Dallas returns to form" is engaging in wishful thinking IMO.
All this movement on the thread count today.... Not one damn tweet/indicator of imminent trades. Everyone stop posting until something happens so I don't get let down every time I click on a thread.
I look at Dallas over the entire season and his entire career as to what he is going to be next year, but damn it, he gave us that glimmer of hope in the last month just to tease us.
That glimmer of hope of a Cy Young Award. That glimmer? Not saying he'll ever have that season again, but to say he can't bounce back into Very Good Pitcher Land is silly.
http://www.csnchicago.com/chicago-w...-red-sox-worked-out-their-chris-sale-megadeal Things only improved for the White Sox as the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros continued to show strong interest. A report surfaced on Monday night that the Nationals, though unwilling to trade Trea Turner, would include two top prospects, pitcher Lucas Giolito and outfielder Victor Robles, in a package for Sale. The Astros also improved their offer, though they never included top prospect Alex Bergman. Each team offered a four-player package and White Sox officials returned to their suite and worked early into Tuesday morning to mull which offer was best. “There was a great level of excitement since we got here about the caliber of players that we were likely to receive back,” Hahn said. “These are the type of impact players that we need to continue to acquire and build up to get our system to the point where we are able to have that extended run of success, and there were similar-type players being offered from other clubs, and there was a level of excitement in that room as we debated which was the best path for us.”
How big is the window for the Astros keeping this core group together and still be in the playoff hunt? Do you consider the Astros a win now team or do they still have time to wait for prospects to become big league talent?
I'd say at least 2019, which is when Altuve becomes a free agent. Your second question is more philosophical than anything. I do consider them a win-now team that should needs to be making moves to maximizing winning one of the next three years. But Luhnow may take the longer view and say "if I built a team capable of winning 85-90 games in any season, by random chance one season they should be a strong playoff competitor and I'll bet big then so I don't lose all my trade chips now".
