This is the A's/Rays model as well. It doesn't necessarily lead to titles and getting the city to fully embrace the team. The Astros/Cardinals operate at a higher level than those teams. They should retain generational stars, but can't retain all of them. The Yankees 90's core is a perfect emulation of homegrown players who all came up together, were elite together, and were retained (which led to more playoff appearances... but only one more title).
that’s a little extreme. We have retained generational stars. Just not all of them. Personally, I’d rather have Bregman, Altuve, JV, young guns and some cash over Springer, Carlos, JV, young guns and some cash. It’s not like we don’t keep any of our players and fire sale every 5 years.
Mariners lost a solid piece from their bullpen. Casey Sadler having shoulder surgery and will be out for the year. He was a stud last season 40.1 innings, 0.67 ERA, .719 WHIP, 2.48 FIP, 1 HR https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2022...iss-quite-some-time-with-shoulder-injury.html
Like others I want to see an extension for at least Tucker. Let’s see how Peña looks and then come the deadline we can add someone and agree to take on a hefty contract so the outgoing pieces won’t be our top guys. Hopefully there will be lots of sellers.
Morgan is a curveball spin rate darling. I've been wanting to see what the Astros could do with him for a couple years now.
Right now he looks like the lefty specialist hurt the most by the three batter rule. 850 point difference (OPS) between lefty and righty batters. He must be used wisely. Acting lessons advised - Arm hurts, can't face the righty. See who Fiers used to not face the Astros.
Do you account for players *not* getting better, or declining? I mean, are we really thinking Garcia and Valdez are locks?
Nope...I believe we are both saying he is an above average offensive backup catcher based on the other backup catchers in MLB.
Overall catchers suck at hitting. Amongst catchers with at least 100 plate appearances Castro was 8th in OBP and OPS and 7th in WRC+.
Looking at their long term projections, if I were Click I would try to extend one of Tucker/Alvarez and one of Valdez/Javier, buying out 1 year of free agency. I think that would go the longest way toward extending the window another year while maintaining both short term and long term financial flexibility. A Tucker/Alvarez extension that only buys out one year of free agency would keep the AAV low for Houston while letting the player still get to the open market before his age 30 season. Same for Javier (extending Framber would be buying out the likely remainder of his prime). As it stands the Astros are going to really struggle to contend past 2025, since by 2026 the only projected quality players in their org will be Lee, Pena, and Meyers on offense (and even those guys only profile as average to above average regulars, not stars) and Brown, McCullers, Whitley, and Garcia on the pitching staff (and again, none of those guys projects as an ace, simply solid MoR SP). For now I think there is a high probability of the Astros having to do another extensive rebuild after 2025, although it should be shorter than the previous round, since they should have some good chips to trade. Some team friendly extensions or unexpected player development could improve that outlook tho.
I picked Springer as the most extreme (Astros) related example I could think of for a guy who had a lot of K problems and a lot of swing and miss to him but that became a really good player. K in 27% of his PA's for a 24 YO in AAA that doesn't walk a ton is... a red flag for me. I mean, I guess it depends on what you expect out of him. Do I think he could well be a 2 WAR player next year (league regular) and grow into an occasional 4 or 5 WAR player (all star) in his absolute prime and best seasons? Sure. That seems plausible. Do I think he's ever going to hold together a line up or be a guy that is going to carry a team in the playoffs? No. It'd be an awesome surprise if I was wrong. His ISO last year was 289 after being not good in '18 and '19. That's also when his K rate increased (in addition to leveling up). That's a natural thing to see the K rate increase along with the iso as a guy grows into his body. Rust from Covid and injury might have been a factor. He had a good winter ball. He's not particularly young or precocious. At his age Carlos Correa had already been the 2nd best player on a World Series champion. I bet he has a fine career. People thinking he is going to replace CC are likely to be let down. Special players are special for a reason- b/c they are really hard to replace. Everyone wants to have a next man up attitude toward the deal but it really doesn't work like that, usually, in real life.
Yep. And extending on this a bit... the Springer and Correa losses aren't about hurting in the regular season they are about hurting in the playoff. If Springer didn't go God mode in 2017 we don't beat the Dodgers. Who is to say he wouldn't have hit 3 HR's and drove in 8 in a series with ATL. That might have been the difference between winning a title and not. The more studs you have going into the series the more chances you have that someone will get hot and carry the team.
I would prefer extending Tucker since he doesn't have the injury concerns like Alvarez does with his knees. I'm not interested in extending Framber or Javier when both have 4 years of control. The injury risk is too great with pitchers, and if they do get hurt it dramatically reduces their arbitration going forward. I have no interest in extending pitchers until they are 1 year away from free agency like McCullers or MAYBE 2 years if the price is right. Gaining one year of control is not worth the short term or intermediate injury risk in my opinion.
How is it a lie? I clearly wrote that it was based on 175 plate appearances (that is true). I wrote that over that period of time his OPS was .799 (this is true). I wrote that of all the catchers in MLB with at least 175 plate appearances, his OPS was 6th. (this is true). Folks can make what they want of the stats, but what they show is that Castro was offensively an above average backup catcher last season. Would his OPS have been lower with more at bats - who knows. Would his OPS have been higher with more at bats - who knows. Backup catcher is not a priority for the Astros at this point.
And yet from all indications Crane in fact did not actually get involved. Sounds like it was a PR comment that backfired on him
