Perhaps you can head over to the official Yankees board, “RoidWatch”, and find a more sympathetic place to complain incessantly about the GM of a team that has never failed to make the ALCS under his watch and is favored by Vegas to do so yet again. “But it was the other guy!!1!” says the guy with zero inside knowledge of where decisions are made or the non-public extenuating circumstances of each. It’s a team game and a team FO (and the guy making the really big decisions is the same). So, maybe, just maybe, you should sit back and enjoy the most dominant franchise since the 90s Braves. Or go watch the Texans to feed your need for masochism-masturbation.
Missed the significant part, my apologies. I liked the LMJ deal and I’d do it again but that has the potential to be a significant miss that materially hurts the team. many contract where you expend significant money has the opportunity to do that. You are praising Click for not doing significant harm. By your count- he’s only given away 2 deals that have any ability to fall into that category of significant harm in LMJ and Brantley. LMJ might be getting ready to miss his second full season of his career (I hope not) and Bradley has lost most of his pop and will have to hit 300 plus (or thereabouts) to be a really useful player for us. He also profiles to what- the 5th or 6th most important bat on the team? And a negative defensively and on the base paths? I apologized for missing your pretty key word in significant but you are similarly misreading me… my point is exactly what you are saying that he’s not being aggressive enough, and the money he’s spending on mid tier guys would be better spent on more significant guys and giving our farm system chance to grow. Equal 2022 money in vs out Out Odo- 8 Montero- 2 Baez- 5.5 Nerris- 8 Brantley- 16 Diaz- 4.5 Montero- 3 Goodrum-2 Financial flexibility- 37 That’s 87 million we could have spent a different way. I said I completely and totally recognize this is an incomplete right now bc we don’t know what they will do with the financial flexibility. In Correa- 32 Springer- 25 Graveman- 8 Brown Solomon Whitley Leon Financial flexibility- 14 Maybe Springer hated Houston and would never have come back (I doubt it) but we never engaged Maybe Correa just had his heart set on getting out of houston too. We didn’t go back and meet the twins offer. It wouldn’t have had to be these guys (that’s my preference) we also could have done something like Bryant and Seager, or something like that. But we weren’t aggressive at all. Is it possible that those deals will end up disasters down the road? Sure. But whose team would you rather see in 2022? 2023? I completely and totally agree with you that this team matches/exceeds the talent level of 15-17 and 20-21. And those were all great teams. but we had a chance to be freaking awesome again like we were in 18 (injuries) and 19 (luck) that did us in. And we chose to make mid level deals with Jags as opposed to going all in for awesomeness in the next couple years. Maybe that’s the right choice. Again- I apologize For missing significant to modify bad contracts. That wasn’t intentional and it changes what you said for sure. Wasn’t my intention.
I’m agreeing with everything you are saying and am saying pretty much the same thing and catching **** for it. one tiny quibble- there is no way Click runs the Lambo into a ditch. His failing will be refusing to get it out of third or get the RPM’s above 4500. I’ve said my piece, the off-season is over- now I will commence to rooting for the team, hoping I’m wrong about Click being too tentative to be a good GM- hoping Odo is a star so people come in and rub it in my face and hoping we do something good at the deadline to make this team the odds on favorite to win the WS. Because we aren’t that right now after a pretty tepid off season.
I have stated these simple facts many times before and feel compelled to do so here again. The goal here is a baseball championship, not a spending championship. Spending is not directly related to winning. How much room is available under the luxury tax limit has nothing to do with how much money you have available to spend. Here is an example. Let's say have 220 million dollars. You are allowed to spend up to 300 million before you are liable for taxes. The fact that you only spend 200 million dollars does not mean you have an extra 100 million in your pocket. I am not theorizing here. You can do the math. You are simply wrong about this.
https://theathletic.com/3226030/202...wdens-22-predictions-for-the-2022-mlb-season/ By Jim Bowden With Opening Day just a few days away, it’s time to go on the record with some predictions for the 2022 season and subsequent offseason. I’ll publish my picks for the major awards later this week, but in the meantime, here are some bold (and not-so-bold) predictions for this year. 1. The Astros extend the contracts of outfielder Kyle Tucker and/or designated hitter Yordan Alvarez to long-term agreements just before Opening Day. After the loss of Carlos Correa and George Springer in free agency in recent years, they’ve learned that tying up their young stars — like they did Alex Bregman and Jose Altuve early in their careers — is the best way to go in most instances. 9. Carlos Correa enjoys his one season in Minnesota but misses being on the big stage in October, opts out of his contract, and returns to the Astros to the delight of his former teammates. 16. Dusty Baker wins his 2,000th game as a manager during the first week of May and then leads the Astros to a divisional title, the ninth of his career. He then signs on for another year, delaying his next stop, which will be in Cooperstown.
Crane would not have signed Springer or Correa if Luhnow was the general manager. I don't know what Luhnow would have done, but it is unlikely the Astros would have been in the World Series last year against an inferior team if Luhnow didn't do almost exactly what Click did.
What farm did he trade away? I can't believe you are going into year 3 with this b**** fest. Why can't you discuss anything other than Lunhow is better than Click? All of your b****ing is the signing of one player, as if Lunhow never made a bad signing or trade. Do you remember the reason why we don't have Hader on this team? That one trade is worse than anything Click has done yet for some reason you keep harping on Baez as if that moves the needle substantially either way.
A couple of key points. 1) By all reports Springer 1 wanted to play in the northeast near home 2 Soringer held a grievance against Luhnow and the Astros for service time manipulation so was never going to resign 3 He was a free agent so the team could not make him. At very least the team would have had to outbid Toronto which would change your figures. 2) removing the players you mention and replacing with the ones you specify is very flawed. 1) you have a lack of relief arms and too many starters. 2) Whitley has never shown anything. The team can't count on him not to mention he is hurt so can't be part of current roster. 3) you have no backup infielders unless Pena sits and watches Correa instead of playing. 4) Leon is either a starting OF with extremely little minor league experience or sitting the bench wasting development time.
There will be a free stream on any device that supports tv+. just a little google helps the medicine go down. https://techcrunch.com/2022/03/29/apple-mlb-friday-night-baseball-free/
You can't list Springer's deal as if it is only a 1 year 25 million dollar deal and only effect the next season. Why is it people can't recognize that with arbitration the same roster gets more expensive every year? The Astros are going to have conservatively 20-30 million in arbitration raises next season and possibly more if Tucker, Alvarez, Framber, Urquidy, or Javier have big years. Then they also have to resign or fill with other players when Gurriel, Brantley, Pressly, Diaz, and maybe Verlander hit free agency. Those are massive holes that won't all be filled with rookies. Plus, Bregman gets a 17 million dollar raise in real dollars.. but not AAV next season. Also, you can't blame Click for the big money deals not happening. Those deals are 100% on Crane. No, I didn't like the Baez deal or the lack of other bullpen signings that offseason, but if that is the worst deal you can bring up for Click it's not the end of the world. The Astros have to add rookies that impact the team in a positive way every year to contend. They can't resign all their stars and they can't sign massive free agents either. They have to have a balance to maintain their ability to contend. They aren't the Dodgers or Yankees.
Thanks for pointing that out. I did plenty of googling and that particular explanation never showed up.
1. That doesn't happen. 2. But, If it does, This is a more likely line-up 1. R SS Pena 2. R 2B Altuve 3. L RF Tucker 4. R 3B Correa 5. L LF Alvarez 6. R CF Leon 7. R 1B Bregman 8. R DH Gurriel/L Brantley 9. R C Lee Brantley spells Alvarez, Gurriel spells Bregman, Bregman spells Correa. Correa sees himself as AROD by moving from SS to 3B.
The starters would be getting their feet wet in the bullpen under that rubric. yes- that would have Peña as the reserve IF. My suspicion is that he would get 50-75 games as a utility IF- which seems like a good way to break a rookie in (similarly having starters in a bullpen role). I’d actually like to see some team go to a tandem system on at least 3 spots in their rotation. I think that might be an interesting way to keep guys healthy and limit innings when breaking in. Leon and Chaz would be your 4th and 5th OF. If not Springer than fill in with Bryant or whoever your $25 million dollar OF of choice would be. This is merely a thought exercise. The point is that we could have made bold moves to replace some of these guys that left if we had wanted to, instead we chose to roll with depth pieces like Diaz and Goodrum, extend/sign older guys (Brantley and Yuli) and trade and sign middle relievers, while maintaining financial flexibility. Maybe that’s a genius move. Maybe it isn’t. We will see. He isn’t taking big swings. Luhnow seemed to do that (JV trade, Cole trade, Greinke trade) when he thought we were close. Those were the three biggest names to move in 17, 18 and 19. I like the idea of trying to be amazing as opposed to trying to win the division. We lost to inferior teams in 2019 and 2021. Having a better team isn’t any guarantee of anything in a 7 game baseball series so hell, maybe it’s the right move to just get there as often as you can and hope for the best. Trying to win 110 games was just so much fun to watch. I loved it. I miss that.
If they can home grow some all stars they can keep this thing rolling for a long time. If they can’t then all the machinations in the world won’t help make the team a World Series contender. I favor a strike while the iron is hot approach to team building because being a serious contender for more than a decade plus is so rare that if you want to shove all your eggs in the basket of try to win another one before Altuve and Bregman are up. Shrugs. Maybe we keep it going until 2030 or something nutty. That would be awesome to see.
I love luhlow but he has so much more to work with then click. First of all he has star players on relatively cheap contracts, he also had a minor league system full of prospects as a result of high picks. Click inherited a team whose star players were already making or on the verge of big contracts, a minor league system that is closer to average than number 1 and lack of picks due to the cheating scandal so a further depleted farm system. That being said I don't think baez is going to be his worst move, I think toro might be his teoscar
Yep, the goal should always be to win a championship. To do this you need to replace starters lost with quality players. Has Click done that, and for the record I like Pena. But if you're going to let Correa walk and go with Pena, you need to upgrade the lineup somewhere and Click hasn't done that this off-season.
