Oh I see. I didn't see the 3.5 buyout. We really need to have someone come up with some decent upside in the infield, or have Pena hit better for us to keep doing what we are doing. We are going to lose one of Tucker, Altuve, and Bregman at the minimum. Finding short term bats in the outfield is a lot easier than the infield.
Here's an idea, though I doubt very seriously that it happens. If I'm Alex Bregman and his agent I seriously consider this: after 2024 accept the QO the Astros will offer. Here's my reasoning. Of the 6 major FA in 2024-2025 (Alex, Altuve, Tucker, Framber, Pressly, and Verlander) 3B is probably the position with the most risk associated with potential replacements. Therefore, thinking on field only, I feel it's more important to keep him than any of the others. If he accepts the QO then he becomes a FA again after 2025 when all this payroll is off the board so his salary would be less troublesome to offer a long-term deal. They can work throughout the 2025 season on an extension and it (should) be a year shorter commitment and cover less of his prime so more affordable. Alex has already made over $100M so the risk of career ending injury would not be tragic to the point he has to suddenly get a job to pay the bills. If they are still unable to come to an agreement on an extension then he can not be offered a QO again so he likely has more teams interested and better FA offers.
I'm not expecting us to sign Snell, but I would love it if we did. Crane has shown us now he will pay the tax, why not go deep into tier 2 and go for it? Maybe use some pitching depth to get a bat.
Berkman actually made some negative comments about fans while they were going through one of the labor disputes. He can certainly be quirky, and as someone who has actually worked with him on a couple of things he certainly thinks his opinion is way more important than anyone elses But damn, he could hit. Was really the only one in that group that hit good pitching like our studs today do
This would potentially work in a sport without fully guaranteed contracts, but not in baseball Yes, obviously Alex has made enough money that he never has to worry about his family living comfortably. But these guys work to get to free agency because for a guy like Alex, that means huge long term GUARANTEED money. The risk of a long term/career threatening injury, although fairly rare in baseball, is still too much for him to delay that a year. I think we should offer him a fair but not crazy long term deal right now and lock him up, but don't see it happening Three guys I never want to watch play a game in another uniform are Alex, Altuve and McCullers, even though I know many here want to rid ourselves of Lance already. I'll just never, ever forget that dominant curveball performance and it's relevance to us finally getting a ring. And there is just something about him that says Astros forever
Bregman could just as easily turn around to the Astros and say "you have all of this money coming off the books in '25 so knowing that offer me a long-term contract". Why should he be the one gambling (playing on a one yr deal)? If he did get hurt (career ending or serious enough to destroy his market value) while on that one year deal there's a huge difference between roughly 30 mil in '25 and say 200-300 mil he could be looking at in FA.
I know - I let myself dream for a minute. Seriously though, I think Bregman and Tucker are both guys that Crane should make an exception to his "no 6+ year contracts" rule. A The problem is teams like the Mets and Giants will offer the moon, but I think the owner of a team that won 2 W.S. should offer a bit more to the guys that gave them to him and could go a bit over his comfort level and these 2 guys should both age well. I'm not saying 3-4 years or $10M AAV more but an extra year or 2 and/or maybe $5M per is worth it to keep them in Orange and Navy. I will say that the Hader signing gives me hope- Crane is willing to go over CBT and commuted to winning for years to come.
Would be interesting to know if Bregman (and the Astros) would entertain doing what the Dodgers did with Ohtani and defer some of the contract? Say for example they offered him 8 yrs/250 mil (31.25 a yr), and they defer 48 million of it (6 mil for eight straight yrs) from say 2032 to 2039). This would give them some help with the cap from '25 to '32. Just a thought.
I am the same way in my profession. I expect young developers to have the ability to figure **** out on their own, or at least dedicate a few days trying to figure things out before asking me. I think in most professions, senior level people would prefer people to have a similar work ethic that they do.
I get it but that's probably what he's going to get on the open market. Maybe he may take a little less to stay with the Stros but whatever the # is, to my original point, would be interesting to know if deferring $$ is something both sides would consider? Same for Tuck? Nook have you heard anything about this? They did defer $ for Greinke.
I don't think deferring money is an answer to the problem. The problem is Crane does not want a contract that hinders the team or payroll longterm. He has never complained about AAV. He would rather pay a player $150M for 5 years than $200M for 8. Deferring money actually makes that worse not better.
You do realize that Crane deferred 62.5 mil to Greinke? So deferring money to make the #s work has been a solution. Now whether or not it's a solution for Bregman, or Tucker, or Framber I guess only time will tell. Greinke '22 12.5 '23 12.5 '24 12.5 '25 12.5 '26 12.5
Im sure the Astros would For Bregman to do so would take him just doing it to help the team though, cause there would be no benefit to him for doing it Ohtani can move after he retires and save millions in state taxes. With no state income tax in Texas there is nothing to gain for the player, unless he is just a stupid spender and is trying to save himself from himself
1) the deferment was part of the contract he signed with Arizona. Crane simply inherited it. 2) as Grienke only pitched 2 years plus the post season push of a 3rd, and Grienke never signed a contract with Houston, the deferments had nothing to do with working out a deal to allow a player to stay rather than leave in FA.
There is no free lunch from deferring salary. There are two scenarios from a deferral: 1) the team pays interest on the deferred money at the market rate. In this case, the deferred money is just added back to the AAV for salary tax purposes - it changes cash flow for the owner, but no impact on CBT 2) the team pays low or no interest. In this case the money is discounted back at market rate and added to AAV. So it counts less for the CBT, but the player is also getting less real value … a fact he and his agent will realize and for which he will want to be compensated. So other than solving a team cash flow issue (and I doubt the Astros have cash flow problems), deferral is either neutral to both parties or is purely negative for the player. You probably know all this, but I have seen so many incorrect statements about Ohtani that I thought it was worth explaining. In any case, I don’t see a real reason Bergman would do it “for free”, and if he insists on a higher AAV to compensate for no interest payment, we are back where we started.
