Crane chose to make Dana Brown his GM primarily based on his ability to identify amateur talent. I have no idea if he will succeed or not, but it's stupid to do it half assed. Let the man do the job you hired him to do, and so far this offseason it seems like that is starting to happen. Brown has his manager, and now he will have his head of scouting (something Click was never afforded) He may suck and it will crash and burn, but it's all but guaranteed to fizzle if the organization continued pulling itself in different directions.
Dana Brown has been a scout or executive for 30 years across 5 organizations. Yes, Gross is a significant loss because by all accounts he was extremely good in his role, but if there is one thing Dana Brown should be able to do, it’s hire and manage a good scouting director.
Yep. Brown's best attribute was drafting and development. Hopefully he shines here and can find a way to extend the run.
I think Brown did an outstanding job of finding superior athletes that were perhaps a little raw on first look. Michael Harris sticks out going from 3rd round pick out of high school to top 15 in the MVP voting in three years. I believe Nehomar Ochoa Jr. could be one of those guys for the Astros. Youngest guy on the team in FCL and looked outstanding. Also has physique of and runs more like a football free safety prospect than a 17 year old high school baseball player.
Yall don't have a ****ing clue how Brown will act as a GM along with Crane. Stop pretending, wait and see.
And if we still had Strom I would be more on board with moving assets for Cease Losing Strom was bigger than most realize
Thinking more about a white Sox raid that makes sense. McCormick just doesn’t seem like a great piece for Chicago because trading Robert means a full scale rebuild and McCormick only has 3 season of control left (less than Robert). I think a blockbuster that makes more sense would be something like: Astros get: CF Luis Robert Jr SP Dylan Cease P Michael Kopech $12M (toward Robert’s 2024 salary) White Sox get: SP Hunter Brown IF Brice Matthews CF Jake Meyers SP Forrest Whitley OF/IF Joey Loperfido SP Spencer Arrighetti OF/IF Pedro Leon That may seem like a pupu platter, but the White Sox need to raise their floor across their entire system. Hunter Brown has value equivalent to an MLB Top 20 prospect so he’s a formidable headliner. It still probably ain’t quite enough but I think it makes more sense than Chicago taking on Urquidy and/or McCormick. The resulting Astros roster is insane: CF Robert 2B Altuve 3B Bregman DH Alvarez RF Tucker 1B Abreu C Diaz LF McCormick SS Pena Bench: Dubon, TBD catcher, Kessinger, Singleton Rotation: Verlander, Valdez, Cease, Javier, Urquidy, France Bullpen: Pressly, Abreu, Kopech, Montero, Graveman, McCullers/Sousa, Garcia/Bielak I think Kopech could be utterly dominant as a reliever. This trade makes it a lot more palatable to let Bregman and Tucker walk in free agency. Crane would still have to stretch the budget to accommodate this trade but I think he’d be game considering this would be one of the deepest highest ceiling lineups in the history of the sport. Chicago’s roster would fit the mold of a team in a rebuild, with every spot occupied by either a young high ceiling player or a veteran rebound trade candidate: C Lee/Quero 1B Vaughn 2B Leon SS Lopez/Shewmake (trade candidates, Sanchez, Montgomery and Matthews otw) 3B Moncada (trade candidate, Ramos otw) RF Colas/Loperfido CF Meyers/Cespedes LF Benintendi (trade candidate) DH Jimenez (trade candidate) SP Brown, Whitley, Arrighetti, Schuster, Eder, Soroka (trade candidate) RP Burke, Cannon, Bush, Thompson, Kelley, Crochet, Santos
I'm all for it. It would be an all-in move for the next 2 seasons. It would make sense if Brown thinks the well is dry in the farm. In other words, no one to take up the slack for Tucker and Bregman when one one or both of them leave.
I think Crane (and Brown) think they can consistently outperform in drafting/scouting/development, so they simply think they can continually trade their best prospects and turn right around and add 3-4 more badasses in the next draft/international signing period (as well as steal prospects via trade). I can see why Crane would believe this. He was probably told by Luhnow/Click that trading their recent highly ranked and breakout prospects (Bukauskas, Beer, Martin, Musgrove, F Perez, Nottingham, Folty, Houser, Thurman, Ruiz, Hader, Rogers, Cameron, Velasquez, Moran, Santana, Phillips, Appel, Davis, Fisher, Toro etc.) was dangerous, only to see a steady stream of lower touted prospects (Diaz, Pena, McCormick, Alvarez, Brown, Javier, Garcia, Framber, Abreu, Urquidy, France, etc) thrive and keep the window open.
I think I like Meyers and Brown more than most. I'd do this deal easy from the Astros POV. I'd probably do this deal even if the CWS didn't include Cease and the $12M.
Always a really wide range of potential values on graduated young players with varying degrees of MLB success. Brown especially, but yes Meyers too, are young players who aren’t prospects but still carry a high enough ceiling to be core players on a competitive team for the next 5+ seasons. I for one would bet that both Brown and Meyers are more likely to post >3 fwar over a full season of healthy regular action than they would be to post <1 fwar.
I like the trade and would take the gamble. I hate giving up Brown, because I would love to see him with another year with Verlander’s mentorship. It is also a gamble with Cease. All that being said, I don’t think CWS will give up Robert.
$30M/3yrs is about what I thought he’d get, not a steal but he is a very high upside RP. Sadly these are the kinds of deals Houston really can’t afford to take; they already have 4 of them on their books (J Abreu, McCullers, Graveman, Montero). They either have to sign super cheap guys (<$8M/1yr) or make big time moves that convince Crane to pay the tax. Crane isn’t gonna commit to going over the tax for Reynaldo Lopez. But he might for Josh Hader (or Yadiel Rodriguez, or Jordan Montgomery, etc.).
