[Official] Astros Offseason Thread

https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2017/11/shohei-ohtani-contract.html

Realistically, what are our chances at Otani? Since he's (presumably) coming over this winter instead of in two years, he will be signing a minor league contract instead of a monstrous free agent deal. And given the fact that he's willing to give up millions of dollars to come over this winter, he's likely to not care about the difference in a $100K signing bonus or a $3 million signing bonus. The article cites the fact that he's already made tons of money in Japan and the fact that he could be signed to a multi-year extension as early as this April (something around 5 years, $25 mil.) as long as the team that signs him is happy with what they see up until that point. I've also read another article talking to his coaches and friends and they've all said that he doesn't care about money too much and that he just wants to come over and prove he can play in the MLB. I assume every single team will kick the tires on him, but is there any realistic chance we could be a serious contender for him? He's obviously an intriguing (possibly even generational) talent.

 

Points in Houston’s favor:
Just won the World Series and has almost everybody coming back
Has a young core and good farm and should be a contender for the long term
Excellent pitching coach and manager; creative FO open to ideas regarding playing both ways etc
Houston is an ‘international city’
Play quite a few games on the west coast


Points not in Houston’s favor:
Not an international brand like the Dodgers or Yankees
Not on the west coast (closest to japan)
No Asian players, in fact their starting 1B got busted making a racist gesture toward a Japanese player last month, and Houston is in Texas.
Not a team able to break the bank on an early extension
No obvious connections with his family, trainers, coaches, etc. Houston doesn’t have a big Asian scouting presence in general.
Max offer can be $300k

Overall I’d say Houston has A chance, but not a very good one; maybe 3%. I will be very surprised if he doesn’t end up with the Yankees, Dodgers, Mariners, or Rangers.

 

On Fangraphs, one of the writers commented that Ohtani going to the Astros would be bad for baseball. The connotation being that the Astros would be too good.

 

Sounds like our guy!

 

Typical. The outside baseball world complains the Astros don't have enough pitching. Astros get Verlander, then they complain that the Astros are too good & hope Otani doesn't become one.

 

Given what we did (WS) and how we did it (total rebuild), anyone else thinking some clubs that were on the fence might jump into rebuild mode? Could that lead to a plethora of guys available that no one would have previously thought to be?

 

Man, I seriously hope Ohtani doesn't go to the Dodgers or Yankees. How much more help do they possibly need?

And yes, I'm fully prepared to expect that it might happen anyway.

 

I don’t think so. Some of the rules have changed significantly since Houston started their rebuild, mainly the rules surrounding Rule 4 draft bonus pools, international signing bonus pools, and free agent draft pick compensation. All of those changes would make it harder to duplicate what Houston did. The additional wild card spot also reduces incentive to tank. That said, I do think we will see the teams that do decide to rebuild burn it all the way to the ground like Houston did; Chicago, San Diego, and Philadelphia have already done that. I would be surprised to see Detroit, Toronto, Tampa, and a few others do a total rebuild over the next few years.

 

The biggest deterrent to tanking is that the more teams that do it, the less beneficial it is. Also, with the Astros, Dodgers, Indians, and Yankees as young teams that are run smartly, there isn't going to be as many this is our last chance take all our prospects trades.

 

If you look at time to return to contention, the Cubs and Yankees certainly pulled off the rebuild much better than we did. I don’t think the Astros success should add any new thought process to teams already thinking about tanking. In the end it still comes down to talent evaluation and scouting, thru the draft, thru trades, and in free agency. Only one team wins every year so you pretty much need to hit on all fronts to have a chance.

 

Otani will end up a Yankee. He wants a challenge. There is no bigger challenge than trying to become a legend as a NY Yankee. A place with so many legends that you have to be really transcendent in order to stand out. Furthermore if he signs there, he knows that they will pony up the most money when it's time to extend.

 

If he wants a challenge, a place like Tampa or San Diego is ridiculously hard to become a legend.

 

Agree with all of this. However, the Yankees “rebuild” was completely different than the Astros and therefore it’s hard to even compare the two. I honestly wouldn’t even consider the Yankees to have rebuilt.

 

Did you just fly in from New York bro?

 

Wait so if he comes to the Astros its bad for baseball because we are "too good" but it's completely acceptable for him to go to Yankees or Dodgers??

 

We had a farther to go and spent way less money. The big thing for all 3 of our turnarounds has been finding surprise value. Altuve, Keuchel, Harris, & McHugh have all been unexpectedly great for us. Of course we've also seen several top prospects bust (Wallace, Singleton, Cosart, & most recently Reed).

 

I think our selling point to Ohtani (when was the "h" added, I've been following this possibility for years and the h seems new, perhaps foretelling, haha?!) is pretty strong.

- We just won the World Series, are the best team on the planet, and our core is young and uber-talented. Ohtani and Correa are very close in age.
- The platoon half of our DH (Beltran) just retired, and Gattis can be easily moved, opening up a full time DH role for the 4 days he doesn't pitch.
- We can be very flexible with how he can pitch and stay effective. Our starting rotation depth showed in the playoffs, and I have faith in our front office more than others to get creative and have him pitch, and pitch well, minimizing the transition time coming over to the states (maybe do some tandem pitching since I believe he is used to pitching every 7 days as opposed to pitching every 5 days here).
- Almost every single player has raved about how close, awesome, and fun our clubhouse is (McCann, Morton, and Verlander come to mind - and they all have emphasized that coming to the Astros has been one of their best decisions in life). That should hold a ton of weight for a kid that has so many options in front of him. He, too, will hopefully not regret joining the Astros at all.

So although I still feel that our chances are slim to none, I'm an optimistic, so I'm still going to hope.

 

You can add Mark Appel to the bust list.

 

At least we got value out of Cosart, Moran is an MLB player trapped in AAA by Bregman, Martes, while he needs to get his **** together, was a top prospect for a reason, even Marisnick has been a 2.0 WAR player during his time here.
I guess we got 1/3rd of Ken Giles out of Appel, which is far better than Appel will ever be.

And as for "how good was the rebuild"? compared to the cubs, the Cubs were a mediocre, aging squad (75 win hell) with a mediocre farm system (low 20s), but they have the money of the 3rd biggest market in the nation (something I hope we see with 81 straight sellouts after the WS). The Astros were not only the worst team in baseball, but had the worst farm system to go along with it. I'd say Houston's rebuild was far more impressive, but both have resulted in 1 WS ring for each so there isn't much use arguing.

 

The big thing is that teams are going to make mistakes. The Astros try to give themselves the most chances to succeed which is going to lead to more busts than most teams. Who cares if the Astros have the most busts if at the same time they have the most home grown WAR or WAR acquired though trading prospects? The Astros have had horrible luck with the non-star position players in AAA transitioning to AAA. It is only a matter of time until one of these guys hits figuratively and literally to a 2.5+ WAR player.

The Astros take chances on guys like McHugh and Morton that have high spin rates, There are probably dozens of guys that failed, were cut, and forgotten that Astros tried out.