The fact that you feel the need to wait until he can stay healthy for consecutive seasons to push up his value is exactly why you SHOULD trade him this year . . . for the right price. With the new expanded playoff format, it'll be a seller's market.
Consider trading him? Yes. Actually trade him? Completely depends on what's being offered and on how team-friendly of an extension Lowrie is willing to sign.
Lowrie? I would imagine so. He is relatively young and is mashing the ball from a premium position where the number of good bats is limited.
No. The Astros build around him. Correa will not push him for PT for 3 or more years. And then Correa may be moved to 3rd if Lowrie is still producing. FWIW the team will need some veterans when the prospects arrived.
that's easily the most sensible answer. in a vacuum though, they should not trade lowrie, nor will luhnow do so. for PENNIES, they are getting premium (offensive) production - the likes of which the franchise has literally never seen in its existence - from a premium position. if luhnow was interested in playing stopgaps like angel sanchez, well, that's exactly what he would have done. he obviously likes lowrie, and made the move for him in an effort to upgrade the position, and he was successful. why on earth would he reverse that next year? lowrie is only 28. best case, if correa pans out and is fast-tracked, he will be in the league in 2 seasons. add in that there's at least a decent chance of him ending up at 3rd base. the value of potentially having a cheap, productive big league SS already in place for the next 3-5 years FAR outweighs the utility of whatever minor league shots-in-the-dark we could realistically get back by "selling high".
Even if the Astros could get a "Jonathan Singleton-level" prospect? After the experiences with Tracy and Yao, a Houston team may want to sell high before its player's value is diminished. Love Lowrie, but he could net the organization something(s) that may help it out more in the long run.
I think you dangle him on a big hook (high price tag) and see if anyone bites. I dont see Correa ready to be our ML level everyday SS for probably 4 years. Lowrie will either be declining by then, and replaced in the lineup by Correa. Or he is doing great and wants to get paid (big time). Those that think he might sign a reasonable deal AND be playing great at the same time are dreaming. If we are looking for the best club possible in 4 years, getting someone(s) for Lowrie now that may be ready at the ML level the same time as Correa will be better for us then than what Lowrie can do for us now. What the Astros are trying to do resembles one of the arts of good cooking :grin: A good cook knows how to not only prepare great courses (get great prospects), but how to have them all come out at the same time. For the Astros, we want our best and most prized talent to all hit the ML level about the same time. Sure, you need a sprinkling of vets in there, but what you dont want are declining vets on big contracts. If 4 years is the target window (my guess), then sure, there will be a guy coming into his prime (25-27) that will demand big bucks. Thats fine. As long as its a key guy with MANY prime years ahead of him. That person is unlikely to be Lowrie.
I would heavily consider trading him for three reasons. First is his age, he's already 28 years old. Second is the position he plays, an all-star caliber shortstop in his physical prime should get quite a bit back in trade. The third reason is that Lowrie has always been injury prone. He's had a good stretch this season and his stock is probably as high as it will ever get. He could come back next year, miss half the year and hit .260. It's good time to sell high, this club has at least two years of rebuilding before someone of that caliber could help us do anything with respect to getting into the playoffs. I would say put Altuve up for trade as well except that he's much younger and hasn't had the injury history.
Concerning Lowrie, there's clearly a stance of either,"he's ONLY 28 or he's ALREADY 28". It seems like this is the biggest factor on when and if to trade him. 28yrs old is right in the prime of the avg ballplayer's career. If this was a contending team then no way you trade him but clearly this is not. If you keep Lowrie then it's mainly to help this team look respectable until the "main crop" is ready. I love what Jed's doing this season but 88 games is the most the guy has ever played in a season. It's way too nearsighted to claim a 28yr old unproven surprise as a building block. If CJ started this season on the same kind of tear would this even be a discussion? Sell high! Don't lose focus on the task at hand.
Yes sir, it guarantees you will need a very productive offense to win some games. This team is not strong offensively even with the ss and 2b hitting out of their minds. Because of this I don't see the current team contending in the next 2 yrs.
I think the risk of a regression and/or an injury is too great to gamble that he has another season like he has had in 2012. Before this season, his value was such that he had to be packaged with someone else to equal the value of Mark Melancon. With a regression or another injury issue, that's where he could end up again.
Absolutely. At this point you're playing with house money. His stats up to this season were mediocre at best even when he wasn't hurt. Huge gamble to wait when his value seems so high.
everyone talks about him being 28. He's 28, but he wasn't called up until he was 24. And he's missed a chunk of each season. Either hold the injuries against him or the age thing... to hold both is being unfair. To say he's 28, therefore he's going to regress isn't fair because he hasn't had a full season to show what he can do before. As for the injuries. Does anyone know what they are? I don't, but I've tried to look into them. 2008, 56 games due to a hand injury. 2009, 84 games due to a wrist injury (not related to the hand. But he did have setbacks on it and eventually it got worse and worse and he had to shut it down) 2010, 94 games, mono 2011, 15 day DL with shoulder soreness (felt like it was loose) In looking at those, 2010 with mono isn't really "injury prone", and 2011 15 day DL isn't a huge issue to me. A lot of guys deal with that kinda thing. I guess what I'm getting at is...this guy at least MAY have just had some bad luck. And given where this team is, I think I'd rather hold onto him and hope he inflates his value and proves that those things were just "bad luck" and that he's even better than they think right now (i.e. this year is repeatable). Again, if we can get 2 great prospects (1 top 50 and 1 top 100 overall) or something along those lines, I'm for the trade...because then he's being valued like a guy who can repeat this year and not like a guy who's having a lucky one.
sure, if a club will trade the #1 prospect in their organization for lowrie, then yes, they should do that.
He was awesome in 2010. I thought he was going to be a superstar, because his peripherals looked so damn legitimate. 12% strikeout rate, 12% walk rate, .292 BABIP, .240 ISO.
Through his first 650 PA's his OPS was around .780. He basically struggled in 2011 and the red sox gave up on him. He's not as good as the numbers he's putting up this year, I don't think so anyhow. But there was every sign that he was a good player prior to 2011.
you are gambling with house money whether you keep him or trade him. let's throw out the fantasy that we can get a blue chip prospect for him. would you rather gamble on some unknown, unproven middling prospect(s) contributing to our success at the big league level in 3 years or so, or gamble on lowrie continuing to contribute to our big league success at a level reasonably close to his current one in the immediate future and beyond?
I think the point is that unless your team is ready to contend, that Lowrie's production has the most value through trade. If you're going to be bad then why not just be bad. It's an excellent sell high opportunity. If Lowrie goes all A-Rod in the next two years and becomes MVP it still doesn't win us a division or win a World Series. If the goal is to win championships then trading him and hopefully hitting on the trade is the best way to help achieve that goal.
i don't know when the team is "ready to contend". do you? does luhnow? is it on the Maya calendar? assuming we will contend in 3 years and not before then also assumes that every prospect in the organization that we get excited about will develop into major league stars by then. personally, i don't see us truly contending until the rangers' entire lineup retires from baseball, and that's without worrying about the other 3 teams in "our division" (yuck). for the 7-10 seasons in the meantime, keeping cheap, productive talent on the major league roster and praying for a miracle and possibly being in the mix for a wild card seems like the more prudent path to take, rather than tanking every year that we don't deem ourselves "ready to contend" before the season even starts.
