Needs: 1. Ace pitcher 2. Capable bat who can preferably play CF and lead off (does not have to be a star) 3. Veteran late inning reliever Wants: 1. Upgrade at catcher or backup catcher 2. Versatile veteran bat who can play the outfield I’m totally cool with leaving LF open for competition between McCormick, Straw, Toro, Jones, and Diaz. Maybe add a veteran NRI as insurance. But that spot can be easily cheaply addressed at the deadline if nobody pans out. Im even ok with not adding an ace in the offseason and addressing the rotation at the deadline. Greinke, Valdez, McCullers, Urquidy, and Javier is a fine quintet, with Pruitt, Whitley, Bielak, Garcia, and others as insurance. With the bullpen getting Smith back along with guys who should be locked in (Pressly, Taylor, Paredes, James, Pruitt), they really only need 1 good reliever, especially considering they will be able to use starters out of the pen in the playoffs. Projected 2021 OD roster: CF Springer (I think they get it done) 3B Bregman RF Tucker 2B Altuve DH Alvarez SS Correa 1B Gurriel LF Diaz C Maldonado Bench: Straw, Stubbs, Toro, McCormick Rotation: Greinke, McCullers, Valdez, Urquidy, Boyd (trade from Detroit) Bullpen: Javier, Pruitt, James, Paredes, Taylor, Smith, Pressly, Yates (free agent)
Want, from me: 1B (preferably lefty/switch hitter) who can spend next year in AAA and take over starting 2022. Maybe we can get Gavin Sheets from CHW, good prospect but very blocked in their system.
This isn't about short term. Would be nice to have someone for most of the decade. Father time is undefeated, and Gurriel showed some signs of regression down the stretch, though it could have just been a slump. I like the new deal because it gives us time to evaluate next year and see how things really stand. But nobody can play forever.
two extra years is a lot of time. First base isn’t a priority for us. We should be targeting pitching.
The young pitching is looking like it will keep the window open. If you can project 8 cumulative WAR per season from Valdez, Urquidy, and Javier, you’re 40% of the way to a World Series caliber pitching staff. Regarding 1B, I am not ready to write off Toro or Jones yet. I’d like to see them leave LF open for competition between young guys (Toro, Jones, McCormick, Straw, etc.) to see if they can unearth an everyday player. Will also be keeping an eye on Matijevic next season; his timeline would seem to coincide with Gurriel’s new contract.
I wouldn't. Not only is there a big financial risk, he isn't exactly a fan favorite. I'll leave it at that.
LF should be a position where it’s possible to find a guy on the scrap heap and get some production. This is where you trust Click to come up with an economical answer, and spend your budget elsewhere. Maybe it’s one of the guys you mentioned, maybe it’s another AAAA player blocked in another system that comes cheap (e.g., Domingo Santana, Teoscar Hernandez, Ramon Laureano, etc.)
Necrobumping this thread as I was looking at the out years today. There have been a lot of positive developments for the Astros over the last 6 months: Altuve and Gurriel have rebounded. Straw has broken out. Alvarez has exceeded his already lofty expectations. Garcia, Urquidy, and Javier have further established themselves as quality major league pitchers. Korey Lee and Pedro Leon look like future core pieces. The Astros project for ~51 fwar this season and 100+ wins. Looking forward at war and payroll projections: 2022: C: Maldonado, Castro; 1.5 fwar, $8.5M IF: Gurriel, Altuve, Bregman, Diaz, Garcia, Toro; 13.5 fwar, $55M OF: Tucker, Straw, Brantley, Alvarez, McCormick; 15.5 fwar, $19M SP: Valdez, McCullers, Odorizzi, Urquidy, Garcia; 10 fwar, $27M RP: Javier, Pressly, Stanek, Baez, Abreu, Taylor, Paredes, others; 6 fwar, $24M Total: 46.5 fwar, $129M Summary: that projects for 90-100 wins with $50-60M in payroll flexibility. Obvious hole is SS, but the rotation also doesn’t project to be elite. I would be fine with a cheaper FA alternative to Correa (like Semien, Crawford, or even Villar) and using the money on extensions, bullpen help, and saving for deadline moves. 2023: Losses: Gurriel, Brantley, Diaz, Castro, Pressly Prospects ready: Leon, Meyers, Pena, Lee, Brown, others Projections: 43.5 fwar, $135.8M Summary: That’s another 90-100 win team with $50-60M in payroll flexibility. Obviously if Leon, Lee, or another prospect turns into a star things look even rosier. Assuming theyve addressed SS in 2022, needs are likely to be a corner bat (1B/LF) and not much else. Again, should be money for extensions and deadline moves. 2024: Losses: Maldonado, Odorizzi, Baez, Stanek Prospects ready: Nova, Perez, others Projections: 45 fwar, $147M Summary: same deal, 90-100 wins with $40-50M in payroll open. Tucker, Alvarez, and the SP will be getting expensive in arbitration by this point. But again there should be money for extensions and to address backup catcher and the bullpen, although those are areas I think the farm will be able to address. 2025: Losses: Altuve, Bregman Prospects ready: TBD Projections: 39.5 fwar, $114M Summary: losing Altuve and Bregman drops the projection to 85-95 wins, but those 2 also open up $60M in payroll. By this point the entire infield would have needed to be reconstructed but between the prospects in the system now, guys they will draft over the next 3 years, and available money for free agents, the lineup should still be very good, built around Tucker, Alvarez, Leon, Straw, Toro, Perez, Lee, and Pena. The rotation will still have Valdez, McCullers, Urquidy, and Garcia. The BP will have Javier, Paredes, Taylor, and a host of guys we don’t know about yet. Needs would be 2B, 3B, and possibly an ace SP.
Fine with the current approach they’ve taken since becoming competitive. Attempt to re-sign core pieces. Sign all draft picks and be aggressive in the international front. Go for it when squarely in contention, even with tax implications. Consider selling high (or prior to FA year) if treading water or noticeably overachieving. If trending towards bottoming out, don’t chase it.
Quite a bit will ride on the new CBA also, who knows what rules we will be playing under after this year
Very true. I think another big inflection point for Houston will be when Brent Strom retires. Hard to know what his impact/value is but he could be an irreplaceable high-impact type of coach.
Using ZiPS projections (ROS projected for a full season), Fangraphs Prospect Rankings, -0.5 WAR for every year over 30 as an aging curve, Astros budget ~ luxury tax threshold, $/WAR from FanGraphs, and ~$40M for benefits and club controlled players. Please note: ZiPS does not look very favorably on Valdez, Urquidy, Garcia, and Javier. WAR for Prospects is for players that were prospects at start of this season minus Garcia regardless of when their rookie year is. Please not the assumptions likely make this very inaccurate, and only shows a rough objective perception of the Astros strength going forward if projections didn't change based on life changing things and trades weren't made.
I think the primary difference between those projections and mine relate to young players (both young major leaguers and prospects). While guys over 30 typically decline, guys in their early/mid 20s typically improve. Also, that method of projecting prospect values focuses only on top prospects and gives no value to depth. For example, if Houston has 20 guys (none very highly thought of) with 1% chance of becoming a good everyday player, that should be reflected as 20% of a good player in the war projections. One area I think has been key to Houston’s success is having 2nd and 3rd tier pitching prospects in volume; none of them individually were ever highly valued or projected to be good, but the sum of their odds would have predicted what we are seeing (3-4 guys who were never good prospects ending up as good major leaguers).
Some young players improve. Some flame out or get hurt. I don't think a more precise aging curve is going to help accuracy that much for a team without that many young players/prospects. On the prospects, this used the FanGraphs Top 33. I get that FanGraphs likes upside a little more than depth. Even if Norel and Meyers were both upgraded to 50FV prospects to compensate, that's still only about a 1 win change per year, but would add subjectivity which I am trying to avoid. Relative to an injury to someone like Bregman or just a bad free agent signing, this inaccuracy isn't a big deal in my opinion. Using the FanGraphs Top 33 and translating each prospect into the average WAR from that FV and divvying it up across multiple seasons helps account for some prospects being players while most bust. The biggest sources of inaccuracies are likely injuries, breakout improvements, trades, and projections flat out being wrong on a player(s). On the projections, I think they are probably 3-4 WAR/per year light on Valdez, Urquidy, Garcia, and Javier combined, but worry my orange tinted glasses probably fog up on players ZiPs is probably over-rating.
Oh it’s not just the 2nd tier guys like Gonzalez and Meyers. There are over 200 prospects in Houston’s system and they all have some % chance of reaching the majors with varying odds of levels of performance. I think ignoring the sum of those values is causing the projections to be low. That’s especially true on the pitching side where the outcomes are so much less predictable.
Assuming the 167 guys not counted were rated as worth half the value of a FV35 pitcher, we are talking 0.7 WAR per year total if their production was spread out over a 6-year period. Yep, some of these guys will help more than that individually, but you also will get a Taylor Jones that takes away value. Feel free to mentally add 0.7 WAR to the WAR from prospects if you desire (or really any number). There is a lot more error than 0.7 WAR in these projections, both positive and negative. I've had more complicated spreadsheets in the past in which I included a more refined injury curve and players not drafted or signed as an IFA yet, but it really didn't improve accuracy and I've not noticed a high or a low bias*. I will say, I've never tried to incorporate the value of prospects that didn't make the team prospect lists for FanGraphs (or BA when I was using BA). The benefit of simple and objective is speed. For a projection that has +/- 10 win error a year out, worrying about the small stuff 4-5 years out isn't worth it. *Edit: I assume there are things I am leaving out that adds value, but this is usually a wash with things I'm leaving out that take away value (e.g., injuries).
I guess I just have a really hard time believing the entire Astros farm system projects to contribute just 11 total net war over the entirety of 2022-2025.
