NY says no. Correa makes most sense for small market contenders not in the AL West who need SS/3B and have deep farms. To me that for now is Tampa, Atlanta, and Milwaukee. Put Philly, Oakland, and NyM in the super long shot category. Nobody else makes sense. Tampa for Honeywell, Matt Duffy, and Brujan Milwaukee for their top 4 prospects plus Travis Shaw Atlanta for Anderson and Wright plus 2 from their 5-15 range.
NY says no. Correa makes most sense for small market contenders not in the AL West who need SS/3B and have deep farms. To me that for now is Tampa, Atlanta, and Milwaukee. Put Philly, Oakland, and NyM in the super long shot category. Nobody else makes sense. Tampa for Honeywell, Matt Duffy, and Brujan Milwaukee for their top 4 prospects plus Travis Shaw Atlanta for 1 of Anderson or Wright plus 3 from their 5-15 range.
Boy if I'm Tampa and I can get Correa for just prospects I do it. He's cheap (relatively) for 2 more years, they have a 90+ true talent team, Boston is working to duck it's way under the luxury tax and will get worse, and Baltimore and the Jays are garbage that you can hoover up wins against. Also, they play in a market where nobody cares about them (to speak of), with shitty attendance, so optimum strategy is to take your shot when you have a shot and try to win it all, b/c nobody will give a damn if you lose 85 or 105 when you aren't in your competitive window. Flags fly forever and if you roll the dice on Correa and he brings you a title that's the kind of thing that might be able to get you a stadium deal. Also, if he remained healthy he could be the difference between winning a title and not- as I'd guess if healthy he might bump their WS winning percentage by 3 or 4 points single handedly, which is an absolutely huge number. You are right, they make a ton of sense. I know they have a super deep system and he'd be my first call. I get the sense Thor wants out and the Mets are willing to part with him for the right return. I'd certainly have that phone call with them if I were JL this offseason. Not sure what there payroll constraints are, but if we could resign Cole a deal of Correa, Greinke and Reddick for Thor makes sense to me from both teams perspectives. That's potentially 12 War and $48 million or so in contracts going out to NY and that's about the same coming in to the Astros in Cole and Thor. The NYM should value their roster spots less than the Astros as they have more holes in the roster than Houston does, as the Astros should be about consolidating value. Then the Astros have: JV Cole Thor LMJ Uriquey- for about 85 million as a starting rotation. Catcher Guriel Altuve Bregman Toro Brantley Springer Tucker Alvarez- $95 million for a lineup That seems doable. Then, in 2021 you restart around: Cole, Uriquez, Whitley, Altuve, Bregman, Tucker, Alvarez, Toro (and hopefully extend Springer) and Straw, which would hopefully be 45 War or so for about $110 million in salary, and you have to fill holes at catcher, BOR and Bullpen for $90 million or so, best case scenario. But, that makes 2020 and 2021 really freaking good teams if you are lining up that starting 5 and Whitley in the wings, if he hits. Going to be a fascinating offseason.
How about this one- Snake Correa for Kluber. Same amount of team control left. Kluber is coming off a major injury. Correa is injury prone. Cleveland would likely save 8 or 10 million over the next two years. They could play Correa at 3b and move Ramirez back to his more comfortable second base. Extends the lineup which they are in desperate need of. Cleveland proved they could win 90+ this year without Kluber.
I don’t trade Correa for a veteran pitcher, Kluber, Thor or otherwise. If I’m trading Correa it’s because I want to take a big step to rebuild the farm while cutting $10M from the 2020 payroll.
If Cole does walk, I would first get a look at Whitley to see if he's a legit #1 or #2, and then go from there. There is a good chance he fills that void right our of the gate. It's possible he goes the Glasnow route, or \peters out, but I would take a first look. Personally, would never trade Correa for Thor. Mostly on account that Correa is once in a lifetime talent and leader, proven. But also on account that Thor has had plenty of time to develop and never crossed into that threshold of value that Correa provides. Syndergaard is more or less a three with a small percentage of developing into a 2. We would need a number 2 tho'.
Braves have EXCELLENT prospects but I can't see the fit. Think they roll with Dansby at SS and fill in 3B internally or keep Donaldson. Tampa I'd take Baz, McClanahan, and Cronenworth. From Milwaukee I'd take Shaw, Turang, Lutz, Brown, Small, and Ashby (all top-10, but MIL has one of the weakest systems IIRC). Of course we're just playing pretend.
More Prospect List World Champion banners to hang! I for one cannot wait. MLB games are so boring with the running and the throwing and the hitting, and they have actual results that some people pretend matter. I can't win a single theoretical prize this way. Grade 30, with a ceiling of 45 if they just stop this silly "Major League" stuff that seems to be distracting people from the real focus of assigning arbitrary numbers to people and then ordering them in arbitrary lists and then arbitrarily ranking those lists in master list.
Here’s one. Reddick and throw-ins to Seattle for Seager and cash. Correa to Tampa for Honeywell and Brujan. Resign Cole, Chirinos, and Harris (cheaper alternatives being Lyles, Avila, and Diekman respectively if they have to stay under the tax).
how did the thread about Astros trading for Grienke turn into random trade ideas about Correa? anywho, wohooo we got Grienke!! can you believe it!!
While I think maintaining talent on the farm is important and consider farm rankings an estimate instead of arbitrary, trading significant MLB talent from a contending team to improve the farm is not wise. Baseball is a zero-sum game. For the Astros to add value, other teams have to lose it. Mostly teams trade short term expected value for long term expected value. If Luhnow can swindle other teams in trades to improve MLB roster, he should do it, but not at the expense of the current and next year's team. It is difficult to know where other teams are going to be stupid.
lol. Just today somebody came in my office and asked if we should trade Correa so we can resign Cole.
While listening to the radio today for the first time, its baffling how ungrateful most Astros fan. Not every pitcher can be a Cole or JV. Listening to fans bash Grienke and having no faith in him tomorrow and saying how his trade was bad and its taking up money for Cole and blah blah. STFU. Grienke has been one of the best pitchers these past two months and he had one bad postseason start while pitching on extended rest. Grienke pitched a good game 1 and honestly pitched if not better then JV. Grienke made a few mistakes and Yanks just simply took advantage of them. JV and Cole got away with the same **** that Grineke simply didnt. Just a bad fate of luck. Grienke isnt going to get traded this offseason and fans need to rally around him. He'll be an Astro for the next two years and hes one of the best pitchers in the league.
Maybe I missed it but I haven't seen anyone post a comment that Greinke is "taking up money for Cole". Comments have been made that if it came down to an option in order to try to keep Cole they could use the $ of Greinke's contract to put towards Cole instead (I have made this comment numerous times as well) they should consider it. This does NOT mean that Greinke sucks it just means that he is NOT Cole right now and that if it came down to a choice moving forward you go with the Cole option EVERY single time. I also have not seen anyone post a comment that the trade for Greinke "was bad". Again if I missed such a post my apologies. If so such a comment is crazy because he's not just "been one of the best pitchers these past two months" but he's been one of the best pitchers in baseball the past thirteen years for crying out loud. Greinke pitched damn good in game one and I am confident that he'll pitch good tonight as well. Whether Cole leaves after this year or not we're EXTREMELY FORTUNATE to have Greinke the next two yrs.
I'm not the biggest Grienke fan, but on Golic & Wingo they were talking about him like he's been straight trash and that the Yankees killed him last time out. They threw out that 10 runs and 7 runs were scored when Grienke pitched, as if he gave up all of those runs. Grienke gave up 1 run across 5 innings in Game 1. I'd gladly take that again. We just need to score this time.