Farm system can still withstand some trades and remain strong. It will be even stronger after the draft. As long as this front office has their picks and comp picks, I’m never going to be worried about the farm regardless of where they’re drafting.
Signing Harper would bring Houston’s payroll to ~$165M before filling any other holes. My estimate is that they can max out ~$180M, so $15M is about all they’d have left. Adding Harper would make trading Tucker more realistic, and Tucker could be a headliner for Kluber. But even better, send Tucker to Arizona to get the Snakes to eat a ton of Greinke/Goldschmidt money: CF Springer 3B Bregman 2B Altuve RF Harper 1B Goldschmidt SS Correa DH White LF Reddick C Stassi Bench: Gurriel, Herrmann, Marisnick Rotation: Verlander, Cole, Greinke, McHugh, James Bullpen: F Valdez, C Perez, Peacock, Devenski, Deetz, Harris, Pressly, Osuna Traded Rondon and Smith to make salary space to cover Goldschmidts salary.
I heard this from a minority owner about a month or so ago. Deal was definitely agreed upon. Boston series was just a few inches here or there from a different outcome. Harper might have been the difference. But good to reconfirm that the Astros are all in and will continue to be so.
It's not the choice of the GM to tank. Owners dictate that, and Morey wasn't given the option. He has done an astounding job of getting superstar talent considering how little he was given to work with. Luhnow is in a sport that no one team can roadblock, no matter how good. Morey unfortunately is not.
I don't know, the series was 4-1. We got our ass kicked. Harper good. I like. But we were overmatched.
That ball doesn't roll on the fence line if Harper is here. Fan interference isn't called on Altuve's HR if Harper is here. At the end of the day it just want ito year. Lots of bad breaks and it is a large party of why winning a world series is so difficult.
You suggest we field a G-League team for 3 years while being the joke of the sport and losing a generation of fans?
Like they aren't a joke of the sport right now? They already have empty seats at the arena. Talent-wise, they probably can't tank even if they wanted, but it's what got them Hakeem and eventually two rings.
Does his being in the lineup change the way Boston avoided Bregman? Likely. Does that change the series? Maybe. With Correa not himself we looked one bat short.
If anything, I am rest assured that our front office identified that although we had a solid team, we were not as deep offensively as we could have been. It would've been fun as hell to watch Bryce in an Astros' uniform. Bryce and Bregman would've been fun together.
We weren’t overmatched. A 7 game series is a small sample size for basketball but it’s absolutely tiny for baseball. But it’s the best we can do. Play another 7 game series with the same exact rosters and we could just as likely win 4-1. It’s a game of inches.
Last night I tried to put together a somewhat realistic path to the greatest on-paper team in history, assuming a restriction of $180M max payroll (and trying as much as possible to avoid completely decimating the farm). Here is where I landed: Trades: OF Yordan Alvarez, RHP JB Bukauskas, C Max Stassi, and 3B Abraham Toro to Miami for C JT Realmuto RHP Lance McCullers Jr., OF Ronnie Dawson, LHP Cionel Perez, and 3B JD Davis to Seattle for LHP James Paxton RHP Corbin Martin, 1B AJ Reed, C Garrett Stubbs, and RHP Jairo Solis to Arizona for 1B Paul Goldschmidt OF Josh Reddick and RHP Elian Rodriguez to Atlanta for C Alex Jackson RHP Joe Smith and RHP Bryan Abreu to Minnesota for PTBNL or cash Free agent signings: OF Bryce Harper for $360M/14 years; 2019-2022 $40M/yr; opt out after 2022; 2023-2032 $20M/yr LHP Jake Diekman for $1M/1yr The opening day 40 man roster would then look like this: CF Springer 3B Bregman 2B Altuve RF Harper 1B Goldschmidt SS Correa C Realmuto LF Tucker DH White Bench: Gurriel, Marisnick, Herrman Rotation: Verlander, Cole, Paxton, McHugh, James Bullpen: Peacock, F Valdez, Devenski, Diekman, Harris, Rondon, Pressly, Osuna Optioned: Jackson, Kemp, J Arauz, Straw, Fisher, Armenteros, Thornton, Rodgers, Dykxhoorn, Bostick, J Hernandez, Guduan, McCurry, Deetz, R Ferrell 60 day DL: Martes The top position player prospects remaining after those trades would be Tucker, Beer, Nova, Straw, Matijevic, J Perez, Arauz, Pena, McKenna, and Jackson. Top pitching prospects would be Whitley, James, F Valdez, Armenteros, Schroeder, Ivey, Adcock, Ferrell, Bielak, and Thornton. The farm would rank in the 15-22 range but would rank in the bottom 5 once Tucker, Whitley, and James graduated, barring mass breakouts from other prospects. But that mlb roster would be the greatest on paper ever, featuring 10 potential mvp candidates. Payroll would be $185M, more than $20M below the luxury tax threshold. The only contracts on the books after 2020 would be Altuve and Harper.
Love all the trades but this will leave our minor leagues system very thin. If injury bugs hit the big league team like it did this year, we could be in for major trouble.
I would still feel pretty good about the AAA roster. Kemp, Straw, and Fisher would be fine bench players if something happened to a position player. Thornton, Armenteros, Whitley, Rodgers, Deetz, and Ferrell is a solid group of 6 mlb ready arms standing by. The farm would be reliant on 2017 drafted arms Ivey, Bielak, and Solomon, along with Brandon Bailey, Brett Adcock and others, to sustain the pitching pipeline. It would put a lot of pressure on the front office to nail their draft picks moving forward. But there would likely be a flood of extra picks coming with 3 stars reaching free agency in both 2019 (Goldschmidt, Verlander, Cole) and 2020 (Springer, Paxton, Realmuto). They could get the roster very near this quality and do a lot less damage to the farm by forgetting the Realmuto and Goldschmidt trades and signing Wilson Ramos and another good bat (Cruz, Brantley) instead. But that would further stretch the payroll, and would profile for 3-4 less wins. The roster I outlined above would project for a ridiculous 60+ fWAR, by far the most in history.
One thing about this. Harper at one point probably thought he was going to be a Houston Astro. Maybe that thought helps us sign him this offseason. You would have to assume that Lunhow doesn't make that deal without assurances that Harper would sign or extend with the stros.
Luhnow would certainly deal for Harper with zero likelihood of resigning him. The move was to add an elite player for the playoffs.
