While I agree with sentiment that Bregman is likely more valued than Tucker. He's in AA. As such, he's likely up next June.
Sometimes you need to make judgments based on pedigree and the eye test. Although you would prefer them to be good rather than bad (because good stats are highly sensitive for future success), minor league stats tend to be fairly nonspecific for major league quality. The examples you provide fit my point: Singleton, White, Reed all dominated the minor leagues, but once they came up the eye test really damned them. The long, slow, looping swings of Singleton and Reed did not perform in the majors, and the unimpressive body of White along with his limited range will continue to make it difficult to find him a position to play on the field, even if he has all the heart in the world which I think he does. When you combine minor league success, a high draft rating, AND a standout eye test though...that's what Kyle Tucker is. #5 overall pick, best HS hitter in his draft, absolutely pure lefty swing, plus legs on the basepaths , and a cannon arm that is well suited for a career in RF...well that's a guy with perennial all star potential. Bregman even though he was the #1 prospect in baseball for a few weeks has some physical limitations that will always hamper him in the hot corner. I like the guy and completely give him a pass for this year, his sophomore slump, but just looking at his body he's going to have only a certain kind of ideal player as his representative ceiling. Pedroia. Kinsler. Altuve. If we had 2B open for him it would be no story at all, just plug him in there for the next decade. But we don't, unless you want to sell high on Altuve and miss a potential run at Pete Rose's hits record. Bregman is too small to be the definitive answer at 3B. If there's a team out there that values him as highly as we do, given his youth, projectability, and contract status, then to me I'm open to making a swap for him because another team could monetize his value as a secondbasemen better than we can. In turn we could use that value in starting pitching or elsewhere while testing out our other myriad prospects with more length and power at the position (Moran, JD Davis, and Perez who we just drafted). But Kyle Tucker, a potential Shawn Green?! You let that one play out and profit a thing the major league level.
So who goes to 3B? And I just don't have the experience to administer the eye test, but I don't trust it. And do you think he will be up next June? Because we have 2 OFers right now, but I was under the impression he was gonna be another year, in which case we just go get another OF. Finally, if Tucker is so good and passes the eye test, but not necessary right now on this team, then send him for an even better player than Bregman could get..
Marwin and Yuli can play third among other positions. You call up Moran, a former first rounder himself, and see what you got. He's a different player than the guy last year, just like Fisher he grew a bushy flaming red beard, so that explains his power surge. He's long and strong, your prototypical 3B body, and if we never see what he's going to be then we risk losing him for nothing when he meets his service time or his options run out. If it works out, fantastic. If not, you got two other highly regarded 3B in the pipeline in Davis and Joe Perez. One thing that can't be ignored is that our entire AAA lineup is stuck right now. There's no place on the major league team for any of them to crack thru. Either we package them in a trade to upgrade the pitching staff, or we trade them off to a team that can give us another Frances Martes Yordan Alvarez Jonathan Arauz type lotto pick, or we risk losing them for nothing Deshields style. If you hold onto Bregman I still feel like we need some mechanism to get proper value for all these corner infielders in our system. I get the Bregman hype; he was a former #2 pick and torched the minors. But to a certain extent I also don't get it. What's his ceiling? A high OBP and 20 homers at best. I know we said the same thing about Altuve and he has shattered all expectations since 2012, but how likely are you to catch lightning in a bottle twice? To date Bregman hasnt done much in the majors to legitimize the hype.
Other than the "eye test" how is Tucker's hype any different other than the fact that he was picked AFTER Bregman? Literally less than a year ago, it was Bregman that was the untouchable godsend, and now you are willing to deal him for the next guy in line? You are right, minors are stacking up right now, that is because our team is damn near set, stop hording the might-be's and sell them for Pitching and maybe an OF that is better than Tucker and in the league now. Why is Tucker lightning in a bottle but Bregman can't be? I don't really care about prototypical size... Altuve is smaller than the whole league and Brock Osweiler was a prototypical QB size. Finally, on legitimizing the hype, after going 0-32 or whatever, Bregman had a pretty stellar end of last year. And he isn't even doing terrible this year, sorry he isn't Mike Trout by year 2...
Yes our team is stacked, so much so that we will be devastated by the departure of a .700 OPS hitter who can't spear any balls down the third base line because he's 5'8.
Bergman is 17th best hitter by RC+ and 18th at OPS at 3B. His defense has been bad this year, but has tools to be a better than average 3B defensively. He's one of 14 youngest position players in MLB getting regular PAs. These are highly valuable. I expect he'll hit better and get to be about the 10th best 3B.
Altuve can't go anywhere till 2020 at the earliest. 3 years is a long time for plenty to happen, and to possibly work something out prior.
Jonathan arauz is the altuve insurance. Bregman and altuve timelines intersect too much to keep bregman solely for insurance.
Right.. he has 2 more years after this season at an affordable 6.5 mil per season. You control Bregman until 2023. Altuve signed with Boras probably in part because he cost himself so much signing that extension. So that means you either over pay him or trade him before he hits free agency. If I am the Astros I lock down Keuchel and see if you can get a long term deal done with Correa. Altuve will be 29/30 years old when he is a free agent. Robinson Cano got a 10 year 240 million dollar deal at age 31. That contract will be 6 years old when Altuve hits free agency. The way contracts keep going up Altuve could EASILY command a similar deal. I think 8 years 200 million is where it could end up. I don't believe you give Altuve that kind of long term deal. A good portion of his game is based on speed with about 15% of his hits being infield hits plus his stolen bases. Speed tends to go first as players age.
If the Astros didn't play in the AL, i'd agree... but Altuve projects to be a natural DH once he loses some of his speed and fielding ability. His contact tool has always remained consistent. Power still can go up as he hits his early to mid 30's. With that, his selectiveness has slowly improved as well. I'd actually pay him before I pay Keuchel. Ideally, they try and work something out for everybody... or they just win the damn thing multiple times over the next 3-4 years, giving them all sorts of financial flexibility to spend bigger. He's still on track to be a HOF as an Astro... those don't come around too often.
I hope Crane keeps Altuve. I think he'll be able to stay at 2B for a while. Altuve has just become such a great player.
I like the 2B Houston got in the 4th?5th rd. Didn't Callis say he was a top steal at that point of the draft. This organization is super deep and Martes, Fisher, Paulino are making solid contribution
I would now hope we do everything possible to keep Altuve and Correa together for the duration of their careers in Houston. Or at least as long as St Louis kept Pujols. We need more players in cooperstown with Astros caps on.
Wait a minute, are we really trying to say Bregman is a bad 3B defensively? That couldn't be more wrong.
We're saying he's not a prototypical 3B. If we didn't have Altuve, would you rather have Bregman at 3B or 2B given the numbers he's put up so far and what you project him to put up?
Yep. Altuve is the one player Houston needs to pony up to keep pretty much no matter the cost. He's the best player on the best team they've ever had. He's on track to be a hall of famer. Keuchel, Springer, and the rest (outside of maybe Correa) can be allowed to walk. But Altuve needs to be an Astro for life.
http://www.foxsports.com/mlb/story/houston-astros-trade-rumors-062117 Assessing Astros’ trade needs as baseball’s best team faces high cost of title dreams Spoiler At 48-24, the Houston Astros have won twice as many games as they’ve lost, they have a 12-game lead in the AL West that is the biggest in baseball and they are so sure they have a World Series-capable team that they will add not one but two pitchers before the July 31 trading deadline. That may sound counterintuitive, but it's analogous to the 2016 Cubs, who entered last July with an 11-game lead in the NL Central and left with Aroldis Chapman, causing president Theo Epstein to issue his famous reasoning, “If not now, when?” Like the '16 Cubs, the '17 Astros are salting away the division in midseason and have never won a World Series in our lifetimes—in fact, they’ve never won one—a confluence of fortunes that emboldens them. Merely making the playoffs is nothing but a participation medal at this point. They need to invest in winning the last game of the year, which means they will have to make trades, as Chicago did, that will hurt. The fertile Houston farm system must be tapped next month to fill the two obvious holes on what otherwise is a complete team: a starting pitcher and a lefthanded reliever. In a perfect world—and in an indication of how high they're shooting—the Astros would love to add Mets ace Jacob deGrom, but there is no indication New York would even consider moving their one reliable starter who still has three years of arbitration control. The usual rumored pitchers for sale—and it's all rumors; substantive talks don't really take place until next month—all give Houston pause. The A’s Sonny Gray has been inconsistent, the Pirates’ Gerrit Cole isn't the same strikeout pitcher, and the White Sox’ Jose Quintana carries a 5.07 ERA, which is more of a P.R. problem because the Astros know his stuff and his peripherals indicate he's much closer to his usual elite reliability. In general, Houston wants a pitcher who can start one of the first three games of a postseason series—joining lefthander Dallas Keuchel and righty Lance McCullers, if not pitching in front of them—and a lefthanded specialist, like the Padres’ Brad Hand, who can be dropped into a big spot in the playoffs to face lefthanded hitters or, for instance, turn around Cleveland's switch-hitters. The Astros prefer to keep their major league core intact, which means uber-reliever Chris Devenski isn't going anywhere. The club probably will have to dip into its top four prospects, pitchers Francis Martes and David Paulino and outfielders Kyle Tucker and Derek Fisher. Tucker was recently promoted to Double A, while Martes, Paulino and Fisher, in coincidental cameos, are on the big league roster because of openings caused by injuries. That Martes and Paulino are chips that can help Houston win the World Series may be the culmination to an amazing scouting story. In 2013, two seasons after the Astros lost 106 games, one season after they lost 107 games and the year they would lose 111 more, Kevin Goldstein, who had been on the job as a scouting director for only a matter of months, brought an idea to general manager Jeff Luhnow about what to do with the team's pro scouting plans. The idea went something like this: “We're not going to be good in the immediate future, so why should we be scouting major league players and even Triple A players the way everybody does it? Let's devote our resources to seeing players further down the ladder. Let's go to the back fields. Let's own the back fields.” On one of those back fields in Lakeland, Fla., in the spring of 2013, Houston's pro scouts noticed a tall, skinny teenage righthander in the Detroit system. Four months later, as the trade deadline neared, Dave Dombrowski, then the Tigers' president, was looking to add a reliever for the stretch run. He called Luhnow and asked for veteran Jose Veras. Luhnow remembered the kid from the back fields of Lakeland and asked Dombrowski about David Paulino in return. “I don't know,” Dombrowski said. “I'll have to check with my people. I'll call you back.” A bit later, Dombrowski called back Luhnow. “I'm sorry. You're not going to like what I have to tell you,” Dombrowski said. “What's that?” “He's having Tommy John surgery.” “I know,” Luhnow said matter-of-factly. His scouts already had the intelligence on Paulino's elbow. “That doesn't matter to us.” The deal was done. Luhnow traded a journeyman reliever for a 19-year-old kid with a blown-out elbow, one who had pitched only 39 professional innings, was 6’5″ and 175 pounds and threw 91 mph. Today Paulino is 6’7″, weighs 228 pounds, throws 94 mph with the added deception that comes from having the highest release point in baseball (slightly more than seven feet off the ground) and is in the Houston rotation, having just throttled Boston on Saturday for his first major league win. Twelve months after finding a hidden gem in Paulino, the Astros pulled a similar heist. The Marlins reached the 2014 trade deadline one game under .500 and 4 ½ games out of the wild card. They foolishly thought they were good enough to be a postseason team, so, after making calls on ace starters David Price, Jon Lester and John Lackey, they asked Luhnow for pitcher Jarred Cosart. The Astros were 22 ½ games out. They were a willing seller, and a deal was reached. The trade news reports all mentioned infielder Colin Moran and outfielder Jake Marisnick as the key pieces going back to Houston. Nobody said much about the 18-year-old kid included in the deal, Francis Martes, whom the Astros first noticed on a back field in spring training and asked for as a throw-in in the trade. Martes owned a 5.18 ERA in rookie ball. But the kid who was throwing 90 when the Marlins signed him a few weeks before his 17th birthday had hit 97 mph by the time of the trade. Now Martes is Houston's top prospect, with a breaking ball, a feel for changing speeds and a competitive fire that inspire comparisons to the Giants’ Johnny Cueto. And Marisnick has developed surprising power while showing the elite defensive skills Houston knew it was getting. With Keuchel, McCullers, Collin McHugh and Charlie Morton all injured (and all should be back before the All-Star break, though Houston, because of its big lead, is debating whether to extend Keuchel's rest from a sore neck until after the break), Paulino and Martes are holding down two spots in the rotation. The sloppy version of the Astros' rebuild blueprint is that they “tanked” to get high draft picks. That ignores how they blew not one but two number one picks (pitchers Mark Appel and Brady Aiken, neither of whom are still in their system), as well as how their current roster has only five homegrown drafted players (Keuchel, McCullers, shortstop Carlos Correa, third baseman Alex Bregman and outfielder George Springer), how they succeeded on a pro scouting level (Martes, Paulino, Marisnick and McHugh) and how they expanded their analytical-based plan to add veteran leadership (DH Carlos Beltran, catcher Brian McCann and outfielder Josh Reddick). “What gets overlooked is this team is a case of young guys growing up,” manager A.J. Hinch said. “[Second baseman Jose] Altuve, Correa, Springer . . . these guys have been part of three winning teams now. They're all grown up, and people lose sight of that because of the veteran guys we added. And those guys do deserve credit. “Reddick is the one guy who doesn't get enough credit. Beltran is like a royal. He's so regal. He gives you that presence. McCann is the lovable guy who's so funny and always so happy. Everybody wants to be around him. “Reddick is the red ass. He's the guy who's going to make everybody sit up straight and play the game right. He's on George all the time if George lets up at all.” More practically, the veterans give the added lefthanded pop the team needed and have helped change the team's offensive profile for the better. The Astros had bought into the idea that strikeouts are just another way of making an out. Over the previous five years they ranked every year among the three worst teams in baseball at making contact....
Man, did you see him snag that line drive last night? After watching Gurriel drop a pop up early in the year I say we switch them at 3B right now...
