Underestimating 3 years of Dana Brown rebuilding the farm system till the end of the 2025 season. This is where he could keep the window open for another 5-10 years. Core pieces will stay like Altuve and Tucker. I'm starting to get on board with trading Bregman or Tucker this offseason if extensions falter. That's the quickest way to ensure the team has more flexibility going forward. Let's not make the same mistake other teams make holding onto stars.
If you assume the farm and payroll flexibility can steadily replace the non-stars, you're really just trying to figure out how to replace the following guys: 2024: Altuve, Bregman 2025: Tucker, Valdez, Verlander* 2026: McCormick** 2027: Javier*** *the aging curve strongly suggests Verlander might not be a star by the end of the 2025 season **McCormick is playing like a star player this season, he may not project that way going forward ***Javier is a borderline star pitcher; Pena and Meyers are everyday players with star potential who are not playing like stars this season I fully expect Altuve to extend. And I’m just not worried about replacing borderline guys like McCormick, Javier, Pena, and Meyers. So for me the linchpins are Bregman, Tucker, and Valdez. I believe Houston probably has the money to extend one of them (Bregman or Valdez), but it would require a contract Crane has never approved before. If they don’t extend any of those 3, then they will be relying on the farm system to produce star players when none of their current prospects project to be that good.
I'd seriously look into trading Tucker this offseason. He will get more return than Bregman, as he has more and cheaper years of control, is younger, and is performing better. Trading Tucker this offseason should return a haul - I would guess two top 50 prospects + 2 more top 100 (or Astros' internal value equivalent). Hopefully infield prospects to replace Bregman and Abreu eventually. Next year's lineup: C Diaz/Maldonado 1B Abreu 2B Altuve 3B Bregman SS Pena LF Alvarez/McCormick CF McCormick/Meyers RF Hernandez (FA signing - 3 years / $55 million) DH Alvarez/Diaz/Abreu/Altuve Bench: Maldonado (resigned - 1 year / $4 million); Dubon; Meyers; Kessinger/Loperfido 2025: C Diaz 1B Abreu 2B Altuve (resigned to whatever he wants for as long as he wants to play) 3B Top 30 Prospect from Tucker trade SS Pena LF Alvarez/McCormick CF McCormick/Meyers RF Hernandez Bench: Maldonado (resigned - 1 year/$4 million); Dubon; Meyers; Kessinger/Loperfido 2026: C Diaz 1B Top 30 Prospect from Tucker trade 2B Altuve 3B Top 30 Prospect from Tucker trade SS Pena LF Alvarez/McCormick CF McCormick/Melton RF Hernandez Bench: Top 100 prospect from Tucker trade catcher; Top 100 prospect from Tucker trade infielder; Loperfido; Melton Could be a way to set up for success long term, assuming the Astros continue producing pitching organizationally as they have done historically.
Do you think it's a foregone conclusion that Tucker is gone in 2025 at this point? I just don't see a ton of optimism on this board for Tucker signing an extension, but given his overall impact and age, you think he'd be the priority over any of the other names on this list.
I think he’s gone. He’s playing like a $300M player and if he was gonna take a discount it would already be done, and Crane ain’t paying nobody $300M.
Tucker might be that guy though. If it happens, it's going to be because of Crane not wanting to let King Tuck go. He'd let Bregman go in a heartbeat to keep Tuck. Scenario: 1.) Bregman get's dealt 2.) Altuve takes paycut, Verlander retires, McCullers contract runs out 3.) Tucker and/or Valdez re-sign If #3 happens, no doubt in my mind this team is still making the playoffs every year.
I rethink JV pitches until he’s 45. I don’t think this is his last contract. I think he wins 300 games and is the last player to ever do that in MLB history. I hope it’s all with the Astros and we have him here through 2028. If we keep developing pitchers that are MOR for cheap I think we need to consider selling them off for parts. I’d love to trade Urquidy or Garcia for some infield prospects. Maybe JP France too. I would assume Altuve gets extended but not Bregman, and Abreu is under suspicion of being no longer good with how this year has played out. Having catcher set at (probably) and all star level for 5 more years is super valuable. I think the OzF is set until at least 28. I think the starting rotation is set through 28 or whenever Javier is up. Just IF that looks like a potential weak spot doing the 5 year projections.
If he stays healthy until the end of this deal, 285 or so wins is possible. Then it might take him 2-3 more years to reach 300 wins
If either Pena or Bregman have a monster Aug-Oct, I think it would make sense for Houston to gauge their trade value. If another team is willing to give up essentially 1/3 of a farm system (2 MLB top 75 prospects plus another 1-2 Org Top 10 level prospects) for one of those players, it might make sense to make a move and either use some money to backfill or give Dubon/Kessinger a shot at an everyday role.
I totally agree with Crane that the 10-year monster contracts are not good for anyone other than the player, it's to much money wrapped around to many years and inevitably the last few years are a charity case for a scrub who no one wants. Tucker is a stud and the Astros have had a few years of him being on the cheap BUT if you can load up by trading him you have to look at your options.
Just looking at trends in the world and free agency . . . no one will be taking a pay cut off of contracts today and contracts in the future will be significantly higher for talent. Great players that were looking for 30+ in the past few seasons will be looking for 40 or 50 per sooner rather than later. These contracts that are 250-400 in total will be bargains in a few years. I love projecting like anyone else, but it is so hard to do in comparsion to current numbers.
If the 140 IP isn't triggered then that's going to mean Verlander didn't have much of a season most likely which probably would not bode well for the Astros. I'm opening pictures 140 gets the next season and pitches the last year very solid in hopes of one more contract. He has stated he wanted to pitch as long as Ryan did if you could. All the odds are against that but sometimes things break through the right way.
5 year update: Maldy will still be catching 70% of the games as Dusty manages remotely from the nursing home. Julks will be the cleanup hitter
There is a reason why the Astros were very happy the Mets didn’t ask for Dezenzo - who they think potentially can be a good defensive third baseman.
He needs to show a mastery of AA pitching first. He has had an adjustment period but is starting to hit well at the AA level - two homers and 6 rbi tonight. Honestly if he is hitting AA pitching well by the end of the year, it will be a big success. My hope is that he is promoted to AAA this year and then opens next year in AAA. If he has a .900 OPS in AAA after 200 at bats they can try working him into their big league plans. When he comes up, he needs to play. He is someone I would be more patient with. They radically redid his swing and approach so that he could increase his contact rate - with the idea that he would eventually start to hit for power again…. And that is starting to happen but he has a lot of moving pieces. They are also working on his footwork at third. A lot of upside if he is properly developed and moved up at the appropriate pace. A big framed third baseman with plus power, that has some swing in miss in his game, but can draw a walk and is a good fielder is pretty valuable. Remember, he only has like 300 career at bats in the minor.
Some of you guys act like we don’t spend money ourselves and regardless we’ve seen where spending blindly has left NYY, SD, and NYM this season…
Jose Abreu and his 58 million dollar contract is the largest free agent contract we ever did since Crane took over. Before that it was Josh Reddick.
I love reading these posts and thinking about the future … but we should be VERY humble in believing in our ability to predict it effectively. We have had solid analytically-minded people projecting a window that will close two years out for almost 8 years now. Then things happen that change it - a trade for a star with control (Verlander, Grienke), emerging role players (Urquidy, Meyers, etc), emerging near-stars (Garcia, Peña, etc.), emerging actual stars (Tucker, Yordan, etc.). Todays team has almost no overlap with the 2017 team, and we all analyzed that one to death to determine when the window would close as that young core hit free agency. Some of the moves above were predicted, but most weren’t. Just this year we might be watching two multi-time All Stars emerge (Diaz, McCormick) … two players we knew were in the system but from whom very few were predicting this level of production even six months ago. And now we have a glut of SP that might be used to bring in another future near-star somewhere else we cannot predict. I have faith one way or another this trend will continue, nearly indefinitely. It doesn’t take 100 wins to make the playoffs anymore - the Astros should be competitive to get in for as long as this culture remains.
