At least he doesn’t think he is so smart that he can get cute in interviews and screw up. Brown was known for being a guy not to screw with while at Toronto and Atlanta. Nice guy but would lose it. Seems like with the Astros, when it comes to handling the media he just smiles and says absolutely nothing of substance like a lot of GM’s. He gets the farm system humming again he cab punch random fans for all I care - I prefer it to the fake nice guy routine.
It depends on whether you believe in the adjustments he made or you think it’s a fluke. The stuff is real but he was bad for years. Last year down the stretch he was striking out 2 hitters an inning.
Seems like at least one other move would be on the horizon. In adding Verdugo, Grisham, and Soto, they now have 5 OF/DH who should be guaranteed opening day roster spots (Judge, Soto, Stanton, Verdugo, Grisham), plus a big group of big league ready young OF in Dominguez, Florial, Cabrera, Pereira, and Jones. I’m assuming they are going to make a trade flipping some young OF for pitching.
They sound confident regarding Yamamoto but he's unproven but most expect him to be legit. If he is, a Cole-Yamamoto is a great 1-2 punch. I wonder how bad the Mets wants him though. Does the owner say f it and offer way more than others?
I thought Stephenson would be a great target for Houston until I saw sites predicting he’d get $30-$40M. Anything more than $20M guaranteed probably carries too much risk for the Astros.
I think they have a good shot of landing Yamamoto. Steve Cohen went to Japan last week to meet with him.
The Yankees paid a heavy price for Soto. They gave up 2-3 long term MLB starting pitchers for one year of Soto… Thorpe is a top 50-100 prospect to me. Yankees will likely sign a Japanese star or maybe make a deal for someone like Glasnow…. Some big names but they really screwed their pitching depth over the next 5 years. I consider this at worst a push for the Astros. Soto in Dallas or the Dodgers scares me more than NY.
Astros have in the last 6 months l tried to trade for Josh Hader …. are willing to sign Hader at a good price… have made an offer to Hicks… are trying to get Stephenson… tried to trade for Matt Moore…. Traded for Graveman Sounds to me like Brown REALLY wants a leverage reliever… and that is with Pressly and Abreu on the team and McCullers or Garcia going to the pen.
Soto: 1 yr of 6.5 WAR @$33M est. Grisham: 2 yrs : 2.3 WAR CF $4.9M arb est 2024. For: Michael King 2 yrs of 2 WAR SP $2.6. arb est 2024. Drew Thorpe: mlbpipeline 55 grade #99 overall. Fangraphs 45 grade Yankees #5/#234 prospect on big board. Jhony Brito: graduated from prospect status in 2023. Was Fangraphs 40+ grade Yankees #14 prospect. Randy Vasquez: mlbpipeline 45 grade. Becomes Padres #15. Fangraphs 40+ grade Yankees #10/#416 big board prospect Kyle Higashioka 1 yr: 0.6 WAR@$2.3M est This really makes a Kyle Tucker trade next offseason very interesting.
I can’t even begin to imagine how hard mlb and announcers will be slurping the Yankees dicks now with Soto and judge.
