Brown has picked up several under the radar relief pitchers and stayed/gotten under The CBT threshhold that apparently is Astros #1 priority. This is reasonable because it is the fastest way to add high ceiling talent into the system and realistic because the Astros are still the betting favorites to win the AL. It's not fair to call him a disaster before seeing how all these pitchers perform, just because he's not signing FAs that you want, could be worse, and cost more. It will be fair to judge him in October or November, maybe even August but not now.
Crane fudged last off-season pulling a Dan Snyder multitude of owner GMing and mow Crane keeps cheap streak alive.
Just setting it all up for Luhnow’s triumphant return to lead the next rebuild… albeit I wouldn’t expect this till around 2032.
Woke up to single digit Temperatures in the Hill Country this morning. Hope everyone is warm and safe.
I'm in Spokane, Washington and it was down to negative 7 Friday night and just above 0 yesterday. It's currently 0 today and the low will be about 6-8 degrees warmer each day until its in mid to high 30s with rain all next week. Craziest winter ever, butcI feel like I say that every year. Less than a month until pitchers and catchers report !!
People are flipping out over the offseason, but it's about what I expected. IMO we went into the offseason with 2 needs (backup catcher, reliever) and 2 could use, but dont need (left handed bat, depth starter). Money and lack of top tradeable prospects was always gonna make for a slow offseason. Where the organization currently is, we don't have the latitude to be armed to the teeth everywhere like a few years back. Literally every offensive position should be roughly as good or significantly better next season. With the addition of Verlander who is a proven workhorse, the inning load shouldn't be a problem. We had a 4.17 team starter ERA, going man by man I don't expect us to be noticeably worse than that, and we could be significantly better, granted there is some risk. The bullpen is the only step back right now. Graveman should be able to replace Stanek, but as of now we still are missing Neris (even if we bring him back he won't be as good as least season) and Maton. If none of our guys step up the pen could be an issue, but poor middle relief has be an issue for a million teams that won a World Series. Plus the offseason isn't over, Brown could still swing a trade for a competent middle reliever even if we don't add a free agent, you don't need top prospects to do that.
The off-season isn't over is the key. Lots of guys still out there and lots of teams haven't done a whole lot yet. Now, if we don't do anything else before the season starts then yes it was a bad off season. Some key teams are improving. You have to constantly be turning over the bottom of the roster and trying to find guys that are better.
I have a hard time seeing any deals that have been made by other teams and wishing Houston had done that. I wouldn’t want the Astros to have given Ohtani $700M or Hicks $44M or trade Hunter Brown for Chris Sale or anything else that has happened. I came into the offseason expecting them to sign a backup catcher (they signed the guy who would’ve been my #1 target), a reliever (they’ve added several guys via waiver claims and minor trades, but no significant moves, but only 1 guy who made sense for Houston has come off the board, and he found a place that would let him start), and maybe be opportunistic in the lefty bat and/or SP market. I do expect them to extend Altuve so at this point the main thing that could disappoint me is if opening day comes and they haven’t done that. The team is stacked as-is.
The thing that nobody is talking about is that Brown HAS addressed the bullpen. It's just not with expensive FA pitchers that typical fans know about. And because they are not established players the media has not reported them as heavily. Since September (after deadline for players to be eligible for 2023 post season) 1) Claimed Bennett Sousa off waivers who then retired 19 of the 20 batters for the Astros. He has 6 years of control and an option remaining and projects to be a positive member of the bullpen in 2024. 2) Claimed Oliver Ortega off waivers. He has 5 years of control and an option remaining and projects to compete for a bullpen role this season. 3) signed Kervin Castro to a minor league contract (was then lost in rule 5 draft) 4) signed Luis Contreras to a minor league contract. 27 year old has yet to reach MLB, having pitched in AA and AAA for Milwaukee last year. Fangraphs describes him as a "high floor depth arm" with a 90-92 mph swing and miss cutter and changeup. 5) signed Brailyn Marquez to a minor league contract. Only 24, he is a lefty with a 100+ mph fastball. Fangraphs had him the Cubs #20 prospect w/ a 40+ scouting grade in 2021. He pitched 1 game in 2020 and has had injury issues since. He did not pitch at all in 2021 or 2022 but got in 30.2 innings at 4 milb levels last year. 6 years of control and an option remaining. 6) traded for Dylan Coleman from the Royals. Had a very good rookie season pitching 68 innings w/ 2.78 ERA in Royals bullpen in 2022. Not as good last year, spending the majority of his time in AAA. He has 5 years of control and 2 options remaining. 7) signed Wander Suero to a minor league contract. Has nearly 4 years of MLB service and would have been arb eligible if he had not signed a minor league deal. Was pretty forgettable for the Dodgers in 8 innings last year after solid but unspectacular work in Washington's bullpen 2018-2021. Was pretty good in AAA for Dodgers last year after being pretty bad in AAA for the Angels in 2022. Has 3 years of control and an option remaining. 8) signed Taylor Scott to a minor league contract. Has pitched for 5 different MLB teams the past 5 seasons including 3 last year. Minor league numbers have been generally good including exceptional last year but has not had more than a 17 inning MLB trial in all that time. Has 5 years of control remaining but no options. 9) Claimed Declan Cronin off of waivers. Made MLB debut with 11 very bad innings last year after a very solid minor league career. His stuff is off the charts, hopefully the Astros can harness it. He has 6 years of control and 3 options remaining.
Yes they have done what they should in the bullpen. Hope Montero and/or Graveman bounces back. Backfill with a lot of interesting arms or else just turn it over to guys like Bielak and Seth Martinez who are gonna be just fine in the 7th and 8th man in the bullpen role. Hope Whitley can grow into a lock down leverage guy. If none of the above happens then go make a trade at the deadline
FYI @Wulaw Horn I listened to the most recent podcast and enjoyed it like I always do. I think I would have enjoyed it more if you had focused it more toward Astro needs like: "Astros lost Netus, Maton, and Stanek. These are the guys who are available that could work" and discuss them. "Astros could use an upgrade from Singleton as a LH bat, and improve the production vs RH pitching." Then talk about possibilities. Rather than list every FA, what they may make and why. Just a thought. Anyway, great job as always and keep it up.
Thanks. the reason we didn’t really astros focus is because we are both pretty convinced we aren’t going to do anything or if we do it will be around the margins. We already had our one where we engaged in fantasy and mentioned a bunch of bold moves the astros could do. Now we are at the point where I don’t think we are even going to bother iobradkng from singleton to vogelbach. we talked about maybe him or Gallo or waiting out some other platoon guys market collapsing like Peralta, but you run out of ways to say “I don’t think we are spending any money.” I’d like to be wrong because I think we could use a good LHB to take 300 AB’s away from Abreu and Meyers facing RHP but I just don’t think it’s happening.
We went way too long and way too sort of boring or without an overall point, but I was just low key amazed at how locked in Andrew was totally off the top of his head without having done the research (I out it all together). Really impressive and I just kept going trying to figure out where he was going to run out of knowledge and he just never did.
Most relief pitchers are very up and down from season to season. The elite ones are rare and are closers or set up men. Last season many of you wanted to get rid of Phil Maton, he had a very good season. Two years ago nobody thought Montero would pitch good enough to get a big 3 year deal. In 2021 Abreu was below average in 36 innings, then in 2022 he became elite. How about 2017 Devo was sub 1WHIP won 8 games and 4 saves in 80 innings, he has been below average for the most part since then. I feel good about the bullpen. Pressly is battle tested. Abreu could be the closer now and be elite. Graveman could have a better than career numbers but it least he is likely to be at this career averages as a 33 year old dude coming in around the 7th inning. Montero had his one career year but I believe he could rebound to be decent after last years troubles. He needs to keep it in the park and he will be nice in the 6th/7th. All the other arms are a long shot but there is a chance one of them sticks and figures it out for 55 innings and surprises the league. I like many of them, Brown has a good pool to pick from. The Astros have one of the deepest rotations in baseball. Framber and JV are true top of the rotation guys. Javier is close to being a top of the rotation guy and could make the leap. JP was very solid as a rookie. Urquidy is a good back of them rotation guy that can get on a good stretch and help carry the club for 6 weeks. Hunter pitched his first real full season as a starter, the stuff is there. He could jump like Javier now that he's used to the workload and the MLB routine. Lance is very unreaible and can't go deep in games often when healthy but can be effective as a starter. Garcia is 1st time off injury so I'm not figuring him in for much but he could turn in a good 2nd half. That's 8 starters with MLB experience. Dana Brown is probably going to make a trade from the starting rotation by trade deadline if anything for salary relief and getting a little bit younger on the farm system. He could easily pick up the missing link in the lineup, bench or bullpen by trading a starter. All the b****in' about nothing happening in FA is way out of line. This team just got a upgrade at catcher by free agency and moving Diaz into the starting role, when they already have an incredibly stacked lineup. Couple that with six starters to start the season and two more coming, two Elite Arms in the bullpen along with a couple decent guys this team doesn't need anything.
Unfortunately that's probably a pretty safe assumption. If I were running the Astros I still think my #1 move would be trading Urquidy to Bal for Ryan O'Neal and a prospect. Other than trading from bottom of the rotation or AAAA position players for a platoon/insurance 1B/ corner OF I would just let spring training determine the bottom 3 position players and bottom 3 bullpen arms for opening roster. Then hope someone like Leon, Dirden, Dubin have a huge 1st half in AAA and make themselves valuable on the roster or trade. Hopefully a guy who would provide positive value at the bottom of the bullpen or bench will "not have a chair when the music stops" and be such a value that Brown can't turn him down. On the whole I don't think the FA are worth the money considering the Astros have 9 starting mostly established players, 5+ SP, and 4+ bullpen spots in stone. Urquidy's 150 innings out of the #5 spot can be replaced by Bielak, Dubin, Arrighetti, and/or Gordon without much falloff, even if you already have France pitching a full load.
