2022 Houston Astros Thread

[TonyTexas 10508]

 

[runthebone 7967]

That lineup plus a JV start is good for...3 or 4, I bet

[tx 3 putt 76878]

[tx 3 putt 76878]

Soto is on the market. He shot down the contract offer from the nationals ($440mil) ….

The Nationals will reportedly entertain trade offers, setting the stage for what could be one of the biggest deals in sports history.

[tx 3 putt 76878]

I guess I should have looked at the last page 😂😂

[Wulaw Horn 19068]

As good a lineup as you could want i guess. 

[tx 3 putt 76878]

Chas will show up, he’s the next Myles Straw 

[tx 3 putt 76878]

[rvm96 1643]

2 hours ago, patrickdrinksbeer said:

if it was actually about prioritizing astros i would have no problem with it. i don’t buy that getting hit by a pitch on thursday and then playing one inning on tuesday presents any risk. i could be wrong.

[tx 3 putt 76878]

Two guys behind me haven’t shut the fuck up yet 

[Hank Chinaski 6314]

He turned down 15/$440. That’s…a little nuts. I think. I guess it’s possible he can string together some contracts that offer higher annual salaries…but holy hell. 

I said earlier that it would be almost impossible for Washington to get fair value for 2.5 years of Soto. That still may be true, but if he’s turning down $440 million…well maybe that changes the calculus a bit. It’ll still take a metric shit-ton of prospect value, probably a lot more than the Astros have. Sadly, teams like the Dodgers and Yankees have better farm systems right now. (And I love Soto; god I hope he doesn’t go to one of those teams.)

[tx 3 putt 76878]

Y’all keep talking shit about machete !!!!

[TonyTexas 10508]

Machete is no longer a defensive specialist. He’s now an offensive weapon. 

Edited July 16, 2022 by TonyTexas

[rvm96 1643]

What's up Space City haters?

[dr99 560]

Maldy should have bunted

[tx 3 putt 76878]

A Shipley’s stand in Minute Maid would kick ass 

[TonyTexas 10508]

 

[runthebone 7967]

First 5 hitters 0-9.  Not the score I would expect.

[runthebone 7967]

Loading them up for Machete = new strategy.

[Gut Wagon 8065]

Another 10K game. What a horse. 

[Wulaw Horn 19068]

1 hour ago, Hank Chinaski said:

He turned down 15/$440. That’s…a little nuts. I think. I guess it’s possible he can string together some contracts that offer higher annual salaries…but holy hell. 

I said earlier that it would be almost impossible for Washington to get fair value for 2.5 years of Soto. That still may be true, but if he’s turning down $440 million…well maybe that changes the calculus a bit. It’ll still take a metric shit-ton of prospect value, probably a lot more than the Astros have. Sadly, teams like the Dodgers and Yankees have better farm systems right now. (And I love Soto; god I hope he doesn’t go to one of those teams.)

Yeah- I mean you don’t need to think of it as 23 year old MVP. Nothing matter if he’s not getting extended other than 3 playoff runs of an MVP guy. Looking at it like that it will take a lot of prospects but he’s “only like got something like 80-120 million in surplus value (he already makes a lot of money and will probably make 25 and 30 or so the next two years in arbitration. 
as a for example Kyle Tucker probably has more surplus value than Soto throughout the rest of their club control. 
do I think they would take Tucker for Soto straight up?  Of course not. But the numbers say it works. 
yeah- it will be absolutely fascinating to see how it shakes out. 
also my guess is he’s not thinking about stringing it out into multiple contracts- my guess is he wants $500 between here and there and it wouldn’t be shocking if someone gave him 13 years 450 million as a 25 year old. With his 55 or 60 million that gets him to the $500 number. 
Also, apparently a lot of that deal was backloaded and had some deferred in there. 

Edited July 16, 2022 by Wulaw Horn

[tx 3 putt 76878]

He doesn’t sound like a locker room fit for this team 

[tx 3 putt 76878]

Y’all keep talking shit about Maton !!

Edited July 16, 2022 by tx 3 putt

[Gut Wagon 8065]

2 minutes ago, tx 3 putt said:

Y’all keep talking shot about Maton !!

Looks like we need to start badmouthing Tucker again. I really don't want him below .250 in the ASG. 

[runthebone 7967]

Maybe hit a homer so Altuve doesn't have to run.

[rvm96 1643]

On 7/12/2022 at 11:13 PM, tx 3 putt said:

fuckign maton, have to get one 

 

6 minutes ago, tx 3 putt said:

Y’all keep talking shit about Maton !!

So are you telling yourself to shut up?

[WBT 20561]

6 minutes ago, rvm96 said:

 

So are you telling yourself to shut up?

You new to this thread or something?

[Hank Chinaski 6314]

25 minutes ago, Wulaw Horn said:

Yeah- I mean you don’t need to think of it as 23 year old MVP. Nothing matter if he’s not getting extended other than 3 playoff runs of an MVP guy. Looking at it like that it will take a lot of prospects but he’s “only like got something like 80-120 million in surplus value (he already makes a lot of money and will probably make 25 and 30 or so the next two years in arbitration. 
as a for example Kyle Tucker probably has more surplus value than Soto throughout the rest of their club control. 
do I think they would take Tucker for Soto straight up?  Of course not. But the numbers say it works. 
yeah- it will be absolutely fascinating to see how it shakes out. 
also my guess is he’s not thinking about stringing it out into multiple contracts- my guess is he wants $500 between here and there and it wouldn’t be shocking if someone gave him 13 years 450 million as a 25 year old. With his 55 or 60 million that gets him to the $500 number. 
Also, apparently a lot of that deal was backloaded and had some deferred in there. 

Yeah. I’ll be surprised if he’s moved this season. But in the off-season I could see it. Cleveland, TB, NYY, LAD, NYM could be fits - good farm systems, teams who could win in next two years, and a few that have a shot at extending him. Could definitely see the Mets giving him a $500mm deal.

[rvm96 1643]

Just now, WBT said:

You new to this thread or something?

[Wulaw Horn 19068]

Maldonado up to 574 ops as of today. That is back from the dead of 350 or something like that around the end of May. 
If we got healthy LMJ, Brantley and Yordan) we are a Josh Bell trade away from being the best team we’ve had ever I think, even better than the 2019 team that I thought would be the best Astro team I ever saw. 
LMJ with 2 simulated innings. He said he’s ready for a rehab assignment. 

[Hank Chinaski 6314]

4 minutes ago, Wulaw Horn said:

 
If we got healthy LMJ, Brantley and Yordan) we are a Josh Bell trade away from being the best team we’ve had ever I think, even better than the 2019 team that I thought would be the best Astro team I ever saw. 
LMJ with 2 simulated innings. He said he’s ready for a rehab assignment. 

Edited July 16, 2022 by Hank Chinaski

[Wulaw Horn 19068]

2 minutes ago, Hank Chinaski said:

Yeah. I’ll be surprised if he’s moved this season. But in the off-season I could see it. Cleveland, TB, NYY, LAD, NYM could be fits - good farm systems, teams who could win in next two years, and a few that have a shot at extending him. Could definitely see the Mets giving him a $500mm deal.

Man it seems awful not to trade him at the deadline if you are moving him anyway. That destroys 25-35% of his value imo. 
also- he might accidentally help them win a couple games down the stretch.  Which doesn’t help their draft position (doesn’t hurt as much with the lotto I guess). 
Maybe you could get more at the winter meetings with a 2 month long auction I guess, but the deadline feels like you will have enough buyers available. 
Cleveland is pretty interesting. That’s a shitty division and a cheap team, but he wouldn’t break the bank financially. Very interesting. Tampa as well. 

[tx 3 putt 76878]

11 minutes ago, Hank Chinaski said:

Yeah. I’ll be surprised if he’s moved this season. But in the off-season I could see it. Cleveland, TB, NYY, LAD, NYM could be fits - good farm systems, teams who could win in next two years, and a few that have a shot at extending him. Could definitely see the Mets giving him a $500mm deal.

TB ?😂😂😂😂

[Wulaw Horn 19068]

Just now, Hank Chinaski said:

I loved that team. They won 108. This one might win more. 

Yordan wasn’t Yordan yet. Urquidy was prominently involved in the WS and Greinke was already a two times through the order guy.
 

If LMJ is as good as he was last year by the time playoffs come around I’d happily take JV/LMJ/Framber/Javier and this bullpen over JV/Cole/Greinke/Urquidy and that bullpen. 
 

if a bell gets added the lineups are really damn close. 
 

it’s on the table is all I’d say and I’d have had zero belief such a thing would be even considered at the beginning of the year and I was incredibly bullish saying 98 wins and a double digit decimation of the division. 

[Hank Chinaski 6314]

Just now, tx 3 putt said:

TB ?😂😂😂😂

They have the best farm system per Fangraphs, so they have the prospect capital, and Soto won’t cost that much before free agency. They are already good and should be for a while. 

[henrygandorf 29189]

so soto turns down 15-440.  let's have a side conversation right quick.

if he signs that deal, what is the % that he's a washington national in 2037?  it's not zero, but it's close. 

signing that deal with deferred $ makes him really hard to trade as he gets older which just creates trouble all around.  has a big long deal ever worked out for the team?

[TonyTexas 10508]

43 minutes ago, Wulaw Horn said:

will probably make 25 and 30 or so the next two years in arbitration

Are you talking total for his 2 remaining arb years? Because he’s making $17M in arb1. He’ll blow away Betts’ $27M record arb salary by arb3. 

[Wulaw Horn 19068]

3 minutes ago, TonyTexas said:

Are you talking total for his 2 remaining arb years? Because he’s making $17M in arb1. He’ll blow away Betts’ $27M record arb salary by arb3. 

No I’m talking 25 next year and 30 in year 3. Maybe it’s 23 and 33 or something like that but he’s going to make somewhere between 55 and 65 million over the next two year combined. 

Edited July 16, 2022 by Wulaw Horn

[Wulaw Horn 19068]

10 minutes ago, Hank Chinaski said:

They have the best farm system per Fangraphs, so they have the prospect capital, and Soto won’t cost that much before free agency. They are already good and should be for a while. 

I hadn’t thought about TB or Cleveland before you said it but both make a lot for sense. Both are coin flip playoff teams so he would be way more valuable to them than us or the Yanks or the Dodgers down the stretch, when we know we have the division in hand. 2 wins down the stretch could be the difference between playoffs and going home for them. 
you or I could play RF down the stretch for the Astros and we are still probably winning the division. 

[Hank Chinaski 6314]

2 minutes ago, henrygandorf said:

signing that deal with deferred $ makes him really hard to trade as he gets older which just creates trouble all around.  has a big long deal ever worked out for the team?

I guess it depends on how long we’re talking about. The A-Rod one was good.

These 10+ year deals that guys are signing these days are generally in their early/mid 20s. Those could work. But the deals that long for guys in their 30s (Pujols, Cabrera) were dumb and I doubt we’ll see those again. 

[Wulaw Horn 19068]

One bright spot- if we are serious about Castillo and the Yanks trade for Soto you’d think that would take them out of the Castillo sweepstakes. 

[rvm96 1643]

9 minutes ago, Wulaw Horn said:

I loved that team. They won 108. This one might win more. 

Yordan wasn’t Yordan yet. Urquidy was prominently involved in the WS and Greinke was already a two times through the order guy.
 

If LMJ is as good as he was last year by the time playoffs come around I’d happily take JV/LMJ/Framber/Javier and this bullpen over JV/Cole/Greinke/Urquidy and that bullpen. 
 

if a bell gets added the lineups are really damn close. 
 

it’s on the table is all I’d say and I’d have had zero belief such a thing would be even considered at the beginning of the year and I was incredibly bullish saying 98 wins and a double digit decimation of the division. 

Urquidy won his world series stert with 0 ER given up so I wouldn't use that as a negative. Also, expecting LMJ to be back to his playoff pwak last year is tough to do before he's even pitched a game this year.

 

5 minutes ago, henrygandorf said:

so soto turns down 15-440.  let's have a side conversation right quick.

if he signs that deal, what is the % that he's a washington national in 2037?  it's not zero, but it's close. 

signing that deal with deferred $ makes him really hard to trade as he gets older which just creates trouble all around.  has a big long deal ever worked out for the team?

Jeter had a 10 year deal with the Yankees that I would assume they are happy with.  Idk about the Votto one. Every other one has ended in a trade, retiring early, or getting DFA'd. There are a bunch of current ones though like Mookie and Harper that have positive early returns.

[rvm96 1643]

2 minutes ago, Hank Chinaski said:

I guess it depends on how long we’re talking about. The A-Rod one was good.

These 10+ year deals that guys are signing these days are generally in their early/mid 20s. Those could work. But the deals that long for guys in their 30s (Pujols, Cabrera) were dumb and I doubt we’ll see those again. 

Cabrera only signed an 8 year deal

[Hank Chinaski 6314]

Just now, rvm96 said:

Cabrera only signed an 8 year deal

Sure, and it was still at least 3 years too long. 

[henrygandorf 29189]

1 minute ago, rvm96 said:

Jeter had a 10 year deal with the Yankees that I would assume they are happy with.  Idk about the Votto one. Every other one has ended in a trade, retiring early, or getting DFA'd. There are a bunch of current ones though like Mookie and Harper that have positive early returns.

yep.  there are also some very very early returns (tatis, wander) riddled with injury concerns.

just keep thinking how much it sucks for the team.  in the past, you could be like, oh, no problem, we'll just trade him later if we need to.  but imagine trying to offload soto and his $45mm+ contract.  that's what costs you prospects and limits the upside of your club.

[Wulaw Horn 19068]

1 minute ago, Hank Chinaski said:

I guess it depends on how long we’re talking about. The A-Rod one was good.

These 10+ year deals that guys are signing these days are generally in their early/mid 20s. Those could work. But the deals that long for guys in their 30s (Pujols, Cabrera) were dumb and I doubt we’ll see those again. 

Yep. The Harper and Manchado deals both look terrific right now (player performance for the money perspective I mean) and Betts looks fine as well. 
10 year deal isn’t bad if you are giving it to a 26 year old (25 for Soto). 
Does anyone think Machado would have a hard time getting 6/180 this off-season (that’s what’s left). 
And that’s on top of likely 18 war in his first 4 seasons. Which is 50,000,000 on surplus value. So, San Diego only needs 13 WAr (after this year) for the rest of his contract to break even on that deal- seems like a layup. 
 

Bryce Harper deal is even better so far. 

[henrygandorf 29189]

also i think we need to separate the deals where the player is making chump change and you're buying him out of his early peak years and making him wealthy vs free agent type deals where a new team sets the market - a team who never even benefitted from those cheap, early years.  the days of cheap soto are already over, as has been discussed.

[Wulaw Horn 19068]

7 minutes ago, rvm96 said:

Urquidy won his world series stert with 0 ER given up so I wouldn't use that as a negative. Also, expecting LMJ to be back to his playoff pwak last year is tough to do before he's even pitched a game this year.

 

Jeter had a 10 year deal with the Yankees that I would assume they are happy with.  Idk about the Votto one. Every other one has ended in a trade, retiring early, or getting DFA'd. There are a bunch of current ones though like Mookie and Harper that have positive early returns.

I had If fully healthy as an absolute predicate for that to even be considered. 
I’m aware of how awesome Urquidy’s start was. It goes down with the great Brandon Backe in his playoff run. But, matching up those teams 10/10 you’d take All Star Framber and Javier over old man Greinke and rookie Urquidy. 
 

I’m not throwing shade at that team. I’m not making a prediction about this team. I’m saying 90 games in its on the table for Tia to be the greatest Astro team of all time and I’m really really happy about that. 

[Wulaw Horn 19068]

4 minutes ago, henrygandorf said:

also i think we need to separate the deals where the player is making chump change and you're buying him out of his early peak years and making him wealthy vs free agent type deals where a new team sets the market - a team who never even benefitted from those cheap, early years.  the days of cheap soto are already over, as has been discussed.

Yep. Can’t even compare Wander or Tatis bc of what you are saying. Apples and oranges. 

[Wulaw Horn 19068]

Anyone see the stat that the Astros were 148 Outs above average on defense since 2018? And the next closest team was like 46?  We’ve talked a bit lately about how horrific the defense has been lately and how spoiled we’ve been, and that stat really drives it home. 

Edited July 16, 2022 by Wulaw Horn