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24/25 Astros Offseason thread

Wulaw Horn

By Wulaw Horn
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Jshep34
Jshep34

Lilshep took a knee to face on play at home while playing catcher. Removed mask and kod slid knee first into his head. How he wasn't knocked out or eye sight damage is beyond a blessing. Stayed in ga

runthebone
runthebone

I definitely worry that other guys will get rusty after McCullers vacuums up 300 or so innings.

Scraps
Scraps

I can handle the Yankees if Dominguez is part of the deal just for the meltdown our resident Yankees goober would have And then have Tucker do the same thing to them that Soto just did next offseaso

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YChang

YChang 3525

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Admittedly I don’t keep up with FA landscape, but the availability of 3rd baseman to sign must be awful if they’re prioritizing to resign Alex for that much. What am I missing? It doesn’t seem to me that he makes the Astros that much better especially with his slow starts and recent playoff performance. 

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Snake Diggity

Snake Diggity 4678

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There’s lots of money out there.  Some teams have clarity on the tv money now, some teams have new ownership who don’t care about turning profit.  The FA market is very thin for position players and they’re all represented by the same guy.  It wouldn’t shock me if Bregman ended up with $230M now.  Astros need to stay away unless Crane is going to be willing to consistently field $275M+ payrolls until Altuve retires.

The Astros will be good without Bregman and could even be great if they pivot to the right guys.  There may not be “bargains” anymore but there are guys who will produce nearly what Bregman does over the next 2-3 seasons who will be a fraction of the cost.

Edited by Snake Diggity
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Snake Diggity

Snake Diggity 4678

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It’s really hard to speculate on Houston’s moves with so much uncertainty on free agent and trade prices as well as uncertainty in Crane’s willingness to raise payroll.  I don’t want Crane giving Bregman $230M if he’s not going to continue to raise the roof each year.  Same, I don’t want him giving another 1B in his mid 30s a big contract.  If Crane’s not gonna pony up the money to make up for his shitty free agent signings (and make up for the fallout of losing all those draft picks for the sign stealing penalty) then Houston is best served plugging holes with upside plays.  Polanco is probably a decent risk at 3B.  If Bellinger wouldn’t be an attitude problem and not cost prospects (with Cubs eating some of the 2026 risk) he is a very very good fit for the roster.  I actually think Alex Verdugo could be a good fit for extending Houston’s lineup.  Depending on the trade market, guys like Burger, Baty, Lowe, and others could be good values.

Bottom line is that I think Houston could still field one of the 3 best teams in the AL even if they completely opt out of the top tiers of the free agent market.

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HtownHorn

HtownHorn 15186

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2 hours ago, YChang said:

Admittedly I don’t keep up with FA landscape, but the availability of 3rd baseman to sign must be awful if they’re prioritizing to resign Alex for that much. What am I missing? It doesn’t seem to me that he makes the Astros that much better especially with his slow starts and recent playoff performance. 

This is another Crane flex on his baseball ops team. You made your offer, Bregman said no, move on.

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hornmpa96

hornmpa96 2650

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I don’t want the team to overspend on Bergman. However, it’s hard to put a value on the different intangibles he brings to the club. For example, Bregman turned Hunter Brown’s season around based on conversations around pitch selection, etc.

If he gets $200 million from another club, it’s adios - but I don’t think he’s getting that.

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Storm the Field

Storm the Field 5329

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Re: Polanco

Meh, no thanks. Coming off an atrocious season where he batted a career-low .213 and posted a career-low .651 OPS while striking out 30% of the time and rarely getting on base. He was a ~4.5 WAR guy in '19 and '21 but has been declining at the plate for 3 straight seasons, and he's a mediocre defender to boot.

We're in a worse situation than we realize if we're seriously looking to replace Bregman with a flame-out like Polanco that is significantly inferior both offensively and defensively.

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LCHorn

LCHorn 2739

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9 minutes ago, tx 3 putt said:

so what’s the plan after losing bregman, and trading framber + tucker ?

who’s a free agent next year to make up tucker’s numbers ?

It’s only a little better than this year’s third base free agent options.  You’re going to prefer a trade candidate.  

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Wulaw Horn

Wulaw Horn 19517

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10 minutes ago, tx 3 putt said:

so what’s the plan after losing bregman, and trading framber + tucker ?

who’s a free agent next year to make up tucker’s numbers ?

Trade tucker, Framber and Presley to BMore for Mayo and whoever else you can get. Sign Walker. Sign a LHH OF to platoon. Hope Matthews is good. Call it a day. 

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tx 3 putt

tx 3 putt 78278

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4 minutes ago, Wulaw Horn said:

Trade tucker, Framber and Presley to BMore for Mayo and whoever else you can get. Sign Walker. Sign a LHH OF to platoon. Hope Matthews is good. Call it a day. 

 

walker to yankees is my call. diaz is 1st next season 

sign profar 

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Macklemore

Macklemore 2916

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Crane is not serious about winning if he lets Bergman walk. This team is done without him. It’s telling that Crane can’t sign a single American born player (other than Hader) to a long term deal and has only done so with guys from Venezuela and Cuba. He’s not willing to pay market rates and is not willing to have a payroll commensurate with being in one of the biggest media markets in this country.

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LCHorn

LCHorn 2739

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51 minutes ago, Wulaw Horn said:

Trade tucker, Framber and Presley to BMore for Mayo and whoever else you can get. Sign Walker. Sign a LHH OF to platoon. Hope Matthews is good. Call it a day. 

I’m good with all of that but I think Mayo ends up in right and we’ll need a third baseman found elsewhere.  It’s all fantasy, anyway.  Crane’s balls went with Luhnow in the divorce settlement.  
 

57 minutes ago, tx 3 putt said:

diaz is 1st next season 

sign profar 

I think there’s one person here and one person on Crawfish boxes that’s compelled to say “Diaz to first” like he’s the poor victim of a gypsy curse.  
 

I’ve hated Profar ever since he was the BA #1 prospect in the Rangers organization and that’s the kind of signing that ends with the GM getting fired.  Unless that’s actually part of your plan, in which case touché.  

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David Dennison

David Dennison 19316

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57 minutes ago, Macklemore said:

Crane is not serious about winning if he lets Bergman walk. This team is done without him. It’s telling that Crane can’t sign a single American born player (other than Hader) to a long term deal and has only done so with guys from Venezuela and Costa Rica. He’s not willing to pay market rates and is not willing to have a payroll commensurate with being in one of the biggest media markets in this country.

He's not willing to sign long term deals.

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Snake Diggity

Snake Diggity 4678

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1 hour ago, Macklemore said:

Crane is not serious about winning if he lets Bergman walk. This team is done without him. It’s telling that Crane can’t sign a single American born player (other than Hader) to a long term deal and has only done so with guys from Venezuela and Costa Rica. He’s not willing to pay market rates and is not willing to have a payroll commensurate with being in one of the biggest media markets in this country.

Crane has maintained top 5 payrolls for several years.  He spends money, just not on long term deals.

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LCHorn

LCHorn 2739

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9 hours ago, Snake Diggity said:

Crane has maintained top 5 payrolls for several years.  He spends money, just not on long term deals.

I have a suspicion that Crane will allow Tucker and Alvarez to walk with temporary fill-ins that effectively ends the championship competitiveness of the team during the Altuve/Alvarez/cheap starters window.  The team will be stuck in mediocrity purgatory for several years until Altuve retires, Yordan departs, and then it can finally bottom out.  
 

Under Luhnow, you had guys like Elias and Megdal that would get on interviews with the baseball analytics community and they’d talk about this kind of thing-maybe it’s a little like fighting the baseball version of entropy but it’s secondary challenge to winning a championship (now that we know we can build it, can we keep it going forever).  As chatty as Brown is, there’s no concept of a plan they seem to promote besides Crane’s stated aversion to long-term payroll obligations.  
 

And maybe all of that will prove correct or sensible in time.  Without the benefit of that, it looks like Crane has internalized best practices that Luhnow 2019 might have supported but don’t make sense in 2025.

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Snake Diggity

Snake Diggity 4678

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1 hour ago, LCHorn said:

I have a suspicion that Crane will allow Tucker and Alvarez to walk with temporary fill-ins that effectively ends the championship competitiveness of the team during the Altuve/Alvarez/cheap starters window.  The team will be stuck in mediocrity purgatory for several years until Altuve retires, Yordan departs, and then it can finally bottom out.  
 

Under Luhnow, you had guys like Elias and Megdal that would get on interviews with the baseball analytics community and they’d talk about this kind of thing-maybe it’s a little like fighting the baseball version of entropy but it’s secondary challenge to winning a championship (now that we know we can build it, can we keep it going forever).  As chatty as Brown is, there’s no concept of a plan they seem to promote besides Crane’s stated aversion to long-term payroll obligations.  
 

And maybe all of that will prove correct or sensible in time.  Without the benefit of that, it looks like Crane has internalized best practices that Luhnow 2019 might have supported but don’t make sense in 2025.

You might be right, we’ll have to see.  At this point it’s clear that Houston cannot remain competitive just by engaging in the free agent market.  If the window is going to stay open after 2025, it will be because the front office was able to generate core talent via the farm system.  One heartening fact is that of the 7 players on Houston’s roster who project for 3+ fwar, 6 of them were non-pedigreed prospects.  Diaz and Alvarez were acquired via trade in exchange for middling players.  Altuve and Valdez were non-bonus international signees.  Brown and Pena were Day 2 draft picks.  Tucker was the only player  who came into the system with a top prospect profile.  So if Houston can replicate those kinds of moves over the next 18 months, they’ll be just fine; keep an eye on Ronel Blanco and Zach Dezenzo this season.

Dana Brown is an awful interview.  He speaks in non-sequiters and seems to lack confidence.  That isn’t a guarantee he’s an incompetent GM; his background is in scouting, and if he does that job extremely well, he’ll be a great GM regardless of how cringey his interviews are.  The early returns on his drafts are good.

Edited by Snake Diggity
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