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2022 Houston Astros Thread


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Assuming everybody stays healthy and doing what they’ve been doing, here are the 3 trades I would try to make at the deadline:

1. Trade SP Jose Urquidy, CF Jose Siri, and RHP Misael Tamarez to Arizona for C/OF Daulton Varsho. Gives Houston a good lefty hitting catcher to deepen the lineup; he will also make a great pairing with Lee starting next season.  Urquidy is relatively superfluous on a roster like Houston’s but would be a good add on a team like Arizonas who is just trying to get competitive.  Arizona would also likely want him because Strom is there.  Alternative targets for Houston would be MJ Melendez or Willson Contreras.

2. Trade RHP Hunter Brown, RHP Peter Solomon, and 3B Joe Perez for SP Frankie Montas.  Gives Houston another ToR SP.  Brown is a steep price to pay and Solomon and Perez are solid 3rd tier prospects.  Oakland might have a lot higher asking price but this is what I’d feel comfortable with.  Other SP targets would be Luis Castillo, German Marquez, Pablo Lopez, and Tyler Mahle.

3. Trade RP Blake Taylor and RP Ronel Blanco for RP Andrew Chafin.  Upgrades from Taylor and adds an effective late inning lefty.  He’s a rental so it shouldn’t be too expensive.  Detroit picks up a couple of live arms that might help their pen over the long term.  Other targets would be David Bednar, Chris Martin, and Scott Barlow.

Resulting roster:

2B Altuve

RF Tucker

3B Bregman

DH Alvarez

SS Pena

LF Brantley

1B Gurriel

C Varsho

CF Meyers

Bench: Dubon, Maldonado, Castro, Diaz

Rotation: Verlander, Montas, McCullers, Valdez, Garcia

Bullpen: Odorizzi, Javier, Maton, Stanek, Chafin, Montero, Neris, Pressly

Abreu and McCormick would be optioned to AAA until needed.

Thats a sick roster.  Varsho is the one they’d probably have to overpay for.  But a good lefty hitting catcher who could fill in the outfield is one of the very few ways they can deepen the roster.

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4 minutes ago, Snake Diggity said:

Assuming everybody stays healthy and doing what they’ve been doing, here are the 3 trades I would try to make at the deadline:

1. Trade SP Jose Urquidy, CF Jose Siri, and RHP Misael Tamarez to Arizona for C/OF Daulton Varsho. Gives Houston a good lefty hitting catcher to deepen the lineup; he will also make a great pairing with Lee starting next season.  Urquidy is relatively superfluous on a roster like Houston’s but would be a good add on a team like Arizonas who is just trying to get competitive.  Arizona would also likely want him because Strom is there.  Alternative targets for Houston would be MJ Melendez or Willson Contreras.

2. Trade RHP Hunter Brown, RHP Peter Solomon, and 3B Joe Perez for SP Frankie Montas.  Gives Houston another ToR SP.  Brown is a steep price to pay and Solomon and Perez are solid 3rd tier prospects.  Oakland might have a lot higher asking price but this is what I’d feel comfortable with.  Other SP targets would be Luis Castillo, German Marquez, Pablo Lopez, and Tyler Mahle.

3. Trade RP Blake Taylor and RP Ronel Blanco for RP Andrew Chafin.  Upgrades from Taylor and adds an effective late inning lefty.  He’s a rental so it shouldn’t be too expensive.  Detroit picks up a couple of live arms that might help their pen over the long term.  Other targets would be David Bednar, Chris Martin, and Scott Barlow.

Resulting roster:

2B Altuve

RF Tucker

3B Bregman

DH Alvarez

SS Pena

LF Brantley

1B Gurriel

C Varsho

CF Meyers

Bench: Dubon, Maldonado, Castro, Diaz

Rotation: Verlander, Montas, McCullers, Valdez, Garcia

Bullpen: Odorizzi, Javier, Maton, Stanek, Chafin, Montero, Neris, Pressly

Abreu and McCormick would be optioned to AAA until needed.

Thats a sick roster.  Varsho is the one they’d probably have to overpay for.  But a good lefty hitting catcher who could fill in the outfield is one of the very few ways they can deepen the roster.


 

I like that roster a whole lot.  A couple questions

1) How much club control does Montas have left.

Who does that leave as SP not in your 5 in the organization that you might trust?  I count Javier, Odorizi, Bielak and Whitley.  That's enough SPf or now, but it totally and completely guts your upside starting pitching to Whitley could be a TOR guy and Bielak, Odo, Javier are likely MOR guys at best, first 2 because of stuff and Javier b/c of seeming to not be able to get enough outs at once (I love Javier- so that's not a knock).  

2) How much club control for Varsho?  

That leaves you Lee, Leon & Whitley as possible blue chip propsects.  Chaz/Leon split 3rd and 4th OF spot next year when Uncle Mike moves on, and you probably have to go replace Yuli at 1B.  That's a pretty big swing.  I don't think we will take a big swing, but I'd love to see it. 

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2 minutes ago, TonyTexas said:

^^^
You and Wulaw should have lunch

I already repped his post and responded.  

Some people like roster machination stuff a lot. If that's not your thing it's not hard to skip through it. I obviously appreciate the stuff.  It's not ever like a statement of "oh this is going to happen" more like an exploration of value of our current roster and how it could be improved. 

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17 minutes ago, Wulaw Horn said:

I like that roster a whole lot.  A couple questions

1) How much club control does Montas have left.

Who does that leave as SP not in your 5 in the organization that you might trust?  I count Javier, Odorizi, Bielak and Whitley.  That's enough SPf or now, but it totally and completely guts your upside starting pitching to Whitley could be a TOR guy and Bielak, Odo, Javier are likely MOR guys at best, first 2 because of stuff and Javier b/c of seeming to not be able to get enough outs at once (I love Javier- so that's not a knock).  

2) How much club control for Varsho?  

That leaves you Lee, Leon & Whitley as possible blue chip propsects.  Chaz/Leon split 3rd and 4th OF spot next year when Uncle Mike moves on, and you probably have to go replace Yuli at 1B.  That's a pretty big swing.  I don't think we will take a big swing, but I'd love to see it. 

Varsho under control thru 2026, Montas is a free agent after next season.  Plan for next season would McCormick/Matijevic/Leon replace Brantley/Gurriel/Diaz on the position player side, Abreu/Whitley/Mushinski replace Montero/Odorizzi/Chafin.  Verlander potentially leaving still presents problem but adding Montas mitigates that risk.

Edited by Snake Diggity
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10 minutes ago, Snake Diggity said:

Varsho under control thru 2026, Montas is a free agent after next season.  Plan for next season would McCormick/Matijevic/Leon replace Brantley/Gurriel/Diaz on the position player side, Abreu/Whitley/Mushinski replace Montero/Odorizzi/Chafin.  Verlander potentially leaving still presents problem but adding Montas mitigates that risk.

So, going into 24 you'd have no position player holes likely and you'd have a rotation of LMJ, Framber, Garcia, Javier and Whitley if you didn't add to that.  
I say again, Whitley has to hit as a TOR guy for this to stay on cruise control.  HIm or Brown. You'd be trading away one of your two lotto tickets for a much higher floor for 22 & 23.  Fuck it, I'd probably roll the dice. But a home grown ace is literally the most precious commodity in all of baseball so halving your odds of that happening would kind of suck.  But, it's also unlikely to happen, so... grabbing one in the middle of a competitive window is probably almost always worth taking that shot, for me.  

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i think montas is definitely in the category of sp3 with sp2 upside for us.  nobody is calling him an ace, but if he slots in behind a framber (who's hopefully pitching well down the stretch), that makes every pitching position better, including javier's role.

we need someone at that level for the playoffs.  if lance comes back and looks good, he could be that guy.  if lance doesn't come back, then you go in with jv-framber-new guy-urquidy as your top 4, with garcia as a long man or tandem starter, and javier as your multi-inning guy.

we were one pitcher away last year (verlander) and 2 pitchers away once we lost lmj.  we need to add somebody and snake's list looks pretty good.  possibly could buy low on german (2+ years left) or castillo (1+ years left) since neither is pitching very well.

montas has had 2 clunkers (out of eight total) and doesn't walk people.  i think he's a realistic target.

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30 minutes ago, TonyTexas said:

Not as bad as expected based on Dusty’s comment yesterday  Senior citizens need their rest  

 

there isn't a team in mlb that aledmys diaz should be hitting cleanup for.  i would rather hit him 2nd.

also i'm down for experimenting with pena at leadoff.  fuck it why not.

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52 minutes ago, henrygandorf said:

there isn't a team in mlb that aledmys diaz should be hitting cleanup for.  i would rather hit him 2nd.

also i'm down for experimenting with pena at leadoff.  fuck it why not.

Dusty is just trolling us at this point

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58 minutes ago, henrygandorf said:

i think montas is definitely in the category of sp3 with sp2 upside for us.  nobody is calling him an ace, but if he slots in behind a framber (who's hopefully pitching well down the stretch), that makes every pitching position better, including javier's role.

we need someone at that level for the playoffs.  if lance comes back and looks good, he could be that guy.  if lance doesn't come back, then you go in with jv-framber-new guy-urquidy as your top 4, with garcia as a long man or tandem starter, and javier as your multi-inning guy.

we were one pitcher away last year (verlander) and 2 pitchers away once we lost lmj.  we need to add somebody and snake's list looks pretty good.  possibly could buy low on german (2+ years left) or castillo (1+ years left) since neither is pitching very well.

montas has had 2 clunkers (out of eight total) and doesn't walk people.  i think he's a realistic target.

We weren't a pitcher away last year. The entire offense was a mess against the Braves. I like the idea of adding Varsho, but he should be the CF and give you flexibility for next year in the OF and C depending on how you build the rest of the roster. You trade Brown for a legit staff ace, not a guy that has made 30+ starts once, is one bad test result away from a year ban, and 1.5 years of team control left.

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20 minutes ago, tx 3 putt said:

Maybe dusty is challenging him ?

He’s doing nothing of the sort. It’s stupid. It’s been his MO for a long time. It’s completely and totally unjustified in any rational sense. I’m willing to bet it’s tolerated merely bc it’s tiny fractions of a run in any one particular game, but it’s the functional equivalent of sitting on 12 against a dealers 2 in blackjack (honest deck). You can come up with whatever justification you want for the strategy but it’s demonstrated to be mathematically incorrect and as such is always wrong mathematically. 
I suggested Peña 3rd as a “challenge” to him bc the numbers justify him hitting higher than 7th or 8th when one of our big bats is resting. This is absurd. 

Edited by Wulaw Horn
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This coaching staff has made more right decisions than wrong this season. I’ll go with it before getting upset about a mid may line up. I’d swap Yordan and Diaz 
 

I think Altuve is a better #2 hitter but he’s been nails since return from getting hit in the nuts. 

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10 minutes ago, tx 3 putt said:

This coaching staff has made more right decisions than wrong this season. I’ll go with it before getting upset about a mid may line up. I’d swap Yordan and Diaz 
 

I think Altuve is a better #2 hitter but he’s been nails since return from getting hit in the nuts. 

I’m not upset. It’s literally just completely unjustifiable but baked into the cake. It’s fractions of a run we give up every time we do this. It’s not going to change. It is what it is. Shrugs. 

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1 minute ago, Wulaw Horn said:

I’m not upset. It’s literally just completely unjustifiable but baked into the cake. It’s fractions of a run we give up every time we do this. It’s not going to change. It is what it is. Shrugs. 

Dusty knows winning too much isn't good for the kids. 

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2 hours ago, henrygandorf said:

there isn't a team in mlb that aledmys diaz should be hitting cleanup for.  i would rather hit him 2nd.

also i'm down for experimenting with pena at leadoff.  fuck it why not.

Hasn't Pena batted leadoff a few times thos season?

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5 minutes ago, TonyTexas said:

Scored as a double. 

Huh.  I'm sure I've seen a play like that before but it struck me to wonder how it can be a double if the runner on 1st couldn't make it to 3rd.  But on the other hand if there was no runner on I think he probably would have made it safely to 2nd.

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what was particularly annoying about his whole "started running from 2nd and never stopped" that was described, is that he did stop, after rounding 3rd and getting too far away.  i would've much preferred he kept running and made seager adjust and make an unusual throw from deep short to home.  we've seen plenty of guys airmail it or catchers chunk it trying to make a play.  what doesn't make sense is getting yourself into a rundown.

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3 minutes ago, Focht Up said:

The commentary on the broadcast for this game is just brutal.   Horse racing, star wars, etc

At least you're not listening to the Rangers' broadcasters.  The main idiot actually said that the walk to Yordan could turn out to be a positive because now there's a chance to get a ground ball and get out of the inning.

Wat?

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6 minutes ago, HtownHorn said:

Bregman should retire and go raise horses. That's where his interests and priorities are now.

Look- I get it on frustration with Bregman. We thought he would be an mvp type and he’s settled in to merely being a “very very good player”. That said, dudes been 33% better than league average and has 1.3 WAR already. That’s on pace for like a 5 war season. 4 WAR is considered all star. 8 or so WAR is considered MVP caliber. 

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1 minute ago, TexArcher said:

At least you're not listening to the Rangers' broadcasters.  The main idiot actually said that the walk to Yordan could turn out to be a positive because now there's a chance to get a ground ball and get out of the inning.

Wat?

I hated those boring ass fucksticks when they were our radio guys. Just awful. 

Edited by Wulaw Horn
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5 minutes ago, Wulaw Horn said:

I hated those boring ass fucksticks when they were our radio guys. Just awful. 

Well one of them was.  But the other radio guy was indistinguishable and equally milquetoast

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Just now, WBT said:

Well one of them was.  But the other radio guy was indistinguishable and equally milquetoast

Yep. I literally could not tell them apart after multiple years listening to them together and still have no idea which fuckstick is calling ranger games. 

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