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Houston Astros off-season thread


Wulaw Horn

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1 minute ago, HtownHorn said:

I just hate going into the season with 3 green lights as the starting OF.

Tucker is a yellow light, as is Yordan who will play somewhere between 40 and 100 games in LF depending upon health and Meyers bat, but sure. Catching the ball is way more important than throwing the ball though and a tucker/meyers/chas OF should be great at that. 

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Episode 40 up. We recorded before the signing of Vic the dick, but that was in our what realistically will happen. Then we engaged in some silliness that fits in the broad scheme of “what do we do about the next half decade. 
 

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/episode/4TcDDYmLj7po4KV4CMY09l?si=_Jz_JerYTKekh2uOMZE8jg

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Price point for Caratini is actually less than I thought it would be.  And it's worth every single penny and would have been worth even more to know that Maldy isn't coming back.  

I've been a believer in Maton even through his rough stints, really hoping that was a jump by a reporter and we get him back.  


I think the Altuve extension is coming soon but may wait for a few RP signings to make sure they structure it as needed.  

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15 minutes ago, uoftorange said:

Price point for Caratini is actually less than I thought it would be.  And it's worth every single penny and would have been worth even more to know that Maldy isn't coming back.  

I've been a believer in Maton even through his rough stints, really hoping that was a jump by a reporter and we get him back.  


I think the Altuve extension is coming soon but may wait for a few RP signings to make sure they structure it as needed.  

Give me Hicks and Maton. I love Neris more, but this will likely be his final contract and will want to get into that $8-10M AAV range.

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51 minutes ago, tx 3 putt said:


i was strictly talking price point 

We just got done paying Maldonado 2/$9.5 for a combined -0.7 fWAR across 230 games.

Caratini put up 1.1 in only 62 games last year alone (more than Maldonado did in his entire stint with the Astros).

2/$12 seems like a steal in that light.

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4 minutes ago, UTPhil2006 said:

The #Royals are trading RHP Dylan Coleman to the Astros, sources tell me and @JonathanMayo. Kansas City clears a spot on the 40-man roster ahead of the Rule 5 Draft.
 

guessing it’s for cash and a minor league deal 

Guy put up really good numbers over 68 IP in '22. Was terrible in very limited use (18 IP) last year. May have been injured.

Presuming this is a depth move and nothing more.

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So this kind of approach is harkening back to the very early Baseball Prospectus days, but they used frequently maintain that you can build a perfectly fine bullpen using the first half of your season to funnel a bunch of mid level or worse relievers into six or seven who will have a good year.  Reliever volatility will mean you need to find another three or four the following year but it’s cheaper than paying for more proven talent.  
 

Brown might be taking the same approach to save a few dollars for something else.  

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I think we sign one actual guy (hicks looks like the target) and the rest are minimum wage in the bullpen. 
Presley- 15m

Abreu-3m

hicks- 8m

Graveman- 7M

montero- 13M

minimum wage choices from amongst:

new guy, Whitley, blanco, Bielak, Spaghetti, Souza, Martinez, mushinski 

Boy that Montero signing looks even worse right now unless he’s really good on the bounce back 

If I’m paying 50M to my bullpen I want 3 automatic guys and 2 more who are pretty good  we have 2 and 1 respectively right now in those categories  

 

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2 minutes ago, LCHorn said:

So this kind of approach is harkening back to the very early Baseball Prospectus days, but they used frequently maintain that you can build a perfectly fine bullpen using the first half of your season to funnel a bunch of mid level or worse relievers into six or seven who will have a good year.  Reliever volatility will mean you need to find another three or four the following year but it’s cheaper than paying for more proven talent.  
 

Brown might be taking the same approach to save a few dollars for something else.  

He’s not saving money for anything else. We have our roster with Vic the dick I think. Maybe they add Hicks, but typing out all the salaries I’m doubtful.  And that roster is really good by the way. 

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6 minutes ago, Chuckie Finster said:

Can’t remember who on here was worried about losing guys in the Rule 5 Draft, but nobody got poached.

I was worried about Colin Barber, and didn’t really like the idea of losing Misael Tamarez although he would have been more in line with the kind of guys Houston lost in previous years.  Houston correctly evaluated that Barber’s injury risk and defensive limitations made him safe to expose.

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On 12/4/2023 at 10:20 PM, tx 3 putt said:

it's not a 162 game season, it's 162 game 7's !

Fuck it.  Why do our best?  We can make it up.   The roster is there to play fuck-fuck games, right?

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1 hour ago, Chuckie Finster said:

Can’t remember who on here was worried about losing guys in the Rule 5 Draft, but nobody got poached.

From what I can tell we lost 3 guys 

RHP Tyler Brown (Cle)

RHP Kervin Castro (Yankees)  - Who we had just signed to a minor league deal like 5 days ago 

OF Marty Costes (Miami) 

 

We picked up 

RHP Railin Perez (BOS)

RHP Carlos Betancourt (PHI)

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18 minutes ago, Scraps said:

From what I can tell we lost 3 guys 

RHP Tyler Brown (Cle)

RHP Kervin Castro (Yankees)  - Who we had just signed to a minor league deal like 5 days ago 

OF Marty Costes (Miami) 

 

We picked up 

RHP Railin Perez (BOS)

RHP Carlos Betancourt (PHI)

Those are all in the minor league portion of the draft, right?

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Good summary here ….

The 2024 Astros 26-man roster is all but set:

C - Yainer
1B - Abreu
2B - Altuve
3B - Bregman
SS - Pena
LF - Chas
CF - Meyers
RF - Tucker
DH - Yordan

UTL - Dubon
C - Caratini
IF - Kessinger
One job to be won (Singleton, Julks, surprise rookie)

SP - Verlander
SP - Framber
SP - Javier
SP - Brown
SP - Urquidy

LR/SP - France
MR - Whitley
MR - Sousa
MR - Free agent
MR - Graveman
MR - Montero
SU - Abreu
CL - Pressly

Blanco, Gage, Kuhnel, Martinez, Mushinski, Ortega will challenge Whitley and Sousa.

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3 hours ago, tx 3 putt said:

Good summary here ….

The 2024 Astros 26-man roster is all but set:

C - Yainer
1B - Abreu
2B - Altuve
3B - Bregman
SS - Pena
LF - Chas
CF - Meyers
RF - Tucker
DH - Yordan

UTL - Dubon
C - Caratini
IF - Kessinger
One job to be won (Singleton, Julks, surprise rookie)

SP - Verlander
SP - Framber
SP - Javier
SP - Brown
SP - Urquidy

LR/SP - France
MR - Whitley
MR - Sousa
MR - Free agent
MR - Graveman
MR - Montero
SU - Abreu
CL - Pressly

Blanco, Gage, Kuhnel, Martinez, Mushinski, Ortega will challenge Whitley and Sousa.

Good summary.  Worth noting that Bielak and Singleton cannot be optioned so they’d ostensibly have a leg up on making the opening day roster if they’re not traded.

I think the Garcia/McCullers situations give Bielak a really good shot to make the opening day bullpen and see if he can create some value while keeping a seat warm for one of the injured starters.

Singleton’s case got hurt by the Caratini signing, since Caratini can play 1B and hits lefthanded.  I know I am in the extreme minority but I think Singleton still has a chance to be an extremely good hitter over the next 2-3 seasons.  If I were a rebuilding team with an opening at 1B or DH I would try to acquire him.  Anyway, it would not surprise me if Houston opted to keep Singleton on the bench to serve as the de facto backup at 1B, DH, and LF (with Alvarez being able to field there and Singleton DH’ing).

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19 minutes ago, formermav43 said:

I don’t see why not now that there’s no unbalanced schedule.

It’s still unbalanced. It’s just not as unbalanced. 25% of your games are still within your division

But the comment was more in jest . Of course it’s possible. Just not sure I’m sold on the AL East being that good right now 

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