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Houston Astros 2024 Season Thread


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I wonder what lessons Crane will take from the Abreu fiasco, if any.

His refusal to take on long-term FA deals has limited our signing pool to relievers and old guys. 

Paying top of the market for volatile relievers seems dumb.

On the old guy front, signing JV's extension didn't really work because of the injury.  Obviously Abreu is a disaster.

Our other move has been to trade for top guys with fewer years left...JV, Greinke, Cole.  You can only do that so long unless you're elite at amateur acquisition and development.

I think we should be more willing to go a little longer on extensions to almost sure things like Tucker and stay away from high dollar RP FA and guys well past 30.

As always the key is for the farm to keep churning and we seem to have finally slowed down there.

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38 minutes ago, WBT said:

His refusal to take on long-term FA deals has limited our signing pool to relievers and old guys.

To be fair, that’s mostly who is available on the FA market.  His refusal to take on long-term FA deals is also why we’re not paying Springer for his declining performance and Correa’s absences (personally I probably still would have retained Correa for the mix of performance and leadership).
 

I think it’s clear we’re shedding talent faster than it can be replaced and that’s going to accelerate over the next two years.  It’s partly why I’m sure he hired Brown-you’ve got to have prospects you can consolidate into lower cost established players like Cole or Verlander.  You just can’t rely on your draft skills to produce them.  By the time they are FA’s you’re mostly paying for the back part of their career and there’s not much surplus value.  
 

Tucker is a little different; I’m sure there’s some caution just because the team might need to be down for a few years to rebuild the farm and young player depth.  Why pay Tucker market for six wins if you’re better off losing?

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1 hour ago, WBT said:

I wonder what lessons Crane will take from the Abreu fiasco, if any.

His refusal to take on long-term FA deals has limited our signing pool to relievers and old guys. 

Paying top of the market for volatile relievers seems dumb.

On the old guy front, signing JV's extension didn't really work because of the injury.  Obviously Abreu is a disaster.

Our other move has been to trade for top guys with fewer years left...JV, Greinke, Cole.  You can only do that so long unless you're elite at amateur acquisition and development.

I think we should be more willing to go a little longer on extensions to almost sure things like Tucker and stay away from high dollar RP FA and guys well past 30.

As always the key is for the farm to keep churning and we seem to have finally slowed down there.

Lesson #1 should be stop listening to Jeff Bagwell.

Lesson #1A should be stop hating analytics because it got you 2 World Series trophies.

Edited by kevwun
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1 hour ago, Chuckie Finster said:

I know this isn't realistic, but unless you are bringing in Ohtani, the most correct conclusion based on the last couple of offseasons appears to be: don't sign any free agents.

Generally the best free agent values tend to come on 1 year deals for forgotten pitchers and 3-4 year deals for 2nd/3rd tier position players younger than 35 (guys like Josh Reddick and Michael Brantley).  But really the best values are almost always extensions.

 

I would have liked to see Houston be more aggressive about acquiring bad contracts that come with prospects as a way to supplement their approach of trading away a lot of prospects every deadline, especially after they got 4 top draft picks taken away.

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3 hours ago, Chuckie Finster said:

I know this isn't realistic, but unless you are bringing in Ohtani, the most correct conclusion based on the last couple of offseasons appears to be: don't sign any free agents.

You'd make an outstanding MLB owner.  Rob Manfred will be calling you shortly.

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5 hours ago, LCHorn said:

To be fair, that’s mostly who is available on the FA market.  His refusal to take on long-term FA deals is also why we’re not paying Springer for his declining performance and Correa’s absences (personally I probably still would have retained Correa for the mix of performance and leadership).
 

I think it’s clear we’re shedding talent faster than it can be replaced and that’s going to accelerate over the next two years.  It’s partly why I’m sure he hired Brown-you’ve got to have prospects you can consolidate into lower cost established players like Cole or Verlander.  You just can’t rely on your draft skills to produce them.  By the time they are FA’s you’re mostly paying for the back part of their career and there’s not much surplus value.  
 

Tucker is a little different; I’m sure there’s some caution just because the team might need to be down for a few years to rebuild the farm and young player depth.  Why pay Tucker market for six wins if you’re better off losing?

The answer for why pay Tucker market for 6 wins if you are better off losing is "if you are paying market you can always trade him," and if you are paying market you can always trade him and pay a lot of his salary and get some prospects that you really like- which in a market where you can't trade guys for draft picks is a market inefficiency every rebuilding club should aspire to.  Also- I think with the base of this team we wouldn't be likely to prefer losing to Tucker's 6 wins, but if it went that direction that's the lesson to take from him having that deal- imo. 

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22 minutes ago, Wulaw Horn said:

if you are paying market you can always trade him and pay a lot of his salary

This is a good point-my main concern is that the Astros are losing chips, period, but they still have money and need to deploy it creatively.  

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3 hours ago, Wulaw Horn said:

The answer for why pay Tucker market for 6 wins if you are better off losing is "if you are paying market you can always trade him," and if you are paying market you can always trade him and pay a lot of his salary and get some prospects that you really like- which in a market where you can't trade guys for draft picks is a market inefficiency every rebuilding club should aspire to.  Also- I think with the base of this team we wouldn't be likely to prefer losing to Tucker's 6 wins, but if it went that direction that's the lesson to take from him having that deal- imo. 

Is there any indication that Tucker actually wants to be here long-term? The MLB has no rules that provide their current team an advantage in money offered vs free agency. If this ship is sinking, I wouldn't blame him for shopping around. He was born and raised in Tampa, maybe he wants to go there and play at home? 

Either way, I agree, extending him is the best plan.  If worse comes to worse, possibly trading him in the future for prospects is better than nothing. 

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5 minutes ago, Dutchrudder said:

Is there any indication that Tucker actually wants to be here long-term? The MLB has no rules that provide their current team an advantage in money offered vs free agency. If this ship is sinking, I wouldn't blame him for shopping around. He was born and raised in Tampa, maybe he wants to go there and play at home? 

Either way, I agree, extending him is the best plan.  If worse comes to worse, possibly trading him in the future for prospects is better than nothing. 

I've never thought he wanted to be here long term.

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Thinking of taking my boys to a day game after their baseball is done. July 14th vs the Rangers is the target. Never been to the park.  Where should I sit to make it fun and not pay 1k for 4 tickets. Any tips?

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9 minutes ago, HOOKEM4 said:

Thinking of taking my boys to a day game after their baseball is done. July 14th vs the Rangers is the target. Never been to the park.  Where should I sit to make it fun and not pay 1k for 4 tickets. Any tips?

How many boys you got?  Where you coming from? 

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2 hours ago, tx 3 putt said:

Astros need to lock in Mexico City every year …

 

Co-sign.

3.5 days I was there was barely enough to scratch the surface (didn’t help most of one day was lost to Montezuma’s revenge) but definitely sign me up for a return trip.

I wish we had fans (and ballpark concessions) half as good as what I saw at the games this weekend.

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4 hours ago, tx 3 putt said:

Scheduled starters for CLE series:

Tue: Hunter Brown vs Carlos Carrasco
Wed: Justin Verlander vs Triston McKenzie
Thu: Spencer Arrighetti vs Logan Allen
 

For fucks sake. Why not blanco Thursday Framber Friday, Javier Saturday and IV Tuesday and Sunday?  
So irritating. 

Back to normal on the episode. I think it’s good. We talk problems and solution for the Astros. 
 

 

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6 minutes ago, UTPhil2006 said:

I think he has a bullpen today or tomorrow to confirm then they will announce, thus the starting Spaghetti one more time 

well that would be good for the astros and my fantasy team

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4 minutes ago, Mitch Hedberg said:

Sounds like Loperfido will primarily be in the outfield for now. Espada talked about needing to build him up to first base. Said Chas has some leg soreness creating some time for Loperfido. Wouldn’t give any hints of corresponding moves. 

I said on the podcast- watch this be for them to IL Chas and this is about Loperfido being the 4th OF or some such nonsense.

This org is really testing my patience. None of this is difficult.  We've got plenty of dudes that could play 1b not as an abject joke.

If they were serious about winning it would look like this (if chas were hurt) 

P- JV- normal rest tonight- lineup facing a RHP

Altuve-2b

Yordan- DH
Diaz- C

Tucker- RF

Bregman- 3b

Pena- SS

Loperfido- LF

Caratini- 1b

Meyers- CF.

 

If chas is healthy substitute Loperfido at 1b for Caratini and see what happens

If LHP substitute Dubon for 1b.

 

Ugh.  Dumb dumb dumb. 

 

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25 minutes ago, Mitch Hedberg said:

Sounds like Loperfido will primarily be in the outfield for now. Espada talked about needing to build him up to first base. Said Chas has some leg soreness creating some time for Loperfido. Wouldn’t give any hints of corresponding moves. 

 

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46 minutes ago, Mitch Hedberg said:

Sounds like Loperfido will primarily be in the outfield for now. Espada talked about needing to build him up to first base. Said Chas has some leg soreness creating some time for Loperfido. Wouldn’t give any hints of corresponding moves. 


OF tonight 

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8 minutes ago, Snake Diggity said:

They may still be in limbo about Abreu even tho they know the intention is to get rid of him.  So they may IL Chas or option Kessinger for a week or two while they finalize the plan for Abreu.

They should have that resolved by 4:00 pm tonight or 60 day DL him or dfa. I mean- I think you are probably right but if they had balls that would be the deal. 

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The fact that Singleton still has a spot on our 40 man demonstrates that Dana is not the guy at GM.

There are $58 mm reasons and an owner who want to give Abreu every chance to turn this around. That doesn’t apply to Singleton.

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1 hour ago, Mitch Hedberg said:

Sounds like Loperfido will primarily be in the outfield for now. Espada talked about needing to build him up to first base.

Loperfido can't be worse than Abreu who can't catch pop ups, catch a low throw, catch the ball on a bounce, or field a ball hit to him.

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