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Posted
6 minutes ago, WBT said:

From Pallilo's post mortem podcast:

We scored 3 or fewer in 82 games.

We were 3-33 in the last 36 of those games.

 

Our sorcery in pitching development that turns jags into solid contributors sets a decent floor.  

Our failure to develop any cheap team controllable position players is really holding us back.  Our lineup just keeps getting older and jaggier without much hope in sight.

I have lost a lot of my excitement for Yainer as he can't seem to learn to take a pitch.  Cam should still improve but he was god awful in the 2nd half and finished with only 9 HRs.

We gave almost 1000 PAs to sub 80 OPS+ guys in Hummel, Dubon, Trammell, Rodgers, Chas, and Melton.  At least we dumped Singleton after 10 ABs I guess.

I don't know how it gets much better next year.  Pray Yordan stays healthy is probably the biggest potential difference maker.

After the very good trade deadline Dana had it should pretty clearly get better in that we shouldn't have to give hardly any of those 1000 ab's to guys that suck.  Think about it- if we had just had to give like 900 instead of 1000 we are in the playoffs pretty clearly.  Figure on next year having 500 or fewer AB's that go to guys that can't hit (if we stay reasonably healthy) and we are good. 

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Posted
6 minutes ago, Wulaw Horn said:

After the very good trade deadline Dana had it should pretty clearly get better in that we shouldn't have to give hardly any of those 1000 ab's to guys that suck.  Think about it- if we had just had to give like 900 instead of 1000 we are in the playoffs pretty clearly.  Figure on next year having 500 or fewer AB's that go to guys that can't hit (if we stay reasonably healthy) and we are good. 

In the playoffs this year yes.  But I want to get back to the 95ish win floor where we cruise to one of the byes.

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Posted

Assuming they make a move to replace Framber’s production (either with one true ace or with multiple quality arms) that doesn’t impact the big league roster elsewhere, the pitching staff will be at least as productive as it was this year, barring another insane injury bug.

Having Alvarez, Pena, and Paredes healthy for a full season adds 5-10 wins to this roster vs 2025.  Having Correa for a full season also probably adds another win or two.

So even before accounting for the possibility of a young player (Smith, Cole, Melton, Matthews, Blubaugh, Ullola, Pecko) breaking out, or Walker or Diaz rebounding, this team projects to be a dozen or so wins better than they were this season.

Aside from injuries, the only real downside to this roster is age related decline in Walker and Altuve, and those guys only combined for 3 wins this season, so it’s not like that’s a major risk.  If they replace Framber’s production and stay healthy, this is a 92-102 win team.

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Posted

I'm to the point with Alvarez that anything north of 30 HRs is going to be a big surprise. Simply a matter of health ...or lack thereof. Hope Diaz can get off to a solid start to help make up for any shortfall there.

Posted

My dream offseason (I think):

Out:  Yordan, Walker & Melton, Meyers, Framber, Chas, Dubon, Trammell, LMJ + Matthews (90M in 2025 dollars out).  Rationale- as a barely top 100 player Matthews has 15-20M in historical surplus value.  LMJ has 1 year 18M left.  Maybe he can be rehabbed.  Christin Walker's contract is probably about 10M upside down. That's about how much Surplus value Melton has. 

In:  Alonzo (3/120 or 8/200), Sale (3/100) or Cease (6/175), 6 top 100 prospects, Caratini (2/20), 1 comp pick.  (70M or so in).  Rationale:  ALonzo hits bombs and plays everyday. He's not as good a hitter as Yordan, but he plays everyday.  Sale is still filthy, Cease is filthy.  Yordan and Meyers you use to rebuild the farm system.  Caratini is perfect backup catcher/PH/part time DH and a good fit here. 

Resulting roster:

Diaz, Caratini, Alonso, Paredes, Pena, Correa, Altuve, Cole, Smith, Sanchez, Dezenzo, Urias, Whitcomb. Tell Smith he needs to learn to play CF and pull the ball in the air and he can become a star. If not he can platoon with Cole in CF, Sanchez/Dezenzo platoon in RF and Altuve mixes in at LF some.  No more 2b for altuve- that's paredes and Urias for the most part, very little LF for him- mostly DH. 

That's someting like 30 War on the position player side if they are all healthy. 

Pitching be fine if you add a Sale or Cease to what we already have. 
That team is under the Luxury tax and the farm is top 5 or 8 in baseball.  

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Posted (edited)

Diaz has the same plate discipline as Altuve, with none of his ability to hit pitches out of the strike zone. 

Edited by kevwun
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Posted
1 hour ago, Wulaw Horn said:

I agree with all of this except for the stars and scrubs comment.

Stars and scrubs is in reference to an old Baseball Prospectus team building article and it’s more in reference to how to best optimize payroll across the team than as a judge of talent.  
 

We have a fairly mature roster with the veterans getting paid market, a few cost controlled assets with potentially large surplus values like Brown or maybe Smith,  and a few JAG’s that need to be replaced once they get expensive (Dubon, Meyers).  Dubon is probably worth it on a team with a lower payroll or less established veterans in the infield.  
 

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Posted
2 minutes ago, LCHorn said:

Stars and scrubs is in reference to an old Baseball Prospectus team building article and it’s more in reference to how to best optimize payroll across the team than as a judge of talent.  
 

We have a fairly mature roster with the veterans getting paid market, a few cost controlled assets with potentially large surplus values like Brown or maybe Smith,  and a few JAG’s that need to be replaced once they get expensive (Dubon, Meyers).  Dubon is probably worth it on a team with a lower payroll or less established veterans in the infield.  
 

I always thought of the Angels of Trout and Ohtani as stars and scrubs. I always thought the Astros super power was they never played a bunch of (any really) scrubs during the golden years (in addition to developing pitching guys out of thin air). 

This year it got scrubby b/c of absurd amount of injuries, many of which are of the variety you wouldn't expect.  

Posted
43 minutes ago, Wulaw Horn said:

My dream offseason (I think):

Out:  Yordan, Walker & Melton, Meyers, Framber, Chas, Dubon, Trammell, LMJ + Matthews (90M in 2025 dollars out).  Rationale- as a barely top 100 player Matthews has 15-20M in historical surplus value.  LMJ has 1 year 18M left.  Maybe he can be rehabbed.  Christin Walker's contract is probably about 10M upside down. That's about how much Surplus value Melton has. 

In:  Alonzo (3/120 or 8/200), Sale (3/100) or Cease (6/175), 6 top 100 prospects, Caratini (2/20), 1 comp pick.  (70M or so in).  Rationale:  ALonzo hits bombs and plays everyday. He's not as good a hitter as Yordan, but he plays everyday.  Sale is still filthy, Cease is filthy.  Yordan and Meyers you use to rebuild the farm system.  Caratini is perfect backup catcher/PH/part time DH and a good fit here.

Resulting roster:

Diaz, Caratini, Alonso, Paredes, Pena, Correa, Altuve, Cole, Smith, Sanchez, Dezenzo, Urias, Whitcomb. Tell Smith he needs to learn to play CF and pull the ball in the air and he can become a star. If not he can platoon with Cole in CF, Sanchez/Dezenzo platoon in RF and Altuve mixes in at LF some.  No more 2b for altuve- that's paredes and Urias for the most part, very little LF for him- mostly DH. 

kramer GIF

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Posted
48 minutes ago, Wulaw Horn said:

My dream offseason (I think):

Out:  Yordan, Walker & Melton, Meyers, Framber, Chas, Dubon, Trammell, LMJ + Matthews (90M in 2025 dollars out).  Rationale- as a barely top 100 player Matthews has 15-20M in historical surplus value.  LMJ has 1 year 18M left.  Maybe he can be rehabbed.  Christin Walker's contract is probably about 10M upside down. That's about how much Surplus value Melton has. 

In:  Alonzo (3/120 or 8/200), Sale (3/100) or Cease (6/175), 6 top 100 prospects, Caratini (2/20), 1 comp pick.  (70M or so in).  Rationale:  ALonzo hits bombs and plays everyday. He's not as good a hitter as Yordan, but he plays everyday.  Sale is still filthy, Cease is filthy.  Yordan and Meyers you use to rebuild the farm system.  Caratini is perfect backup catcher/PH/part time DH and a good fit here. 

Resulting roster:

Diaz, Caratini, Alonso, Paredes, Pena, Correa, Altuve, Cole, Smith, Sanchez, Dezenzo, Urias, Whitcomb. Tell Smith he needs to learn to play CF and pull the ball in the air and he can become a star. If not he can platoon with Cole in CF, Sanchez/Dezenzo platoon in RF and Altuve mixes in at LF some.  No more 2b for altuve- that's paredes and Urias for the most part, very little LF for him- mostly DH. 

That's someting like 30 War on the position player side if they are all healthy. 

Pitching be fine if you add a Sale or Cease to what we already have. 
That team is under the Luxury tax and the farm is top 5 or 8 in baseball.  

 

162 - 0 !!!!!!!

Posted

pasan ...

The managerial carousel has begun. 

Rocco Baldelli is out in Minnesota. 

Bob Melvin is out in San Francisco. 

Carlos Mendoza is staying in New York. 

Don Kelly is staying in Pittsburgh. 

Interims not yet decided: Tony Mansolino in Baltimore, Warren Schaeffer in Colorado and Miguel Cairo in Washington. 

Others to keep an eye on: Bruce Bochy in Texas, Brian Snitker in Atlanta, Joe Espada in Houston, Ron Washington in Los Angeles.

Posted
15 minutes ago, Wulaw Horn said:

I always thought of the Angels of Trout and Ohtani as stars and scrubs.

I think that was just happenstance and/or management futility.  
 

Most mature, good teams end up being stars and scrubs, even before the CBT, just because owners end up holding the line somewhere on payroll.  
 

The author (really dating myself, but it was probably Gary Huckabay) was commenting on how teams like the Pirates (and then Royals) never commit to one strategy or another and end up signing mid-tier free agents so they can finish 3rd in the AL Central.  You really don’t see that as much in the era of broadly adopted analytics even with minimum payroll requirements.  Regardless, Crane/Brown need to get creative on the margins because there’s not a lot of payroll flexibility outside of maybe moving Walker or someone else that retains upside.  

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Posted
2 minutes ago, tx 3 putt said:

Bob Melvin is out in San Francisco. 

 

2 minutes ago, tx 3 putt said:

Others to keep an eye on: Bruce Bochy in Texas, Brian Snitker in Atlanta,

All three of these are obvious upgrades on a Dusty-esque year-to-year, let’s see how it goes contract.  
 

If Espada gets fired I’m going to particular enjoy the carnage in the Chandler Rome comment section as the general opinion there is he’s MOY.  
 

The Athletic comments are the absolute dumbest group of posters outside of every SEC school that isn’t us.  

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Posted
8 minutes ago, LCHorn said:

 

All three of these are obvious upgrades on a Dusty-esque year-to-year, let’s see how it goes contract.  
 

If Espada gets fired I’m going to particular enjoy the carnage in the Chandler Rome comment section as the general opinion there is he’s MOY.  
 

The Athletic comments are the absolute dumbest group of posters outside of every SEC school that isn’t us.  

I would love absolutely all of those 3 guys as managers. 

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Posted

I remember when the Raptors fired Casey....he won Coach of the Year....and they won the NBA title the following year with a less dumbass leader

Manager of the year means jack shit

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Posted
1 minute ago, Scraps said:

I remember when the Raptors fired Casey....he won Coach of the Year....and they won the NBA title the following year with a less dumbass leader

Manager of the year means jack shit

Well, they also traded Derozan for an MVP caliber player in Kawhi... And really, they won game 7 in OT after tying it with one of the flukiest shots of all time, and then had the good fortune of the Warriors to be decimated by injuries just as they made the Finals. But hey, if the Astros win another ring because Ohtanis arm falls off, I won't complain. Either way, Espada is in over his head. 

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Posted
1 hour ago, WBT said:

Lolwat?  Dave Stewart isn't walking through that door

Yordan and meyers?  Ok- 5 and a couple interesting guys?  If you moved both of them that would be about what you’d expect to net. You think the Yankees or dodgers wouldn’t give up like 4 of their top 6 or 7 players for Yordan?  Giants maybe?  Hell Seattles stacked in the minor leagues and they are cheap. 
Milwaukee could say- this is the best position player we could ever get and we get him for cheap- especially if they get really close to winning it all this year but fall short. 
andrew wants to trade Hunter Brown bc he’s convinced it’s an existential certainty he misses the better part of 2 of the next 3 years. 

Posted

Espada is such an easy call- if he got fired tomorrow would he have a single interview for head job anywhere?

No!

then what are you doing having him as your manager if that’s true (and it is) 

Put another way in the same light: What is it that he brings to the table as a plus guy?  

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Posted
1 hour ago, UTexasFight said:

Bochy is who I wanted and he just parted ways with the Rangers 

I'm good on septugenerians for awhile

Posted
1 hour ago, Wulaw Horn said:

You think the Yankees or dodgers wouldn’t give up like 4 of their top 6 or 7 players for Yordan?

No.  As much as I love him, with the injury history, I don’t think there's that much surplus value to the contract anymore.

Posted
On 9/28/2025 at 8:04 PM, tx 3 putt said:

deeper org stuff - refocus on latin america scouting. more money for scouting 

This,  it set them up for this run and if you aren't going to throw money around in free agency go to where the money has a bigger impact.  

Posted

I think some dumbass rich team would give good value for Yordan as a splash move where they can boast about his hitting and good contract. If good value is offered, I’d take it in a second and thank Yordan for his 2022 postseason bat. 
 

Peña’s trade value is likely at its all time peak this offseason. I don’t know if I’d do it, but we do have Paredes or Cam that could play 3B and slide Correa back to SS. 

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Posted
12 minutes ago, Murfdogg21 said:

I think some dumbass rich team would give good value for Yordan as a splash move where they can boast about his hitting and good contract. If good value is offered, I’d take it in a second and thank Yordan for his 2022 postseason bat. 
 

Peña’s trade value is likely at its all time peak this offseason. I don’t know if I’d do it, but we do have Paredes or Cam that could play 3B and slide Correa back to SS. 

Are we sure we want to trade our best hitter?

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Posted
7 hours ago, David Dennison said:

Are we sure we want to trade our best hitter?

I mean, depends on the offer. I’d probably trade my wife and kids for the right offer but it would have to be pretty spectacular. 
I’d trade you to the rangers thread for a half eaten ham Sandwhich. Yordan probably falls somewhere in between. 😛

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Posted
10 hours ago, Wulaw Horn said:

Espada is such an easy call- if he got fired tomorrow would he have a single interview for head job anywhere?

No!

then what are you doing having him as your manager if that’s true (and it is) 

Put another way in the same light: What is it that he brings to the table as a plus guy?  

There is some value in familiarity.  Introducing a new manager adds risk, as the new manager could generate conflict with star players, which can completely derail an organization.  That’s not necessarily an endorsement of Houston keeping Espada, but just to say comparing Espada keeping his current job versus interviewing for other jobs is not apples to apples.  I will also say that as a fellow Puerto Rican I would expect Correa to lobby hard on Espada’s behalf; who knows how much weight that holds.

Posted

The volume of fans suggesting Houston trade Yordan Alvarez is shocking.  Trading Yordan is neither smart nor realistic.  A DH only who is owed over $80M and is coming off a season in which he hit a total of 6 HR in 48 games is a guy you only trade if you are convinced he’s washed and you are absolutely desperate to shed payroll.  No team is going to value him as a MLB Top 5 hitter, which is what he is when he’s healthy.  If you have designs on trading him to rebuild the farm or free up payroll, fine, but wait until he’s rebuilt his value.  If Houston needs to free up payroll, they’ll trade Christian Walker or Josh Hader.  If they need to rebuild the farm, they’ll trade Jeremy Pena or Hunter Brown.

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Posted

For starters:

 

Trade Walker back to AZ...or to Japan IDGAF

Don't fucking trade Yordan you dumbasses

Sign a SP not named Framber (Gallen had really good season in 22/23 so so in 24 and not good in 25....can we get him on the cheap and fix him?) 

Sign someone with power unlike Jake Meyers (Grisham) 

 

Need more steals.....need more power.  Figure it the fuck out.  

 

 

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Posted
1 hour ago, Snake Diggity said:

There is some value in familiarity.  Introducing a new manager adds risk, as the new manager could generate conflict with star players, which can completely derail an organization.  That’s not necessarily an endorsement of Houston keeping Espada, but just to say comparing Espada keeping his current job versus interviewing for other jobs is not apples to apples.  I will also say that as a fellow Puerto Rican I would expect Correa to lobby hard on Espada’s behalf; who knows how much weight that holds.

I have ALWAYS said that a managers number 1 job is to not piss off/bum out the team he’s leading and make it a pain to come to work every day. That’s true. I’d be completely opposed to hiring a dickhead that made everyone miserable (looking at you Terry Collin and maybe Jimy Williams). That said, that’s not his only job and he fails basically everything beyond that. 
The fact that there would be zero interest in him (and that like 5 teams he interviewed with were like- nope) speaks really really loudly. 

Posted
1 hour ago, Snake Diggity said:

The volume of fans suggesting Houston trade Yordan Alvarez is shocking.  Trading Yordan is neither smart nor realistic.  A DH only who is owed over $80M and is coming off a season in which he hit a total of 6 HR in 48 games is a guy you only trade if you are convinced he’s washed and you are absolutely desperate to shed payroll.  No team is going to value him as a MLB Top 5 hitter, which is what he is when he’s healthy.  If you have designs on trading him to rebuild the farm or free up payroll, fine, but wait until he’s rebuilt his value.  If Houston needs to free up payroll, they’ll trade Christian Walker or Josh Hader.  If they need to rebuild the farm, they’ll trade Jeremy Pena or Hunter Brown.

You are pretty convinced nobody will value him as a top 5 hitter in the game. He looked like that after he got his hand fixed. I think you are a prisoner of the moment with that and there are absolutely teams that would still value him that way. If there’s not I haven’t seen ANYONE say you move him just to move him. If they said that it would be silly. There’s only one way to find out how the market would value him though. 
My other suggestion would be to offer him a 30/75 extension. If his maker is really that depressed around the league maybe he’s got the same concerns and would do that deal. 
of course, all of this suggests you have a medical staff you can trust that isn’t hammered dog shit terrible at their jobs. We don’t, so that’s kind of a problem. 

Posted
3 minutes ago, Wulaw Horn said:

My other suggestion would be to offer him a 30/75 extension.

I would love to see Yordan put Julio Franco  to shame by playing until he’s 58, but I just don’t think he’d be that productive.  

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Posted (edited)
27 minutes ago, Scraps said:

For starters:

 

Trade Walker back to AZ...or to Japan IDGAF

Don't fucking trade Yordan you dumbasses

Sign a SP not named Framber (Gallen had really good season in 22/23 so so in 24 and not good in 25....can we get him on the cheap and fix him?) 

Sign someone with power unlike Jake Meyers (Grisham) 

 

Need more steals.....need more power.  Figure it the fuck out.  

 

 

In his last 11 starts of the year he gave up 24 Earned runs. That’s a tougher pitching environment. He basically takes the ball every 5 days, puts up innings, and is only 30 years old.

I would imagine he’s looking for at least 6/150

i just fact checked myself, and Spotrac (feel like they are usually low) says 6/138 and athletic says 7/178 so I’m in the ballpark. 
 

I might give that to him. I’d rather do that with him than Framber after that melt down the last 2 months. 

Edited by Wulaw Horn
Posted
4 minutes ago, Guadaloopy said:

I would love to see Yordan put Julio Franco  to shame by playing until he’s 58, but I just don’t think he’d be that productive.  

That would only take him through his age 33 season. I don’t think Cubans lie about their age- their med system keeps records. I know people always say this but I think that’s Dominicans that are notorious for that not Cubans. 

Posted
1 hour ago, Snake Diggity said:

 I will also say that as a fellow Puerto Rican I would expect Correa to lobby hard on Espada’s behalf; who knows how much weight that holds.

This is silly: Bochy is going into the HOF once he’s eligible and I’ll be shocked if a fired Espada ever gets higher than bench coach again.  
 

Correa has two priorities-getting paid and winning.  Organizing an affirmative action program for MLB management is going to be pretty low on the list.  

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Posted
Just now, Wulaw Horn said:

That would only take him through his age 33 season. I don’t think Cubans lie about their age- their med system keeps records. I know people always say this but I think that’s Dominicans that are notorious for that not Cubans. 

I was making a cheap joke based on your 30/75 typo.  

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Posted
1 minute ago, Guadaloopy said:

I was making a cheap joke based on your 30/75 typo.  

I didn’t even see that. I’d still give him 30/75 as an extension. He gets the Bobby Bonilla treatment if he wants it! 

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Posted (edited)
10 hours ago, David Dennison said:

Are we sure we want to trade our best hitter?

No, but only if you think he's going to keep hitting that way. I stopped expecting it a long time ago, especially when players have outlier statistical years about the time they are up for a contract extension.

 

* Also, Jake Meyers hit 0.300 this year. Is he untradeable and expected to maintain that next season?

Edited by Murfdogg21
Posted

Re: Bochy, I’ll add that dumping Espada and hiring Bochy is exactly the kind of splash off-season move that Crane appears to get excited about (and possibly overruling his GM):  

Posted

I don't get the Espada hate.  What did he do that was so bad?

The only reason we missed the playoffs this year is injuries.  The Astros got hit with injuries worse than any other team.  I read somewhere it took out like 17.5 WAR.  Even with just "normal" injury levels, we should have won five more games and won the division.

Beyond injuries, you had Altuve declining, Walker (hopefully) having a bad year and Meyers and Pena having really good years.

This is still a playoff team.  I don't think you have to do much; certainly nothing radical.  Trading our best players would be dumb.  We need to add a #3 SP and then stay healthy.

Posted
2 hours ago, Snake Diggity said:

The volume of fans suggesting Houston trade Yordan Alvarez is shocking.  Trading Yordan is neither smart nor realistic.  A DH only who is owed over $80M and is coming off a season in which he hit a total of 6 HR in 48 games is a guy you only trade if you are convinced he’s washed and you are absolutely desperate to shed payroll.  No team is going to value him as a MLB Top 5 hitter, which is what he is when he’s healthy.  If you have designs on trading him to rebuild the farm or free up payroll, fine, but wait until he’s rebuilt his value.  If Houston needs to free up payroll, they’ll trade Christian Walker or Josh Hader.  If they need to rebuild the farm, they’ll trade Jeremy Pena or Hunter Brown.

Fair points. I have no real idea of Yordan's current market value; I only know he's elite when healthy. So let's keep him if there's reason to believe he'll get at least 400 ABs a season from here on out.

That sounds like a pretty low bar for an MLB slugger to jump. Unfortunately, recent history offers no strong support of him getting all those ABs. And that brings me to one of the things I feel is most critical to solve this off-season: obstacles to team health. No player on earth can help when out of the lineup.

To have a real chance at a title next season (or any other), this organization must address the question of whether it's doing everything possible to keep guys healthy. I suspect doing so would necessitate some personnel changes in that department, but maybe they're all smart people who've been forced to follow bad orders. Perhaps one of you knows for sure. 

 

Posted
1 hour ago, LCHorn said:

Re: Bochy, I’ll add that dumping Espada and hiring Bochy is exactly the kind of splash off-season move that Crane appears to get excited about (and possibly overruling his GM):  

I'm as big of a Bochy fan as you will find, but it's time for him to go rest under his own vine and fig tree.

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