Bellinger isn’t 38 years old… he should be entering his prime years. Could have a Josh Hamilton-like resurgence after he got his personal life in order.
Yeah the landscape has changed. Can’t go into the season with no offense at C and an injured LF and expect to cruise thru the division. Then they lost their SP3, had a major injury to their biggest star, lost their SP4, lost their SP5, and had their biggest offseason signing completely deflate. Now they may have lost their 2nd biggest star. Whoever the primary decision maker was this past offseason gets a D-. At least crane prevented them from giving out any $200M deals that really could’ve crippled them. I you want to win in today’s MLB you have to have a superteam, 1-26, AND a stacked farm system, AND some payroll flexibility, AND a wartime GM.
If the Astros were almost guaranteed a playoff spot this year like prior years, I wouldn't be so annoyed with Baker, but he is managing us out of the playoffs right now.
Bellinger would be a good add. If Brantley can make it back and Dusty plays Diaz more the offense should be much better. I'm thinking Brantley makes it back in 2-3 weeks. They could use another elite reliever and an Urquidy type SP in trade.
Adam Wexler perhaps stated the obvious today. Tucker was highly peeved about his arbitration hearing this offseason. Now he's moping and playing subpar. Kyle has always been nonchalant, but he's been lackadaisical in the field this season with his hustle and urgency. And his offense is subpar too for his standard
He should blame his agent. They asked for way too much. I thought the Astros offer was a little low but Tucker wanted way beyond any comps I saw. MLBtraderumors estimate was 5.6 million. Astros were at 5 and Tucker filed for 7.5. If he wants to mope around it will just cost him more money the next round of arbitration.
I look forward to his groveling though. I'll accept Bellinger, but I remember reportedly celebrated when the trade deadline passed when Trevor Bauer didn't end up here.
True, this is why starting pitching, while a need isn't the highest priority on my list. Particularly it Brown doesn't trade Arrighetti.
So, it was sort of a depressing week so in honor of sundays performance art abortion of a lineup from we talked best and worst lineups for their season and best possible lineup of all time for the Astros. I had a major brain fart and forgot Jose Altuve (we are both on the road and doing it from hotels without the typical note and computers and the like. Short episode- about 25 minutes. It’s staggering how bad some of the Astros have been this year and how little high qualify stuff there’s been outside of Yordan. Spotify https://open.spotify.com/episode/47rs3bDyYFrrkI9aJJRqJn?si=CXML6N24StiaobmN8mZd0A apple https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podca...n-astros-podcast/id1683955456?i=1000616750550 Amazon https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/8...he-lineup?ref=dm_sh_efcfvx73t3Vq9qyQfHJb5WA2q
Remember when Astros social media team deleted the tweet that mentioned we were 6-0 with Yainer starting so it wouldn't make Maldy look bad (we were 6-13 with Maldy at that time).
For years, going back to before Luhnow even, the Astros never had a significantly bad contract. They had small deals that didn't pan out, but I think we'd have to go back to Carlos Lee to find a deal >$50M that was bad for Houston. Now all of a sudden, they have 2 such deals. Jose Abreu is owed about $50M/2.5yrs, and Lance McCullers Jr. is owed about $60M/3.5yrs. My guess is that they are both about $35M underwater each. Losing $70M in value isn't devastating long term, but over 2024-2025 it will definitely be a hinderance to getting Houston over the top. Houston should still have plenty of in-house talent and financial flexibility to remain one of the top 5 teams in the AL for at least the next 4-5 seasons, but for the first time in over a decade, they have bad contracts on their books.
What did it say? If Lance has surgery and is healthy (or his version of it) going forward they could still get that value out of him but yeah- gun to my head that contract is probably significantly underwater.
