If Graveman and Montero play up their potential, we are pretty much set for next season with some health. Especially knowing that Crane doesn't mind making some big trades for what we need at the deadline when he thinks we are close. Verlander, Graveman, Verlander again, Graveman again, Greinke, Cole, etc.
Robert is obviously the safest bet with only health being a concern and has 4 years of club control. Brown and Meyers combined might end up better combined (Brown possibly by himself), but slotting Robert in everyday in the postseason and not having to worry about pitching matchups would be worth losing some possible upside in my opinion.
Right. If you could count on Graveman, Montero, McCullers, and Garcia to be fully healthy and effective in the 2nd half, then you can count on the farm to provide whatever else you want from the pitching staff, because you’d have 12 healthy effective high quality big league arms. Having to find a guy like Sousa, Gage, Dubin, Martinez, Whitley, Blanco, Kuhnel, Ortega, Mushinski, Bielak, etc to be the 13th pitcher is all good and in fact preferable because it keeps a spot to work in a young player who could end up being a core piece down the line.
I'm not sure. He had so much value on the farm that even losing some guys in trades that produced for others still left the farm producing talent 3 years after he left. The Verlander trade was a big win for Luhnow, but a lot of his other trades were just trading unconcentrated value for concentrated value.
Braves are preparing to use Reynaldo Lopez as a starter, so they may be off the market now. But had/have interest in Sonny Gray. Cardinals also signed Lance Lynn too a 1yr deal.
Was the Greinke trade then unconcentrated value for existential value? At the time of the Cole trade, at the time I thought they gave up a lot in Musgrove for somebody who was inconsistent/underperforming... but nobody thought Cole would turn into what he turned into, so it was justifiable. It was a "win" of a trade because the Pirates never actually did anything with the unconcentrated value that ended up concentrated for other teams. I still think one of his "better", unheralded, trades were selling high on Jared Cosart... which helped eventually facilitate the Cole deal and they got far more value out of Marisnick than anything Cosart ended up doing. Kike still cashing checks though...
Astros have spoken about a number of players with the White Sox - mostly in groups but some individually. Kopech is one of the players most talked about with the Astros.
I see he’s from Longview. What’s the story on him behind the stats? Looks like a really not good 2023 campaign for him.
Classic situation where you have a kid with a fastball over 100 mph that has health issues and off the field issues. They have tried to make him a starter but he is at the point where he will likely be moved to the pen to play up his fastball.
It is the same thing I said when the season ended........ Crane will go over the tax for the right player/players. They are trying hard to get one of the right players....... and we will have to wait and see if they pull it off.
I think the Astros could use Shohei Ohtani"s MLB experience to show that there are massive advantages to signing with a team like the Astros over teams that won't be competitive.
Robert is my super-lust. I never got over us not getting him the first time. Nothing would excite me more. Cease and/or Kopech would be gravy. And Yordan did post that pic of the two of them a few weeks ago… Please, Jim, please!!
