The Astros can still win the World Series and as we both know, you always take the field over a single team. So even with a trade for a major piece, the chances of winning the World Series is under 50%. Seeing your rivals fix holes and not doing the same is hard to swallow when you have the most legitimate chance of winning a World Series in 50 years. I have never advocated over paying for any of the players available this deadline. Fans discussing trading Tucker and Whitley and/or Martes for the names available were insane. Having said that, the costs at the deadline were very mild. Someone like Gray would have helped the team this year and in the future. Wilson also would have added stability to the pen. I don't think the Astros played the deadline well at all personally. However as I have said, the Astros front office deserves a lot of credit for their off season moves and farm system. Luhnow has overall done an exceptional job. Perhaps Luhnow just really believes that this group of prospects are special and have a high likelyhood of doing well. Fisher so far has done very well, Martes has consistency issues but his stuff has been top of the rotation quality. Perez is very young still and has progressed very well. Tucker has consistently improved and is on track to be be a long term difference maker. Whitley is quiet possibly the best young pitcher in the minors with a very high ceiling. My guess is the front office got the message from the players and will attempt to make reasonable deals to bolster the team over the next month. The reality is most deadline deals don't workout for teams acquiring veterans. Look no farther than the Rangers last year. I think it is quite possible the Astros pull the trigger if a Chris Sale type of player becomes available this winter. Honestly the biggest determination of the Astros will be health. If Dallas and Lance are pitching well, it won't matter if we face Darvish or Gray. The pen will contract in the post season and Morton will likely be in the pen with Devo and Harris and Giles. The level of negativity is too high.
Agreed for the most part. I'm not second guessing his "philosophy"... if you can even call it that. I'm upset over not being able to improve the starting pitching, both prior to the season and now. You, among others, advocated waiting till prices came down at the trade deadline. People also wanted to wait to see if Keuchel and LMJ came back healthy then maybe they didn't need more pitching. Luhnow is very much open to criticism on several decisions, and he does deserve criticism/ is ultimately responsible for how the trade deadline conspired (even if it wasn't totally his fault). Rosenthal did surmise the whole situation pretty well. You can love this team and still question moves. Consistently giving them the benefit of the doubt, when they themselves came out and said they didn't get it done, is going to make you even more upset when they receive deserved criticism or ultimately get ridiculed nationally if they don't win it all. I take offense when others lash out at those questioning moves... as if we haven't been following this team for our entire lives. It's our team, Joe.
Agree with what you said, but want to highlight this. Astros are betting big on LMJ and Keuchel and to a smaller degree on McHugh. I hope they are right.
Would be so vindicating if Luhnow was able to close that deal, now that the other buyers have made their moves. Maybe Verlander was Houstons plan B all along, knowing he would be available after the deadline if they could get Britton or Darvish done.
Its going to cost them (basically picking up Verlander's salary).... then again, if Detroit wants better quality prospects, they'll have to pay more and more of Verlander's contract.
Pretty obvious that no one will be willing to pay his entire salary, otherwise he would have been claimed. It will be very difficult to get a deal like this done due to both the high $ amount and the player having a no-trade. But if Detroit really is intent on rebuilding, they can and should be willing to take on a lot of money in order to get good prospects back. I'm not sure what Verlander would be worth if he were a free agent this offseason. Even despite his down numbers he is still probably going to end up posting a pretty good fWAR (~3). But at 34 years old and seemingly on the decline, he would probably be looking at a 3 or 4 year deal in the $50-70M range. So I think just to get back to even value, Detroit would need to eat ~$20M. And I'd be willing to take that deal AND add 1-2 2nd tier prospects to account for urgency etc. (so Verlander and $20M for F Perez and Alvarez would be acceptable to me even though it's an overpay). But there hasn't been much of any rumors about where Verlanders head is at regarding waiving his no-trade, so the whole point might be moot.
The value in Verlander may well not be measured with stats. His value to this team could be a restoration of faith in the club house that management is on the same page and wants to win it all this year. Working out something to get Verlander would go a long way in doing that. Hell even if he doesn't waive his clause at least the perception is we were willing to spend money and/or move prospects for a chance at the series. I think Lunhow and Crane have been handed the opportunity to pump up the clubhouse and I hope they at least try to take it.
Another note is that Houston probably doesn't have a ton of room to add payroll next season. Without adding or extending a single player, they will likely be looking at ~$125M next year after arbitration raises. They can probably sustain $140-150M for awhile, but they'll need that difference to cover keeping 1 of Altuve or Keuchel (I don't see any way they can keep both). So they can probably afford to add $10-15M a year to the 2018-2019 payroll but that'll be pushing it and make it hard to fill holes this offseason. The only way they could trade for somebody like Verlander is if Detroit ate money.
That's possible... then again, all of that would likely go out the window if he's ineffective. In the end, they'll be fine... especially if/when they get healthy. As it is, its going to be a drag/grind the rest of the season. They have such a big lead, no real marquee homestands left, attendance typically goes down as school starts up, no exciting pennant race or jockeying for position to drive them. They just got to stay healthy and hope that DK, LMJ and McHugh get sharp enough to be as good as possible for the playoffs.
I agree with this. There is value in changing the narrative, not just in the clubhouse (players) but also at the gate (fans).
Yep. 3 roadblocks: 1. Is Houston willing to discuss their 2nd tier guys (Perez, Musgrove, Alvarez)? They won't (and shouldn't) be willing to talk Tucker/Martes/Fisher/Whitley, but if they aren't willing to talk about the next guys in line, it'll be a non-starter. 2. Is Detroit willing to eat money and accept 2nd tier guys? Houston can't afford the contract. And Verlanders not worth it. So Detroit would have to eat millions of dollars to ship out a franchise icon and not receive elite guys in return. That's hard to swallow. 3. Is Verlander willing to waive his no-trade? He's a legend in Detroit, and it's all he's known. But if he stays he will likely never win a ring. If he isn't willing to waive it for Houston or if he wants a big bonus to waive it, that will kill the deal. That's a lot to overcome, which is why we shouldn't expect it and why it should be highly celebrated if Luhnow is able to pull it off.
We should have gotten Darvish because in the playoffs 3 top starters is needed to have a chance to reach the WS.
On not getting a reliever, that is on Luhnow. I don't think it is nearly as big deal as others. I don't really care if other team backs out at ownership level or at GM level. On starting pitching, Astros pitchers have 4 guys with sub 4 xFIPs and 5 guys with sub 4 ERAs. McHugh looked great his last appearance which should add another. I was not expecting that. I still wanted Gray, but more for pushing another SP to relief. I do not see Gray as a huge help in rotation unless Astros lose a lot of guys.
If the Tigers chip in $20M, the Astros would still owe him roughly $40M for the remainder of this year and the next two years. Verlander has a WHIP of 1.438 this year. Only Paulino and Musgrove have slightly worse WHIPs when compared to pitchers that have started games for us. Being the stat hound that he is, I don't see Luhnow pulling the trigger on such a deal. Really think the Tigers would need to chip in closer to $35M to get a deal done.
This can't be said enough. Astros need Keuchel to be awesome in the playoffs. Without another reliever, Astros are going to really need Keuchel to be effective for several innings.
Yep. Longshot and an EXPENSIVE repair. IF Lunhow and Crane lost the clubhouse and that is a big if. Verlander would be an expensive repair job especially if he is not effective. Who knows. If the guys are down there pouting they need to nut it up and go prove to the rest of us that they deserve to be there and they may very well do that event more so when Springer and Correa come back. I just hope that when those two guys come back that DK has scraped off all the rust and McCullers took some damn vitamins or COq10 or whatever is needed to harden that fragile body.
I don't view Darvish, a starter, as a "Plan B" for Britton, a reliever. For that matter, neither did the Dodgers: Watson was their Plan B if they didn't get Britton, and they got him. As you said, the Astros can probably find someone of that level in August, if they deem it necessary. Can you criticize Luhnow/the Astros for not being more aggressive on starting pitching? Absolutely, especially given the McCullers news. It didn't seem they were involved on Gray at all, which stunned me since A) he's not a rental and B) he's financially inexpensive. That said, this isn't "star search" like the NBA, where you just go for a big name regardless of fit, and worry about the rest later. In MLB, it's all about fit. The Astros wanted Britton (and apparently another high-end reliever, according to Rosenthal last night) because of their ability to throw elite single innings late in high-leverage situations. That's apples and oranges compared to acquiring Yu Darvish. Moreover, it's pretty clear that from the Dodgers' perspective, not only was Watson their fallback for Britton, but they didn't even move late on Darvish. It was the Rangers who came back to the table in the last 10 minutes, deciding that what LAD had offered was better than the comp pick in the 70s that they'd get if they kept Darvish and he walked. And, as reported by numerous correspondents, the Dodgers were more active than the Astros on Darvish throughout the process. I'm not saying Luhnow gets a pass, because I'm disappointed, too. But the premise that the Dodgers succeeded and the Astros failed because one team had Darvish as a "fallback" is not accurate. The Dodgers didn't have much more success in the relief market than the Astros... the difference is that they were simply much more engaged on starting pitchers throughout the process and identified it as a greater need. The criticism of Luhnow/the Astros should be that they didn't put enough emphasis on SPs, not their negotiating skills in the final hours.
