If you're in charge, do you let Gerrit Cole walk or pay him?

He's not going to walk away from literally tens of millions of dollars because there might be a similar deal when he's several years older and entering a market that is starting to squeeze 30+ year old pitchers. This is his window and if his postseason continues like it has, he is going straight to the bank. (He's going, anyway - but a few more outings like Saturday and he can pretty much write his own contract...)

 

The goal is not to save money, but to limit how much tax we will end up paying. If we can avoid the LT for one season, that's only one season where Crane will have to pay it which makes it much more easy to stomach.

Alvarez does need work to become a 1st baseman. It's also thankfully a LONG season for him to get practice in. Just my opinion though. I rather we just outright sign Cole and go into LT territory, but that's only because it's not my money.

The reason I am including Correa is because 1) he is the best player to bring back good prospects and 2) his contract while friendly now, is about to skyrocket.

I would rather lose Correa than Greinke TBH considering our short term WS window. Correa has also been very injury prone, which makes me very concerned about him as a long term investment.

 

If the goal is to maximize this current WS window, Cole + Correa >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> (add several dozen more >'s) Greinke + prospects + draft pick for Cole.

 

I always value a great SP more personally than an injury prone great SS. I also feel that it would be easier to replace Yuli and Correa than Greinke. Just my personal opinion.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

There are a couple of assumptions we can operate from in this discussion:

1. They cannot sign Cole without going over the tax in 2020 without doing significant equivalent downgrading to the roster elsewhere; Reddick is the only underwater contract but shedding him alone gets nowhere near enough payroll space to sign Cole and stay under the tax. It does not make sense to trade away Brantley or Greinke and create one hole while filling another (depending of course on the trade value of those players).

2. Payroll commitments will be significantly reduced starting in 2022 when only Altuve, Bregman, and Pressly have defined contracts, and only Yordan, Diaz, Biagini, and maybe James would be arb eligible. So the real heart of the discussion is centered on 2020-2021.

I think the decision tree is fairly clear. They either go for it in 2020-2021 (tax be damned), in which case they should make a run not only to sign Cole, but also to extend Springer and shop at the top of the catching (Grandal) and relief (Harris) markets, OR they try to stay under the tax, in which case they’d have to shed Reddick for sure and shop at the very very financial bottom of the markets (or use only internal options) to fill their holes at SP, RP, and C.

If they choose to go all in, the 2020-2021 rosters would likely be among the most talented of all time, but they’d be looking at the same situation (more expensive, aging rosters with less talent) in 2022.

If they choose the latter option (stay under the tax), 2020-2021 rosters would be less talented than the 2017-2019 rosters, but would still project to 95+ wins. They’d likely be looking at tremendous financial flexibility in 2022-2023, albeit with rosters that as-is project in the 85-95 win range.

 

We should be diligent in not allowing the Astros to convince us that paying a luxury tax is in any way problematic. I believe next year's tax would be the rough equivalent of a middle reliever. It should not be a hindrance.

 

I think this part is not how Luhnow sees it. If the Astros were focused on 2020-2021, keeping Cole would be a lot easier. Astros will spend money in 2022 and after...just don't know who those people are at the moment. It wouldn't surprise me to see Astros extend Verlander for an extra year in the offseason or an extra 2 years after next season. Cole is going to make a lot of money after 2021, and I think this money scares Luhnow more than the money in 2020-2021.

Crane is probably more focused on 2020-2021. If Cole is re-signed, it will be because Crane is willing to take the risk of having the long term contract commitment to Cole.

 

One potential answer is to sign both Springer and Cole to market value long term contracts that are very frontloaded to 2020-2021 and contain opt outs after 2021 that virtually guarantee them to be only 2 year deals. Example for a $230M/7yr deal for Cole:

2020 $55M ($45M plus $10M signing bonus)
2021 $45M
Player opt out option after 2021
2022-2026 $24M/yr

That route would allow them to field 110+ win, $240M+ rosters in 2020 and 2021, then go into 2022 with only about $60M in commitments with what for now projects to be about an 85 win roster. From there they could do a rebuild or spend to build the roster back into a true WS favorite.

 

The tax next year is only a small hindrance that would make Astros offer slightly less competitive. Big hindrance is Cole's going to make a ton of money for a long time if he wants.

 

So Cole gets 100 Million if he's great, and Astros only get him for two years. If he gets hurt, Astros still pay $100M, but get slapped $120 million contract extra for an injured player. I'm pretty sure Luhnow has publicly said teams were stupid for issuing player opt outs.

Also, I'm not sure if player option counts for AAV calculations until exercised (i.e., Would Cole be counting $50M towards luxury tax in this scenario?).

Edit: Springer getting extended is much more likely than Cole re-signing. Springer works hard so there is some risk there long term over a typical position player, but not being a pitcher helps a lot to mitigate long term risk.

 

You’re only considering the 2 most extreme (and unlikely) outcomes for Cole, and in the event he blows out his arm, Houston would recoup some money via insurance.

I don’t think player options count against AAV, but I am not certain.

 

As you've been harping on re-signing Cole for dozens of posts, I find it highly unlikely that you believe Cole won't be good enough to opt out after 2 years. My extremes likely cover 95%+ of likely outcomes. He's either great enough to out opt or he's had some injury that makes him think he can't be an AAV of $24M.

Edit: by injured, I don't mean not to the point he can't pitch. Injured to the point that he's not worth $24M over 5 years. Pitching Aging Curves are more based on pitchers breaking than on them actually aging.

 

Hell yes, sign him to a backloaded contract and go for it right now. Trade Greinke either off-season or mid-season for whatever you can get and eat some of his salary to keep us reasonable on luxury tax next two years. Try to trade Reddick for peanuts, MIley is gone, McHugh is gone, Devenski is gone. Let’s give McCullers, James, Whitley, Urguidy, Abreu, Valdez, Lopez, Sanchez (when available) a lot of rope.I don’t think Greinke is 3rd ace potential anymore, although, I was excited at the trade. Just didn’t realize how much is fastball has dropped off.

 

What if we got rid of Greinke and Reddick next year? Won't that free up about 35 million?

Starting Rotation would be Verlander, Cole, Lance, Urquidy, Whitley (Maybe some random vet like Miley this year)

 

The luxury tax calculated salary as an annual average so backloading doesn’t help avoid the tax.

 

You certainly can’t look to Grenkie to fill Cole’s shoes.

 

Yall crack me up with this "short term WS window". We have a ton of young talent on our team right now winning 100 + games, and some high upside arms just getting here.

How many teams have more talent under control for another 4 years than the Astros?

Our "window" isn't about to slam shut folks

 

Why? Because he got rocked today?

Dude is a front end starter, if Cole is gone the number of teams that can match Verlander/Greinke at the top of a rotation can be counted on one hand

 

Is it really counting if the answer is zero?