Dammit! I knew it would be a longshot but was hoping we might find a way to bring him back.
This is the thinnest I can remember the rotation being in a long time. Definitly has me nervous.
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Darn. I wish I could hop over to the alternate universe where he stayed with the Blue Jays for the balance of the year to see what his contract would look like for this year. He owes Crane and the entire Astros analytics and pitching coaching team free steak dinners for the next 3 years.
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So the Astros gave up useful players to fix a pitcher for a division rival, cool.
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They did get a bunch of fantastic starts down the stretch, too.
A perfectly reasonable opening offer and not an insurmountable gulf
Dammit! I hate this.
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Now, come on chuck. Surely even you cannot believe how cynical you are.
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Part I hate the most is the damn Angels stepping in and mucking up the program. It was reported that we were in the mix for him. Only way a player goes to Angels over Astros is if they choose to pay a reasonable amount more. Anyhow, wish Angels would have earmarked another player to over pay instead of Kikuchi. Oh well, moving on…
While I can smell what you’re trying to cook up here, there are likley a dozen or more reasons a player would chose another team over the Astros and a lot of them may not even be about baseball.
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Oops. Lets try again
Losing Kikuchi hurts. Him going to the Angels is a big nothingburger to me. It does not matter how many good/great players they onboard, the’ll still find a way to lose 90+ games next year and for the foreseeable future.
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My “friend” posted this 3 weeks ago.
Apparently the offer was made to Alex 3 weeks before it was leaked
Make of that what you will, but its nice to see some verification that his info has some merit.
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I don’t agree with this.
If you have money, Southern California is a nice place to be.
My M.I.L. has some property in the wine country of Temecula and its NICE.
Asian players choose California, Seattle, or NY. Almost exclusively.
The Astros have almost no scouting presence in Asia, preferring to spend in the Caribbean.
So far its worked out.
It’s a shame Vietnam isn’t baseball crazed. They love Houston.
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If you think about it, unless a $15M+ contract is traded, the Astros only have money for 1 $20M+ addition.
Signing Kikuchi really only made fonancial sense if Framber was traded, and there were no reports of that being considered.
They very well may consider him no higher than a 3rd starter (behind Framber and Brown).
And there can be a case made that any 2 of Arrighetti, Blanco, Garcia, or ( I know hahaha) McCullers could out pitch him in 2025 and relegate him to the bullpen if/when they make the post season.
$21M is a lot for that scenario.
And they need money to fill holes at 3b, 1b, LF, and/or CF.
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Probably starting a flame war here but, that’s the kind of thing The Void is all about.
SoCal is a pit. The weather sucks. It’s tan and full of signs and billboards and trash and fugly architecture and $30 hamburgers and unrelenting hedonism. Sure, you can hermetically seal yourself in $100 bills but you can do that anywhere. I and my wife were so happy to get out of that soul-sucking eyesore.
To each their own.
I hate the traffic and expense. Thats about it.
Someone making $20M can manage.
$800K per month can provide a limo and afford $30 hamburgers.
When I visit my M.I.L. its always very enjoyable.
Then again maybe its different to live there.
I’d like to get a $20M contract to find out for myself.
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And you know Trout will be on the DL before the All-Star Break.
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Tommy Pham and Danny Graves are the only Vietnamese players I’m can think of. And they’re both half Vietnamese.
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