IF you think that the injured pitchers (Urquidy, Garcia, Javier) will return as effective weapons, the Astros will have “extra” pitching (yes, I know that one can never have too much pitching, as this year demonstrated). I wouldn’t be surprised if Dana Brown has his eye on some young 3B somewhere that he can get in exchange for pitching. (This also kind of assumes that they’ll resign Kikuchi; don’t know about Verlander.)
Tigers get shutout by that juggernaut that is the Chicago White Sox. They are 1/2 game up on the Royals for the 5 seed. Astros won’t know their opponent until after tomorrow’s games.
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Bregman has been batting in fucking bizarre ass spots in the lineup all season. Sometimes out of necessity and sometimes because… reasons? I can’t really explain him batting cleanup as much as he did. He’s not that hitter and shouldn’t have been expected to be.
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Alex is one of only 13 position players to have at least 4.0 fWAR each of the last 3 seasons. (I didn’t check bWAR)
Jose Ramirez is the only other 3b on the list.
Yordan and Tucker are also on the list.
Altuve has 3.9 this year or would be there too.
He’s got 75 rbi and he’s hitting .260
What exactly does everyone think he’ll be doing in the next 5 years?
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I thought we weren’t taking Bagwell’s GM advice anymore?
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Your comparison is quite a stretch. Altuve didn’t publicly endorse signing Jose Abreu or Rafael Montero.
RBI’s are a team stat predicated on guys getting on ahead of you, and averages have dropped precipitously across the sport since the infatuation with launch angles began. Bregman has a .768 OPS this year, and that’s with him posting his worst .OBP (.315) since 2017 by 35 points because his walk rate has declined.
I would say that for the first three years of a 5-year contract, he will be doing about what he has the last three years, which is have OPS’s of .820, .804 and .768 and a WAR above 4 (4.5, 4.9, 4.1).
As with any long-term contract for a veteran player, you are getting far more value at the front ot the contract during your contention window and possibility taking a hit at the end. The same thing is true with Jose Altuve’s 5-year, $125 extension.
How do you propose replacing him and making the Astros better? The Astros already have a thin lineup and need a substantial offensive upgrade at 1B. If you let Bregman walk, are you happier giving that money to Pete Alonso? Bregman’s a better player. Do you want to use it to sign Framber to a five-year extension, or sign a free agent like Max Fried? Pitchers are inherently risky bets because they could have to undergo elbow/shoulder surgery at any time.
You can allocate some of it towards a Kyle Tucker extension, but that doesn’t make the 2025 Astros better. You could also use some of it to sign Yusei Kikuchi, but signing Bregman to a 5 or 6 year deal similar to Matt Chapman’s has no bearing on that. The Astros could use the $17.5M savings on Justin Verlander not hitting his option and the $7 million saved on Kendall Graveman to pay Kikuchi and have money left over.
At some point, if you want to keep your contention window open and you lack a strong farm system because of trades you have made to keep the window open until now, your best move might very well be to sign/extend key members of your current team. The Astros do not have the prospects to get an Alex Bregman caliber player via trade at this time, nor a suitable internal replacement for him.
Why not go back in his last 5 years?
There’s a 1.1 and a 2.1 WAR in there.
Like I said earlier, if you can sign him and it doesn’t impair your ability to fill other holes, fine.
But paying aging vets with declining production isn’t what “Astroball” was supposed to be.
(as for runners have to get on to drive them in, Alex was 4 for 40 something with RISP during the second half. He had many, many chances.)
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The 2.1 is a fine argument, though it was in 91 games. Injuries can happen to any player and he recovered to play 145+ games each season since.
Altuve was hurt twice last year and only got to 2.8, but still got an extention, and he’s 4 years older than Alex.
The 1.1 is a disingenuous argument because in came in a 60 game season. It prorates out to 3.0 over 162 games. 3.0 WAR is worth $24M by most accepted valuations.
And, bringing up Jose again, he had negative WAR that year despite playing 80% of the games.
Bregman struggled with RISP the second half of the year, fair enough. He still did enough this year to post a 4.1 WAR, which is well above average. Matt Chapman, who I would also qualify as above average, signed for six years and 150 million in San Francisco. That’s a similar contract to what I expect Bregman to receive.
Also, on this year’s payroll, Alex Bregman is making 28.5M. Not to mention, between this year and next, the following contracts come off the books:
Verlander: 17.5M
Jose Abreu: 19M
Montero: 11.5M
Pressly: 14M
Framber and Tucker: each made 12M in arbitration this season
Graveman: 7M
That’s 93M coming off the books after 2025, and the only players you would want to keep due to their performance and age are Tucker and Framber. After 2026, McCullers $17M annual salary is gone. Add in Bregman’s 28.5M in limbo and factoring raises to Diaz, Peña and Bryan Abreu, the Astros have well over $100 million in payroll flexibility to build the team for 2025, 2026 and 2027.
So, I don’t see Bregman nor Tucker extensions significantly impacting the ability for Dana Brown to build the Astros’ roster moving forward.
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I’m guessing there’s another adjective you could have used.
I’m am not being disingenuous.
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What a great moment.
Hats off to the field crew with the 19 in the OF grass.
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Playing Fogerty’s “Centerfield” was a nice move too. Glad he got to do that in Colorado.
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Braves lose, Mets and Dbacks win
Dbacks are 89-73
Braves and Mets are 88-72.
Braves and Mets will have to play both games of the double header tomorrow.
If they split they both get in and the Dbacks are out, if either team wins both the Dbacks are in and the loser of the double header is out.
It will be interesting to see how the winner of game 1 treats game 2
Right. Game 1 winner is in; game 1 loser is playing for life. D-backs are studying bird entrails and looking for virgins to sacrifice.
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Please accept my apologies.
The connotation of that word does not make it good to use in civil and respectful debate.
My thinking was that we all very well know 2020 was significantly shorter than a full 162 game season.
Any use of a counting stat to defend your point should have had some kind of reference to that.
Its like saying George Springer didn’t have a good 2020 because he only had 14 hr and 32 rbi.
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All 3 Astros-Tigers games will be at MMP at 1:30 PM