Keuchel to the Rangers. In the near term he’ll be pitching at the Dell.
Doubt he’ll last the season.
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I usually tried to root for Keuchel when he wasn’t pitching against us. I can’t root for any one of those schlong gorveling Arlington Ranger maggots. I hope Houston hangs 10 on Arlington Keuchel if he ever pitches against us.
Devo brought up by Arizona tonight
I didn’t realize that he’s still pitching.
Btw, I saw that Rojas is en fuego for AZ right now. He was part of the Greinke deal, right?
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He was the sticking point, if I recall correctly. Luhnow didn’t want to include him in the deal and Crane overruled him.
Really do not understand his being a potential block to acquiring Greinke. He was a nice player (I saw him in RR) but not so good Luhnow would be reluctant to part with him. I am glad he is doing well, but I question where and how much he would play in Houston.
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Rojas was the fourth player added to that deal, and was red hot at the time (granted, in AAA). I’m too lazy to look it up, but I recall all four players were top-10 prospects in the system. I understand Luhnow’s hesitancy to include Rojas. I also recall that Crane called the D-Backs owner and got them to eat a bigger chunk of Greinke’s salary in order to make Rojas’ inclusion more palatable.
Maybe so, but I remember Rojas success in the Houston system’s being something of a surprise. As I said, I saw him several times in RR and thought he was a nice player but should not block a trade for Greinke.
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For sure… his numbers were “good, not great” in 2017-2018, then he took a leap in 2019 at CC and RR. I think there was an initial agreement for a package of the other three players - Beer, Baukauskas, and Corbin Martin - then ARI came back and asked for Rojas to sweeten the deal, and Luhnow balked. Then Crane stepped in with the cooler head… which was fortunate.
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Luhnow was adamant that adding a fifth player to the package was too much value. Crane said something to the effect of “are you really telling me that a AAAA utility infielder having a good season is going to keep us from getting the final piece for a world series team?”
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I agree with Crane on that one totally.
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A matter of getting too attached to “winning the trade” vs the point of the trade.
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Prospecterbation
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I don’t think it’s the prospects per se, but each office has their player valuation model, and if that model says you’re giving up more “value” than you get, Luhnow wasn’t a “screw the model, get it done” guy.
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Exactly. Luhnow was too driven by the metrics. Hard to apply a points system to intuition and creativity. Also to go away from the model means if the plan backfires one can’t say, “Don’t blame me, I did what the numbers told me to do.”
The trouble with a pure valuation model is that you end up with more mid-range “value” players than you can put on the team. in some ways, that is the Astros OF now … lots of guys with some value, but (apart from Tucker) no really outstanding player. Much better that they would “lose” a trade involving some of those guys and end up with a real offensive threat to add to the mix, even if they have to recall someone from AAA to flesh out the roster.
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Pretty close:
BA: Corbin Martin (#4), JB Bukauskas (#5), Seth Beer (#8), Rojas (#16).
MLB Pipeline: Martin (#5), JBB (#4), Beer (#3), Rojas (#22).