Balta1701

Someone combined all of the Abreu threads int this soliloquy.

Have you not noticed what has happened?

God willing, Andrew Vaughn.

Would certainly hope not...but Machado would be 34 and 35 in his vesting seasons, and we'd be talking about $35 million and not $9 million. These guys aren't dumb, they know you only want those to be option years so that you have a way out.

I mean, I can't think of any other examples of any players that Machado might have been familiar with and known well failing to get to a 525 PA vesting option at age 32 after being acquired by the White Sox, can you?

I don't run with this excuse as I said above, but note that the White Sox's attendance has substantially improved this year. Their braggadocio during the offseason about how they were going to add a middle of the order bat put them in the news and likely sold some season tickets. That was one potential motivation to publicly be deceptive.

No I think the FO is a bunch of clowns. I think they put a $175 million offer on the table in January and leaked it to the press thinking that it was an overwhelming offer and that no one else was going to be anywhere close to that, and that after that point they thought they were bidding against themselves and doing Machado's side a favor. I think they put like a $200 million offer on the table just before Soxtalk and thought they were going to get it done with that offer, which is why we had so many leaks of something happening right beforehand. When they got up to $250 million they thought they were bidding against themselves, they were told another team had a higher offer and didn't believe it, and then threw a temper tantrum in the press when someone actually put a fair, $300 million offer on the table. I think they genuinely thought "$175 million offered" would scare away other teams, when it did the exact opposite. I think they have no idea how to value players, overall.

The fact that anyone could think those options would be picked up is equally incredible.

They supposedly had the #1 system in baseball around 2000 also and they already had Ordonez, Lee, and Thomas on the roster, but for my money I'll take that early 90's team. That sucker was loaded.

Regardless of what RH does this offseason, I think that with the amount of stuff coming up from the minor leagues and the amount of money to spend...an entirely fair thing to ask for is "Competitive baseball in September". Don't even have to actually win the Wild Card, but at least should have their team name on the lists shown of the handful of teams that have a shot at it. If we don't get that next year then I'm not sure when we ever will.

Did they actually have time after the game to tell him before this was published? Was someone waiting in the tunnel with a plane ticket?

And it was also a request for a huge discount from his realistic value at the same time.

Herrera signed one of the top 5-7 contracts given out to relievers last offseason, depending on how you count a couple guys. That's not a "Turn it around" contract, that's a "we think you're still really good" contract. Which is another reason for people to whine, because that's disconcerting.

I'll bet right now that if we look at those 3 next year at this time, at least 1 of them will have made their team say "boy I wish we hadn't signed that deal" - the mid level of the free agent market is full of busts, like a rate of >50%, so even if they sign them it's hard to know that they're getting "quality players".

Moaning about and assuming they will not be able to sign quality players in FA is entirely justified based on their previous offseasons, particularly the last one. I for one don't believe at all that this organization will put >>$200 million anywhere close to the table as an offer for Cole, and we'll see if they prove me wrong.

FWIW, Jay's defense has been bad enough that he's a replacement/below replacement level player and even though he's hitting over .300 he may well be helping our draft slot.

Oh and one more. All offseason people screamed at me "You have to use Baseball Prospectus WAR for catchers because that's the only one that captures defense and framing!". Narvaez has outperformed McCann on that.

McCann's definitely been a good signing, but we only have control of him for 1 more season. So far the org seems to have no idea what they're doing with Collins, so McCann and Narvaez as the catching spot in 2020 would have made for a really strong tandem behind the plate if McCann can keep this up while still giving Narvaez a chance to grow, which he has done this year. You could then either give McCann a $30 million contract as a free agent after 2020 if he keeps this up or look for a cheaper option if Narvaez improves. It's a big loss to give up 5 years of a young catcher to get 2 years of a closer, when 1 of those years your team isn't even close to competitive, and when your team has enough money to sign 4 different closer candidates if they want to.

Were you the one who predicted a falloff from him back in May? Because despite that hard contact number, he's been very consistent with the bats all year and his numbers in July are his best of the season. His BABIP on the year is almost identical to last year yet he's improved his power game.

And yet things like "giving up on a player they shouldn't have given up on and trading him away for a closer in a losing season" and "failing to do anything with their international funds despite a 2 year head start" are things that both hamper the future and look exactly like the past.

5 straight 4th place finishes is the kind of consistency a franchise should be happy about. They haven't been worse than that since 2013!

Considering how many people said "I'll hold off on saying Narvaez for Colome was a bad deal until I see what we get for Colome at the deadline", even if holding him was the right move there are some people who said they'd be mad if exactly this happened.

The Astros aren't moving this guy in the offseason. Their #2 starter is a free agent. They make their playoff run this year with Verlander and Cole, then next year they have Verlander and Greinke at the top of their rotation with McCullers coming back from Tommy John Surgery. They might still need pitching next offseason overall. What this does do is take an option away from the market if an org needed a front line starter but didn't want to pay for Cole.

With where this day and roster went I can't complain about Hahn holding this player. However, I have one passive-aggressive request. Can we please retire the notion that it's smart to pay a substantial price for a reliever in the offseason because the price for them will be so much higher at the trade deadline? We heard that with both Colome and with Herrera. Guys value only goes up if they get better. If you pay a high price for the guy, you better want him on your roster.

But think of how many fewer people there would be to agree with him and tell him he's doing a fine job.