re: Astros Drama Continues......

There are plenty of people stuck on stupid if they think the Astros "being cheap" had anything to do with this situation. What they decided to do to rebuild and the Aiken affair are not related.

Houston was ready to give him $6.5 million, allowing them to also get a value 5th rounder in Nix with the money that the rules ALLOW them to spend without losing future draft picks.

Then, it is found out that Aiken has this UCL issue. So the Astros decided that they would lower the offer to Aiken. Why? Because the choice became taking the risk on Aiken and getting both Nix and another Top 100 prospect in 21st rounder Marshall with the remaining money pool. Houston wanted to spend ALL of the money they are ALLOWED to spend according to MLB rules.

Why didn't the Astros give in here? Because the rules said they didn't have to take the risk on Aiken just to be nice. They get the #2 overall pick next year plus their own first rounder. It's a virtual do-over, and any organization with a brain would have done the same thing.

The Astros did not plan some elaborate bait-and-switch. Teams are not permitted to require a physical until they draft a player (again, those are the rules), so they didn't know they were getting potentially damaged goods.

Luhnow did the right thing. Get three top 100 prospects with one hurt or take the do-over. You can hate what Houston has done to rebuild, but they were dead-on in this case.