re: DAT Official Offseason Thread...RIP the A. Bregman years

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Katie Woo
@katiejwoo
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4m
Per sources: Part of Arenado's decision stemmed from a preference to not make a decision this early in the offseason. It is unclear whether the Astros will continue heavily pursuing Arenado or pivot to other options. #STLCards

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wtf this MF gonna just hold the Cardinals hostage

Damn washed player refuses to come to Houston, is it really that bad?

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Players who have walked in the last 4 years due to Crane not paying them: George Springer Carlos Correa Justin Verlander Gerrit Cole (was never going to re-sign imo) Kyle Tucker (traded away bc not paying him) *currently pending is Alex Bregman

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In fairness, not doing those deals worked in our favor other than Cole and TBD on Tuck.

However I do think it’s good fortune more than shrewd baseball moves because this same organization forked out stupid deals to Abreu and Montero, overpaid for Hader and refused to address the outfield in two straight seasons.

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Most of it worked out for us — that I agree. But we don’t know what could’ve been if some of them they stayed too (mainly Springer and Tucker)

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This still doesn't support your argument that Crane is cheap. He simply doesn't see the value in long-term contracts that will be an anchor in the second half of the contract. That doesn't mean he's cheap.

Weak baseball guy? I'll support that one. He's granted as many over-pay for mediocre talent as he has let super stars walk. That points me to the "may be a good business man, but he's not a good baseball guy" category. But he isn't cheap -- his payrolls get expanded every season he's owned the team.

As for Arenado blocking the trade -- Thank you Nolan. Take your arse to Anaheim.

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The proof is in the numbers.

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he’s obviously doing something right

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a cheap owner
—That’s how I know you don’t know about the Astros ownership.

As I've said before, you can't call Crane cheap. He's had high payrolls during this run. Added pieces when we needed to.


The problem with the approach is..how did we get to the success we had? Well we tanked for a while, built the farm developed talent and then traded pieces to add to the talent. Correa, Springer, Bregman, Tuck, McCullers. Key guys in our run, all first round draft picks. 3 of them were top 5 picks.


We don't have that kind of talent to carry us now. There's no one waiting in the wings like those guys. So if you're not going to sign top tier free agents or retain what you've got, its going to force us into a rebuild situation. Thats kind of where Drayton McClane had us at the end of his tenure. The team was getting aged, the farm wasn't good and they tried to stay competitive by adding patchwork veteran free agents (Erstad, Huff, Wigginton, Blum, Keppinger).


To me, the Tucker trade may show that Crane thinks this window is closing. They held on to Springer, Correa and Bregman through years end on their FA years. And maybe it was the case they felt like they had a better chance to resign those guys than Tucker. But also seems like at that point we were more firmly in the window and you can't palate trading those guys away when we can win a world series but in 2025, we're probably moving further away from that window, so Tuck gets shipped out. So where does Crane have us headed from here is kind of the open question if Bregs and Tuck are gone. How are we going to sustain winning or are we looking at a rebuild?

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It’s going to take a drastic change in stance probably caused by an absolute worst case scenario type of year to get him to trade Yordan, Brown, Pena which what an actual rebuild would look like

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Right, if you've got guys like that and you're holding on to them rather than trading them to boost the farm, you're not in on a rebuild. But if you're also not signing top free agents and you don't have the prospect capital to swing trades for impact players you're in a bit of a stagnation.


I mean we've gone from 106 wins to 90 wins to 88 wins. An 18 win drop off in 2 years. Now we're losing Tuck and potentially Bregman from the equation. That surely has an impact on win totals. As you say there's money coming off the books over the next 2 years. We may just have to cling to our trophies and be a little less dominant until we have that flexibility to retool.

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to trade Yordan

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Never happening. I mean you acquired him for Josh frickin Fields.

He was willing to take the early deal and he is a DH only for the vast majority of his remaining career. I get what you're saying about selling off your talent. Just don't think it will apply here. Hope not, anyway.

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Pena

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I'm just not sure what you could get back for him. He's got a lot to prove, IMO.

But I'm with you in where I see this going. The Astros still have a knack for getting the best out of their pitching staff. And I don't see anyone running away with our division, so we should stay competitive in that respect.

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Says everything you need to know about him

What he really needs is Coors Field

But I'm not at all surprised that we would pull the trigger on that deal with them picking up that much salary, which also tells you everything you need to know about him

This blocked trade also served a purpose in our dealings with Bregman.

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I can only say one thing about this news of a declining player saving us from ourselves (aka our owner):