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Astros’ off-season: Doing more math

I was taking a look at the Astros payroll on my favorite site that does the math for me….Houston Astros 2025 Financial Summary (spotrac.com)

At first glance it looks pretty good. The Adjusted Payroll for 2025 is $146,433,333, and the Tax Space (the space below the luxury tax) is $77,866,667. OK, well, we certainly can help the team spend that $77.8 million, right?

But hang on there folks. As Paul Harvey would say, now let’s get to the rest of the story. That approximate $146.4 million is just the payroll for the known expenses.

That covers:

  • An approx. $115.4 million for the seven guys already under contract for 2025 – Altuve, Alvarez, Hader. McCullers, Pressly, Javier and Caratini
  • The $19.5 million for the long gone first baseman from hell – Jose Abreu
  • The $11.5 million for the relief pitcher who is assigned to the minors – Rafael Montero

And that’s it. Not quite enough to field a starting nine, much less a 26 man roster.

That $77 million has to cover the remaining players who may be on the roster. That includes:

If these numbers come in as predicted – the payroll will be only about $6 million below the competitive balance tax level. And note that this does not include any money for re-signing Alex Bregman, Yusei Kikuchi or Justin Verlander or any other free agents on the loose. That approximate $31 million due Jose Abreu and Rafael Montero in 2025 would come in handy about now.

So, no wonder we saw this from Dana Brown –  Brown: Astros “May Have To Get Creative” With Payroll – MLB Trade Rumors

What is a GM to do?

  • First check with owner Jim Crane on your budget in 2025. The Astros were under the competitive balance tax in 2023, but $23 million above it in 2024, which meant they had to pay a first-time tax of $4+ million. Chicken feed for a team trying to win it all (note I can say chicken feed since it is not my money). If they exceed it again in 2025, the “tax” rate will rise to 30% for the first $20 million over and a bit more above that. Where it really hurts is if they end up $40 million above the limit, their next first round draft pick (outside the top 6) will be pushed back 10 spots. Crane may allow a bit of wiggle room above the tax ceiling or he may tell Brown – stay under in 2025 and re-set it.
  • Whatever limit Crane sets – make sure you have some room to make in-season additions if necessary.
  • Move on from Bregman, Kikuchi and Verlander and have a little more flexibility in your budget.
  • Or….set your sites on one of them and adjust your budget accordingly.
  • Look at where you can increase your players making the MLB minimum by not pursuing some of your arb-eligible players. This is why players like Jose Urquidy, Chas McCormick, and Jake Meyers may be at risk to not be tendered an offer.
  • Look at whether you can dump any salaries in trades. Would a team be willing to take on Ryan Pressly, if the Astros would pay half his salary? What about Rafael Montero?
  • What about trades that would not be pure salary dumps, such as a blockbuster for Framber Valdez and/or Kyle Tucker that would clear salary space and bring in young (e.g. cheap) blood?
  • If you make a trade – concentrate on getting back where your needs are – third base if Bregman is gone, pitching if Kikuchi and Verlander are gone, first base no matter what, outfield if Jake and/or Chas are gone (or maybe even if they are still here).
  • See if you can pick up a flawed pitcher that needs tweaking (Tayler Scott 2.0).
  • Prove the “experts” wrong again as you promote talent from the 30th ranked farm system and see them show their worth.
  • Or just do your own thing, but please have a sustainability plan that extends beyond 2025.

As friend of the blog daveb said, Dana Brown undoubtedly has Plans A, B and most of the alphabet. The part he can’t control is what his boss sets as his budget and if his boss decides to negotiate directly with a favorite (Verlander).

As always, the off-season will be fascinating as the Astros struggle to be relevant without ending up with an overly bloated payroll.

 

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15 responses to “Astros’ off-season: Doing more math”

  2. My two cents: Try to sign Bregman at a reasonable contract. Find a good trade for Tucker as the Astros will probably lose him next year and outfielders are easier to replace than a good third baseman. He should bring in a very good return as he has a year left on his contract. At least trade one of Meyers or Chas . Consider trade opportunities for Framber before we lose him for nothing next year. If there is a better solution at first , trade or dfa Singleton. Keep Bagwell away from Crane on GM advice and have him try to help our players with base running skills and how to play defense at first base.

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      • Daveb_7, That would of course , be for Crane and Brown to figure what they can afford to offer him. I think that he’s gone unless he’s offered around 160-70 million for five years and he might get a better offer from another team. I do think he prefers to stay if the Astros give a competitive offer.

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      • I think that’s a pretty good take, but based on Crane history, I’m not sure if the Astros go that high. My issue is that if he has started his decline, going 32 to 34 million a year becomes a real burden to the Astros, who really need to get younger and more athletic. And someone might make it 6 years in the 200 range.

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  3. Well, MLB got their dream match up. And it should be fun to watch. If the series goes like the post season has so far, there will be a bunch of dramatic home runs, or a bunch of gopher balls thrown to some great hitters, depending on how one looks at it. I don’t remember a post season where so few teams had so few starters and got so little out of them.

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  5. Note: the last three teams standing (Dodgers, Yankees, and Mets) were the three biggest spending ball clubs. For baseball to remain relevant to the rest of the country and to the average fan, results have to mean more than how much money each owner is able or willing to spend. I appreciate the financial analysis of the Astros’ budget challenges, but what’s needed is not “creative thinking” by all the financially limited front offices, but rather hard budget caps or truly substantial penalties on clubs and owners who believe (rightly so) that today you can just go out and buy a pennant. Otherwise, with too few exceptions, fans around the country will continue to lose interest, and no matter how the rules are tweaked, baseball will continue its slow death. Personally right now I don’t really care who wins the world series, and I imagine most of the country doesn’t care either as to which richest club takes home the trophy. Fans are only asking for a fair competition.

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    • Welcome Cosmo

      I struggle with the whole baseball high dollar spending problem at times.

      Looking back at the “Taxable payrolls” on Spotrac for the World Series opponents gives us the following over the last few seasons.

      2024 – Dodgers (2nd) vs. Yanks (3rd) – note Mets were 1st and Guardindians (21st)

      2023 – Rangers (8th) vs. D’Backs (19th)

      2022 – Astros (9th) – Phills (4th)

      2021 – Astros (7th) – Braves (3rd)

      2020 – Rays (27th) – Dodgers (5th)

      2019 – Astros (5th) – Nats (6th)

      2018 – Red Sox (1st) – Dodgers (4th)

      2017 – Astros (19th) – Dodgers (1st)

      So, what does this tell you? Yes, spending a bunch with a good front office like the Dodgers can get you there often. But you don’t have to be among those over-spending (top 4 let’s say) to get there. But frankly the Astros were the only team to get there multiple times without being close to the pinnacle.

      I personally would love to see a salary cap like with the other two major sports. Then the true skill of the organizations would show more consistently. I don’t see it happening with baseball because the union would not agree and it is the strongest by far of the sports unions.

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      • The only thing about a salary cap is they would have to do something about how the Dodgers structure Ohtani’s contract with all of the deferred salary. I’ll bet you the Yankees might try doing the same with the upcoming Soto contract. How many teams can afford to do that. It’s a possibility that the only teams that can afford that will be at the top of the food chain. Those teams that don’t possess the financial resources to structure such deals may never be able to compete for a WS title. Fans may start leaving the game if the contenders for the title every year are the Dodgers and the Yankees.

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    • Cosmo, I can’t disagree with you, I’ve always been in favor of a salary cap for MLB. Big market clubs keep growing in value, the game continues to expand internationally, and revenues, especially for those big market clubs show no sign of peaking. But no doubt, clubs in smaller markets can’t compete from a payroll perspective. Attendance is not growing, it topped out in 2007, but payrolls have more than doubled in the same time period. And yes, a lot of fans are priced out of today’s game. But as long as those big market owners keep seeing their own investments appreciate as they have, they won’t mind paying revenue sharing checks to the clubs that can’t compete regularly. As for baseball dying a slow death, this discussion has gone on for decades. I’m not sure if that’s going to happen in my lifetime.

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  6. In 2015 the team was ahead of schedule and won the WC with a roster built around a couple of stars developed internally who few people expected to be stars and a couple first round picks who a lot of people felt were picked higher than their actual value relative the other available players. They built that team using imperfect players who, perhaps, there existed a market inefficiency as they could provide certain skills at a low cost like JFSF, Chris Carter, Evan Gattis, Luis Valbuena, and perhaps the poster child for this…Collin McHugh. The 2017 team was much more star heavy with the additions of McCann and Verlander. The 2019 team was perhaps the best we’ll ever see in Houston.

    Looking at 2025, we’re painted into a corner with the salaries already known. I don’t want to get rid of guys like Framber who gave them 176+ innings with a sub-3.00 ERA or Kyle Tucker who was on pace to be in the MVP conversation before that freak, foul ball injury…but Framber only took the ball every 5-6 games and Tucker only played 78 games in 2024. I think Brown needs to put high emphasis on restocking the pipeline and replacing multiple positions on the team with imperfect players. If he asks my opinion I’d say the skill to find this offseason is hitters who absolutely hammer the high fastball with bonus credit for guys who can lay off the low and away slider.

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    • Dana Brown does not miss a chance to tout Jacob Melton, a kid that is clearly an excellent athlete. But he’s also a guy with a three year minor league BA of .250, an OBP of .325 and an OPS of .774. He’s got a ways to go.

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