Let’s face it, compared to playing regular season baseball games almost every day for six months, the off-season is a dead time. On top of this, if you cut the off-season into separate chunks – the period we are in right now – after the teams tendered / not-tendered their arbitration candidates to the end of the year usually is the quietest of the quiet.
Sure, there will be a Rule 5 draft on December 11, but as we have seen over the last few seasons, this has been a minor event, with the Astros not drafting anyone onto a full 26-man roster and losing very few players of note. Yes, there might be a few free agent signings and/or trades, but it is often a lot of sitting around and waiting for the big fish to come off the board-=
The Astros’ big domino holding up their off-season (as friend of the blog, Old Pro noted) is tied to the fate of Alex Bregman. If he signs with the Astros it means there will not be that much money to be spent elsewhere. If he signs elsewhere, there will be (perhaps) more money available to patch some of the other problem areas on the roster.
The key question here – Is there a date of no return? Is there a date at which if the Astros have no final answer from Bregman that they move onward?
So, what are we looking at….
If the domino falls towards the Astros….
If Alex Bregman re-signs with the Astros:
- That would seem to signal the end of significant off-season signings, or;
- That might signal that there will not be an extension for Kyle Tucker or Framber Valdez (I think there is zero chance they extend both and barely more than zero chance they extend one and that one would be Framber) or;
- That might signal that the Astros could make other significant off-season signings if… they trade Tucker, Valdez and/or Ryan Pressly, or;
- That would seem to signal that the Astros are OK with being elderly and perhaps with falling returns at 2B (Jose Altuve) and at 3B with Bregman in a couple of years or;
- They are planning to hold off other signings until they see how the team is performing and make more moves at the trade deadline.
If the domino falls away from the Astros….
If Alex Bregman signs elsewhere:
- That would seem to signal that the team would be able to make one or more significant off-season signing to fill in at 3B, 1B, OF or wherever, or;
- That might signal that they are going to go heavy with in-house talent, including prospects or;
- That might signal that they are going to float along during the season and try to pick up some help at the trade deadline or;
- That they are comfortable with the path they took with George Springer, Carlos Correa, Gerrit Cole, Charlie Morton and others or;
- That they are willing to let 2025 play out and do a partial re-set.
If the clock ticks away without a decision and hits a critical point…
If Alex Bregman does not sign with anyone in a reasonable timeframe:
- The Astros may decide to walk away in the middle of this “negotiation” signaling that they can’t put their off-season on hold forever;
- The team may know already they can’t sign Bregman within whatever budget/length of contract restraints they have internally set forth. But they may stay in the hunt for a respectful time period to not hack off their fan base (who may not get hacked off at all).
- It has to be hoped that they don’t freeze so long at the starting line that all the best choices out there are gone. But of course, if they are going to lean heavily on in-house support they may not be in on the other free agents who could fill in at 3B, 1B and the OF.
In the end, the pathway taken here should be very telling about the team’s future direction and whether Jim Crane or Dana Brown is in charge of the franchise’s future.
ALL THINGS ASTROS 
21 responses to “Astros offseason blues and the one big domino”
I’m pretty sure we’ll know where we stand with Bregman by the end of the owners meetings or soon after. I think the 6 year 156 million Astro offer (if accurate) is more than fair. Again, my own feeling is that Bregman has started his decline. His OPS is .794 since the career year in 2019. How much further does it dip over the next six years? My fear is that the Astros will pay Bregman because the club has no real other option at third base and that’s not a good enough reason to give a guy six more years.
I also think that Juan Soto will get more than 600 million. That means to me Tucker automatically becomes worth 400 to 450 million over a decade or more. I just don’t see the Astros doing that deal. One of the teams that comes close to winning the Soto sweepstakes but loses might well be in the mood to offer a whole lot of talent for Tucker. I would hope the Astros take any such offer seriously.
At the same time, that kind of a deal would be a first for the Astros. We’ve always let guys walk. We’ll find out a few things soon.
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I agree with you Daveb that the offer to Bregman is fair and also that he is in a decline. I believe that he wants more than that and will probably sign for around 6 years and 170 million and probably with Boston or Philadelphia. If Tucker’s price next year is going to be around 400 million should not the Astros start shopping him around? He should bring a very good return. I hate to see him leave for another supplemental 4th round pick like Bregman.
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Offense is down from a league average .758 OPS in 2019 to a .711 last year. His OPS is in line percentage wise with that trend. Some of it is on him, some of it is just the league getting smarter on pitching metrics and usage. But I’m on record stating I would not do 6/156, so I’ll stay consistent.
To me last offseason was the time to strike with Tucker. He seemed amicable to an extension then, at least in front of a camera. I don’t know what was happening in the background. I do know the Astros indecision on him is frustrating. Yordan is better in a batters box, but I’m betting Tucker ends up with the better career. Everyone lets out a collective gasp every time Yordan slides into a base or breaks into a run chasing a flyball, Tucker is built like a baseball player, sans weirdly hit foul balls. If you actually watch Astros baseball and not just stat line watch you know Tucker actually has a penchant for fouling balls off that shin. If there is one player to buck your trend in contracts for, its Kyle Tucker.
This franchise has a habit of painting itself into corners. I can always understand waiting on pitchers contracts, striking early on them has a much better chance of biting you. See McCullers and Javier. So waiting on Framber is probably the best move. But Tucker should have been wrapped up last offseason, or he should have been traded a year ago when his value was peaked. Now his impending free agency will drive down the prospect list to B levels unless we find a desperate contender. Or they can just Astros this up and let another star walk, but as we have said, the farm system isn’t producing a new Kyle Tucker like they used Kyle Tucker to replace George Springer.
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I believe that the Astros know right now that they are not going to re-sign Bregman. But I don’t think they publicly will give up the ghost for a while. It will be interesting to see when they will state that it is over.
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It felt the same with Correa. Like, you knew Correa wasn’t accepting 5/160M, but they just stayed mum and didn’t say a word about Pena until after the deal was done. I agree, I think they know this offer will not be accepted, and they are going to move on.
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I’m not sure what help is out there in the OF or 1B. The list of free agents range from good, not great, pieces that will put you over the cap to pieces not even as good as the ones you have in house.
To me, the Astros are a little inflexible money wise. A lot of that is on Montero, Abreu, McCullers, some of it belongs even to Pressly and even some to Hader, who didn’t pitch like he was the highest paid reliever in baseball at times. You would like for them to be players in the Christian Walker, but I think people think he is younger than he actually is. Like most free agents, their representation is going to be asking for more dollars/years than the player is actually worth. Same with Alonzo, who probably ventures into the 7 or 8 year realm.
I just don’t see a lot of help. I think Brown does what Brown does, tries to find guys like Heyward and eek value out of them for low price tags.
I heard the the guys at SportsMap mention Santander yesterday. While he doesn’t seem like a Steve kind of player, strikes out a lot, bat to ball is, at best, middle tier, doesn’t walk a lot, he did pick a heckuva year to set a career high in HR. The idea is you sign Santander to the long term deal instead of Tucker because those faults make him cheaper, then trade Tucker for a depth piece or two and two good prospects. Can’t fault them for them idea, but why are the Astros the franchise that has to settle for the player with less bat to ball, that doesn’t run the bases as well, that doesn’t play as good as defense, that swings at pitchers pitches more often?
Just get this done with Tucker.
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Since we’re beating on dead horses today, I’d like to suggest there should be a negative WAR stat invented for talking about free agents. Let’s use Mitch Meluskey as the example. In 2000, he posted a 1.6 WAR for Houston while slashing .300/.401/.487 with 14 HR and 69 RBI in 400 PA as a catcher. You’re probably saying, but those are great numbers when compared with the .690 OPS with 2 HR and 17 RBI from Paul Bako and .709 OPS with 4 HR and 33 RBI of Tony Eusebio in 1999 who represented a cumulative 1.3 WAR from the same spot. While that may be true, the Astros went from 4th in the NL Central in 99 to 4th in 00 and regardless other factors (Biggio injury, move from Astrodome to Enron Field, Jose Lima) I’m blaming Mitch Meluskey. I think signing a guy like Polanco to play 3B or Santander to play in our OF hurts us a lot more than the fantasy baseball numbers will represent.
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I know I’m redundant. I’d have gladly accepted a middling result in 2024, missing the post season, if we’d have moved Framber and Bregman for talent last winter. And maybe Tucker too, if the club had inclinations that he’d prefer to be somewhere else in 2025. That’s all conjecture though. But we’d be much better positioned today. Instead, we keep getting older and slower and more defensively challenged. And I won’t even get into the Hader signing. I’m going to see how he comes back in 2025 while I watch to see what comes of Bloss, Loperfido and Wagner.
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If we can’t sign Bregman (very unlikely) and we have Valdez and Tucker reaching Free Agent next year it’s time to make some tough decisions. We should try to sign both but DO NOT wait until the season ends. If they haven’t been signed by the trade deadline then trade them both for prospects. To hold onto either or both and then get Zero for them is just plain stupid. I don’t care if we’re in the middle of a pennant race. They will know if they want to stay with the Astros for a “reasonable contract”. If they’re are looking for the big payday then trade them. As I’ve said earlier, we should trade Pressley and Jake if possible but that would probably cost us a few $ to unload Pressley. As the saying goes if we can’t fish then it’s time to cut bait.
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A shout out to the crawfish boxes who linked to us today…
Astros Crawfish Boil: December 4, 2024 – The Crawfish Boxes
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The Astros need to reload. If they aren’t going to be in on the best players in the game, such as Juan Soto or Kyle Tucker, then they need to build a team that is younger and faster and healthier and hungrier
Do something to make themselves into a team like they had in 2015. Start another run.
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Yes 1oldpro. And as Steven noted yesterday, the Astros have delayed the inevitable, we’re painted into a corner at a couple of positions. OP, had we reloaded last winter, we would have gotten much more talent in return. And we still might have won the West with that younger, faster, healthier and hungrier group of talent, assuming some smart acquisitions were made. As I said yesterday, we’d be much better positioned today. An example would be Will Wagner. He’d have done a serviceable job at third base for the time being, with I think a significant upside at the plate over a guy like Polanco or another injury prone guy in Mercado. Instead of building back the future, we gave some future away.
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I feel like the Astros would have more organizational freedom if they were out from under the spectre of Valdez/Tucker free agencies and letting Bregman go, especially Bregman. I remember in Moneyball when Peter was talking to Billy and he told him that when the Red Sox see Johnny Damon they see a star worth 7.5M, and when I look at him I see an imperfect understanding of where runs come from. Well, not exactly, because Valdez and Tucker are both far better ballplayers than Damon so they generate wins, but they are going to hold down your flexibility for a decade, and when you have no real prospects to come in and play cheap….
Maybe you can convince the Red Sox to give you back Wilyer Abreu and give you Kristian Campbell for Tucker. Then talk to Dodgers about maybe getting Dalton Rushing for Framber since they have a catcher for the foreseeable future. If you can get that done, you put Campbell in CF, Abreu in RF, Rushing takes over behind the plate and Diaz shifts to 1B. You get Meyers and Singleton out of the lineup, so what you lose in the overall from Tucker you try and make up in the aggregate by having more depth. And now you have the flexibility to go add an infielder like Polanco or Gleyber Torres without it killing you. You still have a rotation of Brown, Blanco, Arrighetti, with Garcia and (gulp) McCullers competing for spots, with Blubaugh, Gordon, and Gusto and France providing depth, and you make a 1 year offer to JV and go with a 6 man rotation.
That team is younger, cheaper, more athletic, and spreads out when different people are hitting FA. It even allows you to push Altuve down to 2nd in the order if you think Campbell is ready to hit leadoff – or leave Altuve at the top and bat Campbell 9th for his rookie year. I would probably want Abreu down there batting 6th or 7th where his league average OBP doesn’t hurt you as much, so maybe Alvarez ends up batting 2nd and Diaz 3rd. Thats why Gleyber is a better match than Polanco, he can probably bat 2nd. But maybe these moves is the thing that lets you be a player in giving Santander that deal that SportsMap talked about, so that he can be your cleanup hitter and play LF. You can probably do all of that and stay under the cap.
There would be worse lineups than Altuve-Torres-Alvarez-Diaz-Santander-Abreu-Pena-Rushing-Campbell. That with a bench of Caratini, Chas, Dubon and Dezenzo can handle everything defensively, though you would like one guy that you can point at to pinch hit for Rushing or Campbell and tell them get me that hit. That, and the roation is suspect. But you could also go out and make an offer to Quantrill that is something like 2/15 because he is as solid as a 5 starter as you can find on the market.
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Holy Guacamole Steverino – those are a lot of moves for a club that sloths along when making moves. Not saying it is not a good idea, but also not thinking they would go there.
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I think that’s the kind of stuff Dana Brown would do, but how do you get the committee all on the same page? I think that remains our biggest problem.
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Back to me cheesy quotes Dan – “I think it’s a good thing he is off your roster, I think it opens all kinds of interesting possibilities.” – Peter to Billy. Courage takes proactivity, especially before some of these other teams solve that rotation spot or RF spot. The Dodgers want one more starter. Why wait for them to find it when we can offer them one that is better than any free agent left? The Red Sox are chasing the haves, upgrade their RF and give us our CFer of the future.
But it doesn’t have to be those names. It can be any names. Find a catcher, you solve 1B with a guy who is going to hit better than any free agent 1B out there and isn’t even arbitration eligible for another year. Use the new found flexibility to bring in an innings eater as a 5th starter, sign an infielder, and then you can actually spend on that outfielder that can hit in the middle of the order but won’t cost the 350M Tucker will.
But you are right, that’s all fantasy land. This team will continue to sit on its laurels, let the other franchises that will take on the Frambers and Tuckers solve their problems first so they don’t need to deal with you, and then watch them leave with zero return and no young players to replace them.
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Chandler Rome discussed our theme in The Athletic today. He basically pointed out all the things we’ve already pointed out here.
I’m frustrated because I don’t think the Astros have a real plan to stay relevant, even as Jim Crane insists the Astros championship window will always remain open as long as he’s the owner. Maybe he’s getting ready to sell.
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Chandler Rome discussed our theme in The Athletic today. He basically pointed out all the things we’ve already pointed out here.
I’m frustrated because I don’t think the Astros have a real plan to stay relevant, even as Jim Crane insists the Astros championship window will always remain open as long as he’s the owner. Maybe he’s getting ready to sell.
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Your favorite blog writer is getting bored – this is the depths of the off-season – I feel like we’ve ground the Alex Bregman story down to atomic level pieces.
If you folks want me to write about something – now is the time to bring it up – lol
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I as well am tired of Bregman. And the offseason just started. If this drags into January……
Four weeks worth of writing from one idea – every other day give us a deep dive of options at each position, one by one. Just start with first base, go around the IF, C, and each OF spot. Discussing those 3 or 4 deep should also let us take a look at each minor leaguer on the depth chart.
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Thanks Steven – I have one idea I am going to hit first and then pick up on what you suggested. I may combine a couple positions at a time – but yes, that gives me some material to carry us along.
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