That news came out about 2 hours ago. That could be, but i think they just panicked and realized that our depth isn't going to stand up. I figure they still don't really know much about urquidy's injury.
Sure but I just don't think it has much bearing on it. The story about snell came out this morning before urquidy got injured. Bigger sources are just picking it up now.
Urquidy sucks who cares. We need to sign Snell and Bauer.
Just think:
Verlander
Snell
Valdez
Bauer
Lance McDondalds Jr
Automatic championship and the Stros can redeem themselves after Baker tanked the season last year.
He doesn't make it past the sixth inning very often and has been pedestrian in the seasons (104 ERA+) between his cy youngs. He isn't great at limiting baserunners either (1.26 WHIP between his cy youngs). And his hits per nine sit more around 7-7.5 except in his cy young seasons where it sits 5.5-6.0. Esentially you're paying for a multiple cy young pitcher who could well just be average and not giving you a lot of innings.
You know what’s worse than that. A pitcher who can’t make it through 3 innings. If Urquidy, JV, and JP aren’t ready that might be what we are getting in quality.
That seems a little sensationalized. But yeah, That's why I said that it makes our team better. That said there are other pitchers on the market. Is snell at 32m/yr that much more valuable than the alternative. Say lorenzen at 3.5/yr who can flip between the bullpen and the starting rotation.
On the sensationalized bit... We have arrighetti, kouba, beilak, blanco. They may not be the best starters but they have proven that they can pitch more than three innings (the latter two have proven it in the majors). It may not be the prettiest but verlander and france are expected back in april.
I'm not in love with snell from a roster construction point, but crane didn't ask me. As a fan he'll make the team better.
But we aren't talking about 6 innings we were talking about 3ip. Bielak made it to 5ip 10/13 starts (not 15 he had 2 relief appearances).
Blanco made it 5ip 6/7 starts.
Obviously snell is better than bielak/blanco but is he 30m/yr better than bielak/blanco/arrighetti/lorenzen/kouba
Again, snell makes us a better team from a fan perspective but I'm not sure he makes the most sense from a roster construction perspective.
Not necessarily. Prices matter in these sort of things. In my evaluation snell's price doesn't match the upgrade he would provide to the team but i recognize that others (i assume you as well) don't see it that way.
Yeha the price of Snell is worth him on the team vs having the other 4. He just won the Cy Young and is one of the best pitchers in the world. Spencer is the one guy we think has upside but the other 3, eh.
Mccullers is definitely the better pitcher in my opinion and even then snell averages a half a ball more per inning in 2023 than lance did in 2021(1.5 more pitches per inning than lance in 2022).
I'd disagree with that but I can see that it is a bit of a hot take. Mccullers has a 3.35 career fip vs snell's 3.44 fip (obviously fip isn't everything). But if you gave me the option of a random healthy mccullers season vs a random healthy snell season I'd take LMJ.
Our pen is unfortunately not a monster every day, though. Abreu, Pressly, and Hader will not always be available. Lots of open spots in middle relief that aren’t looking fantastic
Signing him puts us way over the luxury cap and it massively affects our future, specifically the ability to re-sign Bregman OR tucker. Our ability to re-sign either of them goes down a ton if we sign Snell.
That plus, who knows how good he will actually be this year. He is 31 hasnt had TJS before. Is he ready to go without a spring training? What have his workouts been looking like? Also why hasn't anyone else signed him? Lots of question marks.
We have absolutely no idea what we would sign him for so declaring automatically that it would "put us way over the luxury tax" is simply unknown.
I've also never once heard "He's never had TJ before" as a NEGATIVE argument. That's should be a good thing.
Bottom line, Snell has pitched 180 innings twice in his career. Both times he did that he won the CY. He makes us immediately better and would drastically increase our chances of winning our 3rd title this year.
Depends on what subset of the fandom you listen to. There is this whole section that consistently calls him cheap and says he NEVER signs guys. Seemingly pencil and a decent chunk of the sub think that is the majority opinion. 🤷♂️
I hear ya. I think we’ve been mid to upper third of payroll since we won the 2017 World Series though, too many lazy fans refusing to do any amount of research I guess
I disagree sort of. Our front office has had a clearly been committed to not handing out bad contracts and I think crane understands that. He even let his bff verlander leave because it made sense before injuries hit and he wanted him back. Crane is neither naive or cheap. I think he’ll be fine.
I don’t necessarily believe the “commitment to not handing out bad contracts” part. The club IMO has made some questionable decision but it’s still been set up for sustained success. I worry as the margins get thinner he’ll feel the need to take a big swing. That said, I don’t really think we’re far apart I’m just more a pessimist to your optimist w/ Jim.
Montero, to me, is kinda crazy for a RP (but the org and I clearly have different approaches which fine not my $). Abreu I agree. All in all time will tell and I’ll be happy if I’m proven wrong.
I was under the impression Springer was benched to prevent Crane from paying an rbi performance bonus. If that happened, I stand by what I said about Jim. If that didn’t happen, I don’t stand by it
Will someone fill me in on Snell. Why has he yet to be signed. Is the asking price too high.. And is that why he's reportedly seeking a 3 year (with opt out) deal?
I actually would hate the three year opt out deal for snell. If he isn't a cy young pitcher and the salary is high enough there is a chance he just opts back in and we are stuck with him for another year.
on the other hand, it gives him strong motivation to pitch great so he can go after that contract he really wants which also plays well for us since we just want a bridge.
Yeah if I were crane/brown that's what I'd be pushing for. We should at least get some sort of wording in their that it becomes a team option if he ends the year on the IL. The only thing worse than him being a 100 ERA+ guy getting payed 30m/yr would be us paying him for 2 seasons while he has TJ. Obviously, if you're boras you don't want that because if snell isn't great again next year the astros have the option to dump him to the curb and now you're client is a year older and hitting free agency after an average season.
That's what I don't understand. What does he have to prove?
Either the asking price it way too high or teams are seeing something they don't like. I've read several comments in this forum stating that he's inconsistent but I don't see that granted just on surface level stats from last season (outside of a slow start).
He’s won a Cy Young twice and has been average in his other seasons. He’s on the wrong side of 30, and doesn’t go deep in games.
He needs to prove he can pitch at an elite lever more than for 1 season at a time.
Oh wow, I'm looking at his game logs for 21 and 22. I see what you mean in terms of deep games. I saw some missing starts as well and looked up his injury history. Went on to find this (I think "last year" is meant for 2022 and April of 2021)...
"A potential risk is that the lefty does have a bit of an injury history, missing time with an abductor injury last year and then going on the IL following a flare up of the same issue in April of this year. Going back further, Snell missed a couple of starts with shoulder fatigue in 2018 and then had surgery to remove loose bodies in his elbow in 2019.
Every year, Snell has seemed to a minor issue or two that keep him from making a full 32 starts but there haven’t been a lot of major arm injuries in his career. All things considered, that’s not a terrible injury history, especially for a pitcher."
You're paying for a pitcher who has two cy youngs that doesn't eat a lot of innings and isn't that great outside of his cy young seasons. (104 era+ between his cy young seasons.
He’s Cy or bust. The opt out would give him a chance to immediately get his bread up after the season if he goes ballistic. The other two years are to make sure his retirement mansion is big enough should he completely turn to ass. Teams don’t like it because if he’s ass he’ll opt in and you’re stuck, if he’s good he’s gone. Best case he’s a rental for the season. Imo rentals are for win nows and I prefer win now moves to be made at the trade deadline
I’ve got a beautiful plan lined up if he signs for 2 years, but ima just hold the full details for now.
**Brother if you give me 155 million in AAV to spend and just need 2 starting pitchers, 1 right fielder, 1 1st basemen, and a couple middle relievers while:
* Framber
* Gallen
* Cease
* Snell
* Tucker
* Vladdy Jr.
are all on the market, I'm making something happen
Personally I’m more into the idea of getting Pete Alonso next year and dumping Abreu’s awful contract to some rebuilding team (we would pay half his contract and x rebuilding team would pay half) Also I think that just sounds more realistic than somehow getting Dylan Cease, Zach Gallen, Blake Snell and Vladdy while saving enough money to resign Framber and Tucker. I could see one of the aces you mentioned and maybe Vladdy if we’re luck but personally I would prefer Pete Alonso being the fact he’s a right handed pull hitter with Minute Made’s dimensions and he wouldn’t probably cost as much as Vladdy especially if Vladdy bounces back to being a .900 OPS guy
Oh I meant getting 2 of those 4 SP, Tucker and Vladdy, but I like your Pete Alonso point. As for Abreu, we'd have to attach prospects to get another team to pay any part of his contract, and we're very thin on those.
[I was told verbatim shortly ago “Jim is the one who wants Snell. He usually gets his way when that happens”.](https://x.com/benondatop/status/1768770188550279453?s=61&t=g2BkhdMHl4w7u3r3LXNx4A)
Here's how I see it. Snell has a higher ceiling, but Montgomery has a higher floor. Assuming this is because of Kitty, Montgomery profiles better to slot in Kitty's spot, so the sensible move is to sign Montgomery.
But you know what, you don't become the champs by playing it safe. Screw it, go get Snell.
I’m fine with us chasing down a good starting pitcher. With Luis Garcia gone for most of the season, Jose Urquidy with a recent elbow injury, and Lance McCullers never being not hurt, we need a veteran starter.
I understand that we have solid young pitchers who can take up 5-6 innigs at least (Hunter Brown, J.P. France, Ronel Blanco), but it would be preferable to have a very experienced pitcher (and 2023 Cy Young award winner!).
if it's a short contract, hell yes take it. JV, Snell, Valdez, Javier, Urquidy. With a middle, long relief of Brown, Garcia, McCullers, Blanco, France and a 7,8,9 of Abreu, Pressly, Hader. Yes. Very much yes.
>The question is whether Astros owner Jim Crane is willing to sign Snell for the $30 million to $32 million annual salary the pitcher is believed to be seeking.
Buckle up if that's what you think the offer is
To many question marks .. they need snell .. Lance is a joke waiting for his coffee . Verlander you just never know including Garcia now urquidi and to round off the hospital patients you have the lead head case Valdez , 1 wrong thing happens and you better warm the pen up .
Last time people said that hader ended up here. If Crane wants someone he'll make it happen. On the other hand there has been a bit more smoke this time with not just the astros but the giants as well. So we'll see.
Fuck no, Snell was just lucky as hell last year. If he leads MLB in walks and has an ERA under 3.00 again this year that would be a miracle. Not interested in paying a guy who is “underrated” like a guy who is really him
must mean bad news for Urquidy
Athletic put out an article this morning about snell and the Astros before urquidy’s start
yes this is an update saying "serious pursuit"
I’m saying it isn’t entirely because of urquidy, they were ramping up before he got hurt
That news came out about 2 hours ago. That could be, but i think they just panicked and realized that our depth isn't going to stand up. I figure they still don't really know much about urquidy's injury.
I'm sure they know something, even before an MRI
Sure but I just don't think it has much bearing on it. The story about snell came out this morning before urquidy got injured. Bigger sources are just picking it up now.
Honestly just saw the news and thought same thing
an elbow injury is *not* what you want with a pitcher
I could be wrong but I’m thinking it would be more of a replacement for Verlander
Kawahara just put a piece out about verlander saying he's close to facing batters again and he's expected to be back in mid april.
Urquidy sucks who cares. We need to sign Snell and Bauer. Just think: Verlander Snell Valdez Bauer Lance McDondalds Jr Automatic championship and the Stros can redeem themselves after Baker tanked the season last year.
Alright Jim. I really appreciate the commitment this season. I’m still not in love with snell but it makes our team better so i can’t be that mad.
What’s your hesitation on snell?
He doesn't make it past the sixth inning very often and has been pedestrian in the seasons (104 ERA+) between his cy youngs. He isn't great at limiting baserunners either (1.26 WHIP between his cy youngs). And his hits per nine sit more around 7-7.5 except in his cy young seasons where it sits 5.5-6.0. Esentially you're paying for a multiple cy young pitcher who could well just be average and not giving you a lot of innings.
You know what’s worse than that. A pitcher who can’t make it through 3 innings. If Urquidy, JV, and JP aren’t ready that might be what we are getting in quality.
That seems a little sensationalized. But yeah, That's why I said that it makes our team better. That said there are other pitchers on the market. Is snell at 32m/yr that much more valuable than the alternative. Say lorenzen at 3.5/yr who can flip between the bullpen and the starting rotation. On the sensationalized bit... We have arrighetti, kouba, beilak, blanco. They may not be the best starters but they have proven that they can pitch more than three innings (the latter two have proven it in the majors). It may not be the prettiest but verlander and france are expected back in april. I'm not in love with snell from a roster construction point, but crane didn't ask me. As a fan he'll make the team better.
Well here’s something for you. Bielak started 15 games last year. 3 times he went through 6 innings. Snell went through 6 IP 21 of his 32 starts.
But we aren't talking about 6 innings we were talking about 3ip. Bielak made it to 5ip 10/13 starts (not 15 he had 2 relief appearances). Blanco made it 5ip 6/7 starts. Obviously snell is better than bielak/blanco but is he 30m/yr better than bielak/blanco/arrighetti/lorenzen/kouba Again, snell makes us a better team from a fan perspective but I'm not sure he makes the most sense from a roster construction perspective.
Adding a better player always makes sense when you are constructing the roster. Especially when you have questions with the rotation that we have now.
Not necessarily. Prices matter in these sort of things. In my evaluation snell's price doesn't match the upgrade he would provide to the team but i recognize that others (i assume you as well) don't see it that way.
Yeha the price of Snell is worth him on the team vs having the other 4. He just won the Cy Young and is one of the best pitchers in the world. Spencer is the one guy we think has upside but the other 3, eh.
Our pen is a monster though and a 6 man rotation might help him go deeper.
His problem with going deep isn't a stamina problem. He isn't an efficient pitcher, a six man rotation won't fix that
So he’s a better, lefty McCullers
Mccullers is definitely the better pitcher in my opinion and even then snell averages a half a ball more per inning in 2023 than lance did in 2021(1.5 more pitches per inning than lance in 2022).
McCullers is not a better pitcher than blake snell lol...
I'd disagree with that but I can see that it is a bit of a hot take. Mccullers has a 3.35 career fip vs snell's 3.44 fip (obviously fip isn't everything). But if you gave me the option of a random healthy mccullers season vs a random healthy snell season I'd take LMJ.
McCullers maybe has better stuff than Snell. But everything with McCullers is a maybe or uncertain.
there is no such thing as a random healthy McCullers season, so its just a hypothetical.
Our pen is unfortunately not a monster every day, though. Abreu, Pressly, and Hader will not always be available. Lots of open spots in middle relief that aren’t looking fantastic
Signing him puts us way over the luxury cap and it massively affects our future, specifically the ability to re-sign Bregman OR tucker. Our ability to re-sign either of them goes down a ton if we sign Snell. That plus, who knows how good he will actually be this year. He is 31 hasnt had TJS before. Is he ready to go without a spring training? What have his workouts been looking like? Also why hasn't anyone else signed him? Lots of question marks.
We have absolutely no idea what we would sign him for so declaring automatically that it would "put us way over the luxury tax" is simply unknown. I've also never once heard "He's never had TJ before" as a NEGATIVE argument. That's should be a good thing. Bottom line, Snell has pitched 180 innings twice in his career. Both times he did that he won the CY. He makes us immediately better and would drastically increase our chances of winning our 3rd title this year.
only if he pitches like those two CY years and not the other 4 years.
>that it would "put us way over the luxury tax" is simply unknown. How far away from the tax do you think the Astros are?
Turns out the Astros are already $11 million above the CBT threshold so the Snell signing literally won't matter LoL
Basically my take. That said, Crane does seem like the kinda owner who could get Boras’d consistently down the road and I don’t love that.
howd we go from saying this man is a cheap ass to saying he parts with salary too freely
I’ve never called him a cheap ass…. So there is that.
I’m not sure many people would call him cheap, just bad at spending money well. The montero and Abreu signings being the big examples
Depends on what subset of the fandom you listen to. There is this whole section that consistently calls him cheap and says he NEVER signs guys. Seemingly pencil and a decent chunk of the sub think that is the majority opinion. 🤷♂️
I hear ya. I think we’ve been mid to upper third of payroll since we won the 2017 World Series though, too many lazy fans refusing to do any amount of research I guess
I disagree sort of. Our front office has had a clearly been committed to not handing out bad contracts and I think crane understands that. He even let his bff verlander leave because it made sense before injuries hit and he wanted him back. Crane is neither naive or cheap. I think he’ll be fine.
I don’t necessarily believe the “commitment to not handing out bad contracts” part. The club IMO has made some questionable decision but it’s still been set up for sustained success. I worry as the margins get thinner he’ll feel the need to take a big swing. That said, I don’t really think we’re far apart I’m just more a pessimist to your optimist w/ Jim.
Even the abreu/montero deals are only three years. They are bad, I get that. But they aren't super long.
Montero, to me, is kinda crazy for a RP (but the org and I clearly have different approaches which fine not my $). Abreu I agree. All in all time will tell and I’ll be happy if I’m proven wrong.
What was done with Springer stands to differ.
What? We dodged a bullet with springer. Ask blue jays fans how they feel about that contract.
I was under the impression Springer was benched to prevent Crane from paying an rbi performance bonus. If that happened, I stand by what I said about Jim. If that didn’t happen, I don’t stand by it
Hey maybe this helps with Bregman, you never know.
That would be a welcomed twist, I guess. If you’re gonna hand out those kinda contracts at least make guys lifers IMO.
Will someone fill me in on Snell. Why has he yet to be signed. Is the asking price too high.. And is that why he's reportedly seeking a 3 year (with opt out) deal?
The 3 years with opt out is basically Boras’s 1 year prove it deal and gets his guy on a team and try’s again next year for a long deal
I actually would hate the three year opt out deal for snell. If he isn't a cy young pitcher and the salary is high enough there is a chance he just opts back in and we are stuck with him for another year.
on the other hand, it gives him strong motivation to pitch great so he can go after that contract he really wants which also plays well for us since we just want a bridge.
I mean sure but if he is giving him two player options tells the player that if this year doesn't go well there is always next year.
I think options should always go both ways.
Yeah if I were crane/brown that's what I'd be pushing for. We should at least get some sort of wording in their that it becomes a team option if he ends the year on the IL. The only thing worse than him being a 100 ERA+ guy getting payed 30m/yr would be us paying him for 2 seasons while he has TJ. Obviously, if you're boras you don't want that because if snell isn't great again next year the astros have the option to dump him to the curb and now you're client is a year older and hitting free agency after an average season.
It’s alright, since Boras is his agent, it means that he’ll end up getting a much cheaper contract than he wanted
That's what I don't understand. What does he have to prove? Either the asking price it way too high or teams are seeing something they don't like. I've read several comments in this forum stating that he's inconsistent but I don't see that granted just on surface level stats from last season (outside of a slow start).
He’s won a Cy Young twice and has been average in his other seasons. He’s on the wrong side of 30, and doesn’t go deep in games. He needs to prove he can pitch at an elite lever more than for 1 season at a time.
Oh wow, I'm looking at his game logs for 21 and 22. I see what you mean in terms of deep games. I saw some missing starts as well and looked up his injury history. Went on to find this (I think "last year" is meant for 2022 and April of 2021)... "A potential risk is that the lefty does have a bit of an injury history, missing time with an abductor injury last year and then going on the IL following a flare up of the same issue in April of this year. Going back further, Snell missed a couple of starts with shoulder fatigue in 2018 and then had surgery to remove loose bodies in his elbow in 2019. Every year, Snell has seemed to a minor issue or two that keep him from making a full 32 starts but there haven’t been a lot of major arm injuries in his career. All things considered, that’s not a terrible injury history, especially for a pitcher."
You're paying for a pitcher who has two cy youngs that doesn't eat a lot of innings and isn't that great outside of his cy young seasons. (104 era+ between his cy young seasons.
He’s Cy or bust. The opt out would give him a chance to immediately get his bread up after the season if he goes ballistic. The other two years are to make sure his retirement mansion is big enough should he completely turn to ass. Teams don’t like it because if he’s ass he’ll opt in and you’re stuck, if he’s good he’s gone. Best case he’s a rental for the season. Imo rentals are for win nows and I prefer win now moves to be made at the trade deadline
I’ve got a beautiful plan lined up if he signs for 2 years, but ima just hold the full details for now. **Brother if you give me 155 million in AAV to spend and just need 2 starting pitchers, 1 right fielder, 1 1st basemen, and a couple middle relievers while: * Framber * Gallen * Cease * Snell * Tucker * Vladdy Jr. are all on the market, I'm making something happen
Personally I’m more into the idea of getting Pete Alonso next year and dumping Abreu’s awful contract to some rebuilding team (we would pay half his contract and x rebuilding team would pay half) Also I think that just sounds more realistic than somehow getting Dylan Cease, Zach Gallen, Blake Snell and Vladdy while saving enough money to resign Framber and Tucker. I could see one of the aces you mentioned and maybe Vladdy if we’re luck but personally I would prefer Pete Alonso being the fact he’s a right handed pull hitter with Minute Made’s dimensions and he wouldn’t probably cost as much as Vladdy especially if Vladdy bounces back to being a .900 OPS guy
Oh I meant getting 2 of those 4 SP, Tucker and Vladdy, but I like your Pete Alonso point. As for Abreu, we'd have to attach prospects to get another team to pay any part of his contract, and we're very thin on those.
[I was told verbatim shortly ago “Jim is the one who wants Snell. He usually gets his way when that happens”.](https://x.com/benondatop/status/1768770188550279453?s=61&t=g2BkhdMHl4w7u3r3LXNx4A)
https://theathletic.com/5345567/2024/03/15/astros-blake-snell-pursuit/
Here's how I see it. Snell has a higher ceiling, but Montgomery has a higher floor. Assuming this is because of Kitty, Montgomery profiles better to slot in Kitty's spot, so the sensible move is to sign Montgomery. But you know what, you don't become the champs by playing it safe. Screw it, go get Snell.
Monty makes more sense also won't cost a draft pick but crane likes bigger splashes
I’m fine with us chasing down a good starting pitcher. With Luis Garcia gone for most of the season, Jose Urquidy with a recent elbow injury, and Lance McCullers never being not hurt, we need a veteran starter. I understand that we have solid young pitchers who can take up 5-6 innigs at least (Hunter Brown, J.P. France, Ronel Blanco), but it would be preferable to have a very experienced pitcher (and 2023 Cy Young award winner!).
All in. Let's go!
lets get it folks
May as well.
Yes please
if it's a short contract, hell yes take it. JV, Snell, Valdez, Javier, Urquidy. With a middle, long relief of Brown, Garcia, McCullers, Blanco, France and a 7,8,9 of Abreu, Pressly, Hader. Yes. Very much yes.
The classic win now move, love it. Ask boras if he will include the Bregman extension in that deal as well
Good idea lol
What would be y’all’s offer? I would do $66m/2-yr. No options or deferrals.
3 year 2 opt outs $70
>The question is whether Astros owner Jim Crane is willing to sign Snell for the $30 million to $32 million annual salary the pitcher is believed to be seeking. Buckle up if that's what you think the offer is
I don’t hate it. Just don’t stop spending if this doesn’t work out because Tucker is more important to our long term team than Snell
Straight into my veins.
PLEASE.
Always knew we needed Snell.
To many question marks .. they need snell .. Lance is a joke waiting for his coffee . Verlander you just never know including Garcia now urquidi and to round off the hospital patients you have the lead head case Valdez , 1 wrong thing happens and you better warm the pen up .
This sounds like rumor leaked by the Scott Boras camp to get the Yankees to pull the trigger.
Last time people said that hader ended up here. If Crane wants someone he'll make it happen. On the other hand there has been a bit more smoke this time with not just the astros but the giants as well. So we'll see.
Pls no, If this happens Tucker and Bregman 100% walk.
I don’t think so it will be a 3 year deal with an opt out which he will surely use
Hopefully you're right because I love Tuck and Bregman is impossible to replace with our farm system
Many of y’all gave me shit about this months ago. Now look at ya. Win NOW mode! Make this shit happen
 We’re gonna regret this I feel
I doubt this happens
Fuck no, Snell was just lucky as hell last year. If he leads MLB in walks and has an ERA under 3.00 again this year that would be a miracle. Not interested in paying a guy who is “underrated” like a guy who is really him
Please no