iamtheglove said:
Astros have shown the desire to buy out years of arbitration to extend the year free agency hits for star players (Bregman, Lance, Yordan).
How would you prioritize the following players for buyout and extend deals? Let's say you could only afford to do 2 deals this year?
And what would you do if you didn't address any of those players this year but you did after next season?
Tucker (3 years of arbitration left)
Framber (3 years of arb)
Javier (3 years of arb)
Urquidy (3 years of arb)
Luis (4 years - 1 of pre arb, 3 of arb)
Pena (5 plus years - 2 of pre arb, at least 3 of arb)
TED is the #1 option for me by a long shot. The problem is I don't think Crane is going to give him anything that much bigger than what Yordan got, but in reality, Tucker probably needs 6/160 to even consider pushing his free agent year from age 29 to 32. Assume his arbitration years are worth ~40 M total. He basically needs to agree to 3/120 to get his prime of 29, 30, and 31.
Framber is a bit trickier. He's old for a guy hitting arbitration for the first time. Compare him to LMJ. Lance broke in the bigs in 2015. He's 29 now. Just 1 year older than Framber. I don't know if that means Framber is more willing to take money early so he can finally get some cheddar cheese or does he think he cannot afford to push his free agency out from age 32. Any older and he basically eliminated himself from ever getting a mega deal. If he's willing, I would love to tack on a year or 3 to him. I think he'll age well with his build and pitching style.
Javier has been very good, but he still hasn't shown he's a top-of-the-rotation arm just yet. I think that is mainly due to how he's been used (moved back and forth between rotation & bullpen) so now may be time to strike before he puts up a 5+ WAR season.
Urquidy & Garica don't strike as types that need to be extended. I think you let them play out.
I proposed the Pena super early extension a few weeks ago. We've seen teams do it (Rays, Padres, Mariners, Braves) for their young stars, but I think it's clear Pena is a step down from them (Julio, Tatis types) based on the larger sample size of the regular season. If a deal could get done, it would not be for crazy AAV because he's got 5 years left and isn't close to a superstar yet. BUT he has shown you a 3.4-4.8 WAR season. That's likely the floor. I think a ~4 WAR SS is worth hanging on to. As he's a bit older too, just adding 1-2 years would be ideal. That way we can have Pena for age 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31. I think something like 7/80 would make some sense.
