We were flawed but the field IMO is very weak this year.

Detroit and San Diego have been very hot, but neither are juggernauts. Dodgers and Yankees are both their typically overrated mediocre teams.


So I thought we might go far just because their aren't any scary teams out there, really.

Agree with you guys. I think we have an opportunity window this offseason to overhaul the offense that may not come again and we should take advantage of it.

As long as we were continually making the CS and playing the WS every other year, I was fine keeping the band together, despite some holes and flaws in our offense/lineup construction. It's hard to mess with things too much when you're winning. Patch holes. Kick cans down the road.

But I think the last out on the 2024 Astros in the wild card round marked the end of the "2017-2024" chapter and frees us up to make some overhauls with the future in mind. Even if it means taking a step back for a year.

I feel very strongly that it's much better to do a "rebuild" a year too early than a year too late. Right now, one could argue it would be a year too early for the Astros. IMO, that's the sweet spot. If we do it right, we could be right back knocking on the playoff door in 2026.

FWIW, I don't think we need to much (if anything) on the pitching side. We've proven over and over that we can find talented arms and develop them. We've got quite a few starters locked in with long term control. Just keep doing what we're doing on that front. Everything "rebuild" related is offense.

On the previous page, Heinekin did a great job above of laying out the consequences of paying big money to keep the core together long term. I've been thinking the exact same things. Let's say we let Bregman walk but find a way to keep Tucker, who along with Altuve and Yordan will make a nice 1-3 for a few more years anyway. Yainer is a dude too.

But what do we have beyond those 4? A bunch of replacement level guys. To me, that scenario is everything we've ever made fun of about some Yankees and Angels teams in recent years. A few high priced stars who can't do it alone burdening the payroll, leaving limited flexibility to fill out the rest of the lineup.

The best way (arguably only way) to set the table for long term success is to anchor your roster with multiple high-level talents on pre-arb contracts. Our farm system is starting to show some signs of life but it's far from being able to lynchpin a rebuild on its own. We need to bring in some close-to-MLB-ready talent (via trade), get them on the field and see what they can do.

We've had good success with pitcher "tryouts" over the years and founds some gems that maybe we wouldn't have otherwise found if veteran mainstays had been blocking their paths. I think we could do the same thing with the offense in 2025. Acquire some strength in numbers on the prospect-front and let them compete with our existing guys.

All that to say, I think we need to deal Framber and Tucker this offseason. 100%. Let Bregman walk. Let Pressly walk. Let JV walk. And seriously explore what we can get for Yordan or Pena. With regard to Yordan, obviously you force a team to let us pillage 4-5 their top prospects. No settling.

This ought to be right up Dana Brown's alley. Let him cook and use the eye for talent that he's known for but we haven't really let him use during his tenure.

We could walk away from that with a surge of ~10 prospects, 4-6 of which are prime and ready to go into spring training and compete for a job. Combine them with Melton, Dezenzo, maybe Matthews later in the year, etc and you can kind of start to see something take shape.

Altuve won't like it much but he can't do much about it. Let him take it easy next year. Give him a month long "IL" vacation in July. Part of me wants to start the process of turning the locker room over to Yainer anyway. Come 2026, I think he'll like what he says. After "tryouts" are over in 2025, we should hopefully have line-of-sight to a couple foundation players to build around. We'll also know what we need to address via free agency in 25-26 offseason and have plenty of cap space to do it. No more Abreu/Montero dead money.

Anyway, that's the path that gets me most jazzed up.

This team could've gotten hot again and made another ALCS if not a World Series, but i knew losing in the Wild Card was not unlikely if the offense slumped. We've been so reliant on homeruns to score IMO, especially for a team that doesn't slug like it used to, not to mention the RISP issue.

*edit: Also i don't really care that we had only had 5 less hits than them. They scored more runs than us yesterday in one inning than both games combined. Not coming back on Tuesday after holding them to 3 runs was too much to overcome.

We also were a well hit 9th inning ball being 2 degrees different angle away from winning game 1.

And if Tucker doesn't choke into the DP with 2 on base in the 2nd, Pressley couldn't have put us into danger that fast for Game 2.


Baseball is just funny like that. That's why it's so amazing what we've done over the last 9 years.

In 22, Heyward's ball would've gone to the corner and won the game, just needed a little more elevation. Tucker's GIDP was killer, knew 2 wouldn't be enough to win.

W said:

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so Hader + Pressly = $33 MM for 2025

woof

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Especially so when one is pissy about losing his position and neither can reliably go a clean inning.

I don't attribute much of the wildcard sweep to luck

Pena's GiDP in the 4th with 2 runners on...he got a 2-1 pitch over the plate thigh-high...and just missed it

a better hitter knocks that ball into the LF gap and both runners score

but a .701 OPS hitter like Pena -- misses that pitch

W said:

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I don't attribute much of the wildcard sweep to luck

Pena's GiDP in the 4th with 2 runners on...he got a 2-1 pitch over the plate thigh-high...and just missed it

a better hitter knocks that ball into the LF gap and both runners score

but a .701 OPS hitter like Pena -- misses that pitch

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Pena also hit that ball 108 off the bat with an XBA of .610. If that ball is not right at the fielder we are talking about how great a clutch hit it is. In a short series luck plays a large part, but I agree that this sweep was not about luck. The Tigers took advantage of their situations. Let's not forget the Astros had a number of lucky bloop hits in game 1 and we didn't take advantage of any of them.

Deluxe said:

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Agree with you guys. I think we have an opportunity window this offseason to overhaul the offense that may not come again and we should take advantage of it.

As long as we were continually making the CS and playing the WS every other year, I was fine keeping the band together, despite some holes and flaws in our offense/lineup construction. It's hard to mess with things too much when you're winning. Patch holes. Kick cans down the road.

But I think the last out on the 2024 Astros in the wild card round marked the end of the "2017-2024" chapter and frees us up to make some overhauls with the future in mind. Even if it means taking a step back for a year.

I feel very strongly that it's much better to do a "rebuild" a year too early than a year too late. Right now, one could argue it would be a year too early for the Astros. IMO, that's the sweet spot. If we do it right, we could be right back knocking on the playoff door in 2026.

FWIW, I don't think we need to much (if anything) on the pitching side. We've proven over and over that we can find talented arms and develop them. We've got quite a few starters locked in with long term control. Just keep doing what we're doing on that front. Everything "rebuild" related is offense.

On the previous page, Heinekin did a great job above of laying out the consequences of paying big money to keep the core together long term. I've been thinking the exact same things. Let's say we let Bregman walk but find a way to keep Tucker, who along with Altuve and Yordan will make a nice 1-3 for a few more years anyway. Yainer is a dude too.

But what do we have beyond those 4? A bunch of replacement level guys. To me, that scenario is everything we've ever made fun of about some Yankees and Angels teams in recent years. A few high priced stars who can't do it alone burdening the payroll, leaving limited flexibility to fill out the rest of the lineup.

The best way (arguably only way) to set the table for long term success is to anchor your roster with multiple high-level talents on pre-arb contracts. Our farm system is starting to show some signs of life but it's far from being able to lynchpin a rebuild on its own. We need to bring in some close-to-MLB-ready talent (via trade), get them on the field and see what they can do.

We've had good success with pitcher "tryouts" over the years and founds some gems that maybe we wouldn't have otherwise found if veteran mainstays had been blocking their paths. I think we could do the same thing with the offense in 2025. Acquire some strength in numbers on the prospect-front and let them compete with our existing guys.

All that to say, I think we need to deal Framber and Tucker this offseason. 100%. Let Bregman walk. Let Pressly walk. Let JV walk. And seriously explore what we can get for Yordan or Pena. With regard to Yordan, obviously you force a team to let us pillage 4-5 their top prospects. No settling.

This ought to be right up Dana Brown's alley. Let him cook and use the eye for talent that he's known for but we haven't really let him use during his tenure.

We could walk away from that with a surge of ~10 prospects, 4-6 of which are prime and ready to go into spring training and compete for a job. Combine them with Melton, Dezenzo, maybe Matthews later in the year, etc and you can kind of start to see something take shape.

Altuve won't like it much but he can't do much about it. Let him take it easy next year. Give him a month long "IL" vacation in July. Part of me wants to start the process of turning the locker room over to Yainer anyway. Come 2026, I think he'll like what he says. After "tryouts" are over in 2025, we should hopefully have line-of-sight to a couple foundation players to build around. We'll also know what we need to address via free agency in 25-26 offseason and have plenty of cap space to do it. No more Abreu/Montero dead money.

Anyway, that's the path that gets me most jazzed up.

---

Well put. I think the fans will get behind a rebuild of sorts. The question is whether Crane can. This team will have a very good pitching staff. If you can get young players that can increase team speed and defense this team could still be competitive, even if it takes a year or two for those bats to develop. That's the formula the Tigers and Royals used this year.

I have no problem trading Framber and Tucker and getting good prospects in return. But keeping Bregman to a reasonable deal would be good for the clubhouse morale. Bergs is the heart and soul of this team.
Valdez would be missed but Brown and Arraghetti are future studs on the mound, and hopefully Garcia will return from injury and regain the solid pitcher that he's been in the past, as well as Javier. And I'm not forgetting Blanco as a solid rotation piece either moving forward. Resigning Kikuchi would be gravy.

I'm still depressed as ****. We lost to a bad baseball team.

BCEDAg said:

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I have no problem trading Framber and Tucker and getting good prospects in return. But keeping Bregman to a reasonable deal would be good for the clubhouse morale. Bergs is the heart and soul of this team.
Valdez would be missed but Brown and Arraghetti are future studs on the mound, and hopefully Garcia will return from injury and regain the solid pitcher that he's been in the past, as well as Javier. And I'm not forgetting Blanco as a solid rotation piece either moving forward. Resigning Kikuchi would be gravy.

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Correa was the "heart and soul" before Bregman and Springer was the "heart and soul" before him. I think signing guys to outsized contracts over sentimental concepts such as their "clubhouse value" is usually a bad idea.

i'm completely okay with the Astros being the worst team in the league for multiple years

we had a great run. it's time to reload for another one.

Alonso omg. This game is fun.