Just on the outside looking in for me, but that's just my opinion. Dude was one of my favorites

They're trying to trade Pressly, and I won't be surprised if Caratini is moved as well with Santander willing to sign for less years as has been rumored, though that means more potential suitors.

AustinCountyAg said:

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AgLA06 said:

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EastCoastAgNc said:

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The Astros functionally saved around $9 million of payroll with the trade.

Isaac Paredes ($6.625) and Hayden Wesneski ($760K league min) will combine to make roughly $7.4 million vs. Tucker's $16.5 million.

If Cam Smith gets a call up, he would make prorated league minimum. https://t.co/1Pin2XVEXI

— Ari Alexander (@AriA1exander) January 16, 2025

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I'm all for this move. But it has to mean they continue to make moves and start the rebuild so we're competitive in 2026 / 2027 instead of just comparable stop gaps. I get the feeling they plan to sit on their hands at this point and use the good will from the last 8 years to make money this year instead of trying to win.

That's a little disappointing and makes it harder to justify not bringing back fan favorites if it wasn't to start the rebuild.

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I dunno WTF you're talking about. Many sites have the Astros in the top 7 as World series favorites, and most if not all have them predicted to win the division. Not sure where you're getting they aren't trying to win this year????

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According to Fanduel, we are favorites to win the West, 3rd Fav for the Pennant, and 8th Fav for the WS

Farmer1906 said:

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AustinCountyAg said:

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AgLA06 said:

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EastCoastAgNc said:

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The Astros functionally saved around $9 million of payroll with the trade.

Isaac Paredes ($6.625) and Hayden Wesneski ($760K league min) will combine to make roughly $7.4 million vs. Tucker's $16.5 million.

If Cam Smith gets a call up, he would make prorated league minimum. https://t.co/1Pin2XVEXI

— Ari Alexander (@AriA1exander) January 16, 2025

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I'm all for this move. But it has to mean they continue to make moves and start the rebuild so we're competitive in 2026 / 2027 instead of just comparable stop gaps. I get the feeling they plan to sit on their hands at this point and use the good will from the last 8 years to make money this year instead of trying to win.

That's a little disappointing and makes it harder to justify not bringing back fan favorites if it wasn't to start the rebuild.

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I dunno WTF you're talking about. Many sites have the Astros in the top 7 as World series favorites, and most if not all have them predicted to win the division. Not sure where you're getting they aren't trying to win this year????

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According to Fanduel, we are favorites to win the West, 3rd Fav for the Pennant, and 8th Fav for the WS

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DraftKings likes us more.
Favorites to win the West
Tied in 2nd in the AL
Ti3d in 6th for the WS

wangus12 said:

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Still think international players should be subject to the draft if they want to come play in the league personally.

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There are only 2-5 impactful Japanese players a year so I don't think a draft makes sense. Those players are in a different stratosphere from Latin American international players in terms of readiness. Somehow they need to let small market teams have way more money they can spend to try to compete.

No Soto means no pennant for NY. They had their shot and blew it.

texasaggie2015 said:

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Just on the outside looking in for me, but that's just my opinion. Dude was one of my favorites

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Abreu has a case to be there, He is criminally underrated. Abreu was consistently good, not great.

For RF, comparing Abreu to HOFs, Abreu had higher WAR than Ichiro, Vlad, Sr., Oliva and Dave Parker. He's in Top 20 of RF WAR. Abreu's WAR 7 and JAWS are similar, if not better in some cases, than those HOFs. He's 22nd for RFs in hits. He had 300 more than Larry Walker. He's 26th of RF OBP. He's 21st for RF in RBI. He's Top 20 in RF games played.

Where he is hurt is the lack of power. He's only in the Top 50 of HRs for RFs. Weird stat -- his career OPS is higher than Al Kaline, Reggie Jackson and Dave Winfield.

I have higher HOF standards than most. Just a me thing

texasaggie2015 said:

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I have higher HOF standards than most. Just a me thing

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I wasn't calling you out. I like Abreu, too. I think it could go either way. I don't think his power numbers are enough. I think he's going to just miss.

It doesn't change the fact that he's still severely underrated. No one really thinks of him because he wasn't flashy. He was just consistent.

Nice pick. Puckett in NYC probably would have been granted sainthood after he retired and passed on.

Wabs said:

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Can Smith and Brice Matthews are on the spring training roster

OFFICIAL: We’ve acquired OF Myles Straw, cash, and international bonus signing pool space for the 2025 period from the Guardians in exchange for a player to be named later or cash.

Straw won the Gold Glove Award in 2022. pic.twitter.com/QdhqH8b6ON

— Toronto Blue Jays (@BlueJays) January 17, 2025

EastCoastAgNc said:

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OFFICIAL: We’ve acquired OF Myles Straw, cash, and international bonus signing pool space for the 2025 period from the Guardians in exchange for a player to be named later or cash.

Straw won the Gold Glove Award in 2022. pic.twitter.com/QdhqH8b6ON

— Toronto Blue Jays (@BlueJays) January 17, 2025

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Hopefully, this move will get them more international cash to get Sasaki.

Wabs said:

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Miguel Ullola. Remember the name.

07ag said:

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iamtheglove said:

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Texaggie7nine said:

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agproducer said:

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I'd love if Crane did this:

Rangers Nation, how do you feel about paying $100 to watch the Rangers in 2025? pic.twitter.com/deOWD54bs9

— Rangers Nation ⚾️ (@rangers__nation) January 15, 2025

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I regularly tell Space City Sports on their social media channels that if they offered direct streaming, I and so many others would be happy to pay even upwards of $20 a month to get their channel directly. They could make so much more than what they get off their local sports fees to cable companies.

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I worked in the RSN industry for most of my career. Streaming is still a net negative for most RSN unless it is priced significantly higher. Rangers are doing as a consequence of the Bally bankruptcy proceedings. Space City has one revenue advantage on the cable/satellite distribution side that virtually no other RSn has, though it will run its course several years down the line. Once that happens I would expect them to explore a streaming option, but for now the status quo is really more lucrative

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can you explain on the idea that streaming is a net negative? i don't understand how adding a revenue stream decreases revenue for the astros

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Sure, 2 things impact the net revenue loss. Historically RSNs have been paid on subscribers in the first or second highest tier of subscription. That means around 85 to 90% of all cable subscribers are counted in the fee going to RSNs. The per sub fee per month for RSNs can be about $3-7. The catch is that only about 30% of all cable and satellite subscribers ever watch a single RSN game so there is a massive subsidy from non viewers. Historically the strategy was to do long term rights deals with a team (20 years was not unusual) and do short deals with cable and satellite. Because sports was seen as being critical to holding the bundle together you could extract higher per sub rates in each negotiation. And distributors believed if you dropped sports nets they would lose subscribers. This created issue #1 for RSNs: my long term rights deal is no longer supported as non sports viewers left the cable and sat ecosystem.

Issue 2 is that the largest cable and satellite deals had conditions that required rates and methods of distribution for the largest cable/satellite distributors to be equitable. You couldn't offer one better terms (broadly speaking) than another.

The net effect is if an RSN has a streaming option with lower cost to viewer then those economics travel to your largest cable/satellite deals. Those RSNs that are doing streaming outside the cable/satellite companion streaming offers are pricing it per month in excess of the relative value they're getting from cable/satellite.

The added issue is if you are underpricing your streaming you are creating more momentum for people to leave cable and satellite including those who only watch a few games. That's why I said that to combat both of those you either have to blow up your long term rights deal (through bankruptcy) to get it priced correctly and make sure you are pricing the standalone streaming at the same or more price point that cable/satellite pays you so you don't impact your most favored nations clauses and don't encourage casual viewers to jump ship from cable/satellite thus losing their revenue forever.

So a $100 per season offer would generate more erosion from cable/satellite and generate less per subscriber than they are already getting.

MaxPower said:

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Farmer1906 said:

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The Padres are OUT on Roki Sasaki, per @francysromeroFR.

That leaves the Blue Jays and the Dodgers as finalists. pic.twitter.com/lyga7mhJho

— Just Baseball (@JustBB_Media) January 17, 2025

Roki to the Dodgers… basically. I am shock. SHOCKED! I tell you.

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I think it's hilarious that Manfraud thought limiting bonuses would somehow help small markets. Since the money is the same regardless of team, all it did was make it so that Japanese players will pick whoever the best west coast team is and allow them to do it for well below market value (as if they needed the help). Complete idiot.

Gonna need a new commish with half a brain to negotiate the next CBA.

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And the Astros have massively taken advantage of the Latin American market, especially Cuba.

There are teams who have found their advantage and are exploiting it.

Doesn't mean Manfred isn't an idiot.

Sources tell me and @ShiDavidi the Blue Jays are getting $2 million in international cap space in their trade with CLE.

Again, this does not mean Roki Sasaki has made a decision, but Jays clearly prepping in case he chooses them.

— Ben Nicholson-Smith (@bnicholsonsmith) January 17, 2025

wangus12 said:

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Still think international players should be subject to the draft if they want to come play in the league personally.

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I think an international player draft would hurt the Astros. The Astros have been able to find a crazy number of gems out of Latin America. A draft may make that harder.

It's kind of like this to me - let everyone complain about the west coast getting the Japanese players while I sit over here twiddling my thumbs with a smile as the Astros pick up guys like Luis Garcia, Altuve, Javier, Blanco, and others for a whole heck of a lot less cash.

Well, to be fair, the Japanese players are a known commodity by that point. The level of competition in the NPB is pretty high. The level of competition in Venezuela, not so much. We sign these guys for peanuts, but I have to think them at for every Altuve, there's 20 that fizzled out.

The Toronto Blue Jays have assumed $110.65 million in contracts from the Cleveland Guardians this winter with their acquisitions of Gold Glove second baseman Andres Gimenez and now outfielder Myles Straw.
They also have $2 million in international pool money from deal to help…

— Bob Nightengale (@BNightengale) January 17, 2025

I am with the posters above in not understanding the yankees being the AL favorites. Soto completely changed that offense and team, and was far more valuable than anyone as a whole. I'm not sold on who they brought in and the combination of hit or miss hitters on the playoffs.

Hornbeck said:

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Well, to be fair, the Japanese players are a known commodity by that point. The level of competition in the NPB is pretty high. The level of competition in Venezuela, not so much. We sign these guys for peanuts, but I have to think them at for every Altuve, there's 20 that fizzled out.

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Sure, and agree. Definitely paying more for the known quantity. My point is it just seems like the Astros hit on more guys from Latin America, at least in the last 10 years, due to their evaluation process. Just saying a draft might take away some of that capability.

EastCoastAgNc said:

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The Guardians gave up two and a half seasons of Phil Maton and six seasons of Yainer Diaz for Straw at the 2021 trade deadline. Maton allowed one earned run in 18.1 playoff innings in Houston. Diaz has been worth 6.4 bWAR since he debuted. https://t.co/6zDwXuOQnO

— Chandler Rome (@Chandler_Rome) January 17, 2025

At the time this trade made no sense. Click was playing 3d chess

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Dusty didn't like the trade, but Jake looked like a future All Star CFer after getting called up over Siri.

Wabs said:

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They printed up that whole thing just to be able to put "Blue-BAH" and "SACK-oh" in writing, didn't they?

Beat40 said:

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MaxPower said:

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Farmer1906 said:

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The Padres are OUT on Roki Sasaki, per @francysromeroFR.

That leaves the Blue Jays and the Dodgers as finalists. pic.twitter.com/lyga7mhJho

— Just Baseball (@JustBB_Media) January 17, 2025

Roki to the Dodgers… basically. I am shock. SHOCKED! I tell you.

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I think it's hilarious that Manfraud thought limiting bonuses would somehow help small markets. Since the money is the same regardless of team, all it did was make it so that Japanese players will pick whoever the best west coast team is and allow them to do it for well below market value (as if they needed the help). Complete idiot.

Gonna need a new commish with half a brain to negotiate the next CBA.

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And the Astros have massively taken advantage of the Latin American market, especially Cuba.

There are teams who have found their advantage and are exploiting it.

Doesn't mean Manfred isn't an idiot.

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Completely different. We basically paid market value for the kid we got from Cuba and he is 16 with a lot of risk. Sosaki is all but guaranteed to be an impact starter this year for only a few million more. Put it another way, if there were no rules then Kevin Alvarez might get a few million more. Sosaki would probably get $100M. Getting a $3-4M player for $2M is nowhere near the same as getting a $100M player for $6 or 7 million.

texasaggie2015 said:

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Honestly... Lance Berkman is another one.

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Don't trigger me. I'm begging you.

Source confirms: Free-agent lefty reliever A.J. Minter in agreement with Mets on two-year, $22M contract, pending physical. Opt out after first year. First: @martinonyc, @Joelsherman1.

— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) January 17, 2025

AustinCountyAg said:

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AgLA06 said:

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EastCoastAgNc said:

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The Astros functionally saved around $9 million of payroll with the trade.

Isaac Paredes ($6.625) and Hayden Wesneski ($760K league min) will combine to make roughly $7.4 million vs. Tucker's $16.5 million.

If Cam Smith gets a call up, he would make prorated league minimum. https://t.co/1Pin2XVEXI

— Ari Alexander (@AriA1exander) January 16, 2025

---

I'm all for this move. But it has to mean they continue to make moves and start the rebuild so we're competitive in 2026 / 2027 instead of just comparable stop gaps. I get the feeling they plan to sit on their hands at this point and use the good will from the last 8 years to make money this year instead of trying to win.

That's a little disappointing and makes it harder to justify not bringing back fan favorites if it wasn't to start the rebuild.

---

I dunno WTF you're talking about. Many sites have the Astros in the top 7 as World series favorites, and most if not all have them predicted to win the division. Not sure where you're getting they aren't trying to win this year????

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Agree to disagree then. We have the starting pitching. Maybe the bullpen. Our offense will have to over perform for us to have a chance.

We lost 2 of our top 4 bats from our underperforming offense last year and so far haven't replaced them. The odds basically say they think we win a bad division and lose out in the ALDS. Not much different than last year.