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It will be interesting to see if Carter can maintain his production from last half-season. He is "the" Chris Carter at b-r now after all. Apparently either the A's think he's the next Carlos Pena or they don't think he's the next Carlos Pena.
He had some issues last year, but was generally very well-regarded coming into the season. Stassi finally showed a few signs of life with the bat last year, too.
On the whole, it's a very interesting collection of lottery tickets for the Astros.
Lowrie should be a big upgrade at SS when healthy. Najakima doesn't seem to have the glove to play SS, and ZIPS actually has Lowrie outhitting Carter in 2013. Still, this seems like an overpay. Lowrie's only under control for two years and is very injury-prone--yet they gave up more than they did in acquiring Jaso.
Lowrie's career splits:
vs. RHP: .230/.309/.385 (893 PA)
vs. LHP: .292/.362/.486 (414 PA)
Not huge samples, but he seems to be about as much of a switch hitter as Bobby Kielty pretended to be.
Lowrie presumably won't be playing much SS, as assuming Nakajima doesn't flop (which to be fair is quite possible, but presumably not what the team is planning...), the squad's needs are greater at both 2B and 3B. (I'm sure the team would hope Jemile Weeks comes back to fix the 2B thing, but we shall see.)
Fern-Rod doesn't throw as hard as I like my "has an arm, doesn't know how to pitch yet" guys to throw.
My first inclination is that this works out well for Oakland if Lowrie hits better once moved off SS, or if Peacock washes out. They did give up a couple of potentially valuable guys here.
But as Vlad said this is "a very interesting collection of lottery tickets for the Astros."
Hmm. BBRef shows his glove all but swallowing his hitting.
EDIT: Guess not. His last season was 2010. Yikes!
Michael Bourn come on down!
Lowrie's isoP and iso(walks? what do we call that?) are very similar from both sides of the plate - .079/.155 from the left, .070, .196 from the right. The difference is mostly a 50 point BABIP gap. I would guess that he's not that much better as a righty.
From watching Lowrie, he had more power from the right side, but he seemed like a perfectly fine hitter as a lefty. Smart hitter, too, knows the strike zone and looks for his pitch.
Well, at this rate, they will be picking number 1 for at least 3 more drafts.
By the time they are halfway decent, they will have a farm system that will beat anything we've ever seen (including the Royals of a few years ago).
You're old.
Wasn't there an argument about his splits that he's taken a good number of PAs with a bad wrist, so that when that wrist was the top hand he couldn't drive the ball at all? (I think this was a big issue in 2008 or 2009...)
I don't recall hearing that the issue with his switch hitting is a matter of approach or skill, just that it's been affected by his never ending health issues...
Big assumption. As Walt says, he's already 29 and he hasn't played 100 games in a season (even combining levels) since 2008. The public stuff coming out of Oakland suggests that Nakajima is still the guy and that Lowrie is just a hedge. I guess we'll see.
-- MWE
That argument has been made but until he can prove he can do it I think it's fair to be skeptical.
I've never been a big believer in Lowrie. I think he's a tweener. He doesn't have the bat to play a corner, he doesn't have the glove or athleticism to play up the middle and when he's played for any extended period he's been exposed. Whether that's a function of not being able to stay healthy or being exploited over time is something to be argued but at this point i think is irrelevant. He had a walk off hit to win the ALDS in 2008 so I'll always pull for him but I wouldn't count on him.
EDIT: I'll add he can be a huge tease. When he gets hot...holy crap does he get hot. He went through a few stretches with the Red Sox where he would post just ridiculous numbers. I know every hitter gets hot but when Lowrie was locked in it was something else.
Last year he averaged 1 homer per 11 ab and slugged .557 on the road, and 1 homer per 24 ab (.458 slugging) in Oakland.
Y'know, it's one thing if your whole team makes less than ARod, but when your whole team makes less than Anibal Sanchez ....
To be fair I think Sanchez will generate more WAR than the Astros.
hey have ??? at 2B, SS and 3B. If he's healthy, he'll get 130 starts easy.
You gotta figure that Lowrie is the only 2B/3B/SS starter set in stone at this point, just we don't know yet where he'll play.
- WHY?????
- good trade for the astros?
a guy with a SIX ERA at AAA? chris failed carter?
and you get that the astros SS is tyler greene who can't hit or field and marwin gonzalez who is maybe average on a good day
Power, patience, no-glove sluggers aren't exactly Goldstein's typical types. Despite his Prospectus background, he was always pretty vocal on his podcast about his preference for tool fiends and athletes over the walks+power+bad glove guy that Prospectus stereotypically loves.
I'd like to see Donaldson get a clean shot to win the 3B job outright. He just started playing the position regularly last year and put up positive WAR on both sides of the ball. He wasn't very selective at the plate in the majors, but has a pretty good record in the minors for drawing walks too. I'm not sure why, but I like him as a breakout guy this year...
Possibly a very good trade for the Astros. Carter has contact issues, but also big-time power (16 HR last year in only 218 AB, in a pretty big pitcher's park), and could be a very nice DH for Houston for a couple of years. And while Peacock didn't pitch well last year, he's still a very promising pitcher with three good pitches - BA rated him as the A's #4 prospect this offseason. Even Stassi has a shot to make it, since he's a good glove with a little pop.
No sure things, but plenty of upside.
Fun fact: Neither one is actually named Chris. This one is Vernon; I don't remember what the Mets one was.
Now you've done it.
Y'know, it's one thing if your whole team makes less than ARod,
I believe "half" is the term you were looking for there...And yes, the Astros probably will generate more WAR then A-rod this season.
now we get to have 2 guys who suck. i hope they are not thinking of using jonathan villar because he would make mo vaughn look good at short
But I totally get the "sell high" here. If he turns out to be David Ortiz, well, too bad, but the odds are agin' it.
I normally don't even think to consider this aspect, but I agree with you that the value of a pure home run hitter for a team like the Astros probably goes beyond his on-field contributions. It's one thing if your crappy team at least provides moments of excitement; it's quite another if they put the fans to sleep.
I am starting to think the Astros will be historically bad this year. As a Cubs fan, it makes me sad to realize they are no longer in the NL Central.
I remember reading an article last year that posed the following question: "Who would you bet on to lose more games next season: the Astros, or the worst team in the AL?" I thought I was really smart for picking the worst team in the AL, because surely the worst out of 14 has better odds than any single team, right? As it turned out... I was very wrong. (I had thought it was this article, which is very funny - it asks questions like "Which will be higher - Ben Revere's on-base percentage or his slugging average?" - and still worth reading, but unfortunately doesn't contain anything about the Astros' record.)
Anyway, I'm still wary about predicting (i.e. with greater than 50% odds) that the Astros will have the worst record next season, but I wonder if that experience from last year should encourage me to have more faith in the seemingly obvious fact that they have almost no talent on their major league roster and will be playing in a significantly better division. I still have this sense that we should continue to respect the normal rules of projection and bet on the worst of the other 29 teams over the Astros, and I'll happily eat crow if they have a 2003 Tigers-type season.
Also, there's no way they can start the season with a sub-$20M payroll, right? What's the lowest they can get away with? I really have no sense of what the league will tolerate. Maybe Bourn will take a pillow contract with the Astros after all.
William. I remember because he was one of those fringey guys I like to see succeed. WCC had a so-so year in the minors in 2011, but caught on with Seibu as a part-timer in 2012, where he [checks BBRef] had an impressive number of RBIs in few PAs; 27/138, it looks like, and was 2nd on the club in OPS. He'll play somewhere.
Man, Beane is gonna get to just rape Kevin Towers when Towers finds out Lowrie is available.
Lowrie is an obvious upgrade over what the A's currently have, and will be a nice addition for the time he is healthy. Stanford guy, so he has local ties as well. Funny thing is I remember before the 05 draft when the A's had two 1st round picks and there was some local heat on the A's taking Lowrie, an article came out the week before that the A's weren't even considering him and weren't fans. I always thought that was weird.
DO YOU SEE THAT???!!! NO EFFUPS THIS TIME!!!!!
THEY
have already paid carlos pena the enormous sum of 2.5 mill to be a DH - you think they just throw money like that down the drain?
where on earth do you get chris carter hitting 40 homers a year? he didn't do that after years in the PCL
i hope froddy is lights out - i love that guy for absolutely no reason whatsoever - he's great at coming in and stranding runners
I used to think that about Chris Carter, but then the A's got Cespedes. He makes baseballs disappear FAST.
For a SS you need someone who can stay healthy. Being on the DL will make you non-productive at any position, but it's that period when you're back but not 100% that will make the difference at SS. If Lowrie has limited range, limited arm, whatever, as a result of a recent injury he will hurt the team much more than, say, a similar issue for a 1B (to take an extreme counterexample).
Boston had an issue with Lowrie where he was on the DL seemingly constantly. He also had issues when he was returning less than 100% from an injury. He was OMGTEHJEDS!! when 100%, but Lowrie being 100% is far more rare than Boston could tolerate from him as a "full-timer".
Here is their current 40-man with payroll.
http://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/HOU/2012-roster.shtml
Bud Norris $3m
Carlos Pena $2.9m
Jose Veras $2m
Humber $1.3m
Wesley Wright $1m,
Then 3 3rd year pre-arb guys
and the rest are two years or under.
Excluding the $5.5m they paid to dump Wandy and Snyder their payroll is projected to be $20m.
But, he's probably not going to be a "SS". If they use him a more of a Tony Phillips style, almost full-time utility man, that should be mitigated.
16 HR in 218 AB last year. That total would have finished second on last year's Astros, only two behind Maxwell.
40 might be a stretch, but if things go well, 30 is well within the range of possibility.
I'd expect Lowrie to play at 3B and maybe be a hedge at 2B if Weeks continues to suck.
Seems like every time we think a team is on their way to becoming historically bad, they end up being a routine 95-100 loss team, or sometimes even better (I believe some were predicting historically a bad season for the 2012 A's). CAIRO's quick and dirty projection last December had Houston at 60-102, and I don't think Houston has appreciably worsened the team since then.
Too late
I made it up. Besides, lots of 40 HR guys in the majors never did that in the minors.
I think this is the intention. Over at THT, Bojan Koprivica had a fascinating article yesterday where he talked about platooning and estimated the value a team could get out of platoons, using the A's last year as an example. They seem to very up on platoons in general, so that seems like a reasonable justification for the trade.
28, split between AAA and Oakland.
Right. Seeing this as 'Lowrie's a bit better than Nakajima' is wearing blinders. Lowrie's much better than Donaldson turning out not to be that good, Lowrie's much better than Jemile Weeks' 2011 really was the outlier, Lowrie's much better than Nakajima can't hit in this league at all, Lowrie's much better than Sizemore never gets right, Lowrie's much better than Adam Rosales racks up 400 PA around the diamond, etc. Lowrie plays 3B just fine.
Now there would be some serious PED's.
I didn't think Jim Crane looked like a good addition to MLB ownership when he joined up. The baseball people in Houston seem quite impressive, but planning to build the Tampa Bay Rays in a massive urban area with a history of impressive support for their ballclubs, that's just shitty.
This is totally news to me. Does anyone know where I can read more about this bit?
Isn't this the strategy many on BTF call for? Raze it to the ground and do a complete rebuild? Jed Lowrie was not going to be "part of the next good Astros club" as Primates like to say so much. Seems like this is a pretty smart strategy, and much better than vainly trying to win 75 games every year by overpaying for mediocre talent.
They still have a share of the common revenue that should be sufficient to run an A's payroll or the like on.
Jed Lowrie could easily be a good player at 33. Any number of available competent players could have been signed who would help the club now, aren't blocking prospects, and aren't guaranteed to suck in 2016. The Astros will be filling many positions with players who are less likely to be contributors to the "next good Astros club" than most free agents, but who are on the team to save money for Jim Crane.
Also, the "raze it to the ground" strategy has to be predicated on an owner willing to take losses in the future paid for by present-day profits. If spending $10M on major league payroll doesn't lead to future clubs having more wiggle room, but just leads to new gold plating on Jim Crane's jacuzzi in his jet, it does nothing at all for the club.
no this is the other "younger" Chris Carter,
Chris Failed Carter is 30 and hit .294/.348/.452 for Seibu last year.
Chris not yet failed Carter is 26 and just hit .239/.350/.514 for Oakland last year
he also has 182 minor league Home Runs, 32 more than Chris Failed Carter despite being 4 years younger.
I agree, but Houston (a) had a pretty old team; (b) had a really crappy minor league system. It made sense for them to sell off everyone they could and build a minor league system up.
Sure he could be. But you're counting on (a) being able to re-sign him; and (b) him still being useful at that age. Is that more likely, or is it more likely Chris Carter, Brad Peacock or Max Stassi become useful? I think its debatable.
Agree, but we don't yet know what his intentions are, we're just speculating. Regardless, whether he pockets the money or not doesn't really matter as far as Luhnow's strategy, in fact, it makes it even smarter for him to raze the team now and build as many cheap assets as he can if he knows his owner will be cheap in the future.
He's a solid defender at his position--unlike Sizemore/Weeks at 2B or (reportedly) Nakajima at SS--and his bat came alive in the second half in his first year out from behind the plate. He was atrocious to start the year (.153/.160/.235 in 100 PA) before being demoted, but then tore up AAA (.335/.402/.598 in 234 PA) to earn a promotion after Inge went down. He then started all but one of the A's final 48 games, hitting .290/.356/.489 in 194 PA. ZIPS projects him to basically repeat his 2012 MLB performance, but Steamer, James, and Oliver are all a bit more optimistic.
The A's have a bunch of AAAA middle infielders to sort through now: Behind Lowrie, Donaldson and Nakajima are Sizemore, Weeks, Rosales, Sogard, and Parrino. That's a lot of depth, as there's not a ton of dropoff from starters to replacements. But that kind of depth is much easier to accomplish when your starters aren't that good. Of those latter five, only Rosales is out of options.
It sounds like they'll platoon Moss and Lowrie at 1B and have Lowrie play at different spots around the infield against RHP. I assume that means Sizemore at 2B and Nakajima at SS against LHP and mostly Lowrie/Nakajima against RHP. Weeks will probably start in AAA, though the A's had also planned on letting Grant Green play 2B there.
Maybe I'm missing your point but building the Tampa Bay Rays is not a bad strategy. If they put together a kick ass farm system that in 3-5 years pays major dividends that's a home run whether you are Tampa, Houston or New York. The Tampa Bay Rays with money to spend is a pretty formidable organization.
Exactly. They were in as hopeless a situation, apart from market fundamentals, as we've had in awhile.
Also, razzing your club for picks is a marginally better strategy than it once was, given how bonus pools work (which Houston smartly exploited w/ the Correa draft).
I say play Nakajima at short - given the number of other changes in moving from NPB, avoiding a position change is likely for the best.
If he tanks, Lowrie (among others) can pick up the slack.
234/295/383 - ZiPS
234/311/394 - CAIRO
I don't think it's just Red Sox fans who are doubtful about Donaldson's likely production.
I don't buy that the Astros are better off shooting for 50 wins instead of 70. They'd have to start low, and they'd get their draft picks, but they would also have a much better shot at competing in the future if they tried to build a baseball club. They'd also be less likely to massively turn off the local fans. What's going on in Houston isn't a baseball strategy, it's a make Jim Crane more money now strategy.
To be clear, the Lowrie trade is defensible in baseball terms. But there's no defense for the Houston roster - they should have found actual major leaguers to fill the positions where they lacked prospects. They can sell Lowrie for a reasonable return and also play someone better than Tyler Greene at shortstop on opening day.
Yes, but compare those projections to those of Weeks, Sizemore (who are both poor fielders at 2B), and Nakajima (who is reportedly a poor fielder at SS). The point isn't that Donaldson is good, it's that there are bigger holes for Lowrie to fill at 2B or SS.
Though eyeballing the projections, there really isn't much difference between the guys listed. ZiPS wOBAs:
.298 - Nakajima
.297 - Donaldson
.296 - Sizemore
.290 - Weeks
.331 - Lowrie
There's a park adjustment needed, but Lowrie's an upgrade on everyone, with the bat. I wouldn't risk Lowrie's fragile body at 2B (presumably Nakajima could be shifted there), but it's fair enough to say you'd rather see Lowrie fill in for one of the other guys.
I was curious so I looked it up. Last year there were 26 MLB players who have hit 40 or more homers in a big league season at some point in their lives. Only 1 (Ryan Howard) ever had a 40 homer minor league season. Only 6 ever had a 30 homer minor league season. In all cases I'm looking at combined stat lines.
The simple answer to why is that A) Players with that kind of power don't stay in the minors very long and B) they tend to develop the big power after they've already reached the big leagues.
Examples: Ryan Braun and Mark Teixiera were big time, MLB ready college bats, they didn't play a full season in the minors before coming up. Chipper Jones (15) and Miguel Cabrera (10) were good enough hitters to reach the big leagues before showing big power numbers in the minors, the power developed later.
Meh. This sounds like old school CW. I don't see any evidence that building a competitive team helps young players become better in the future. And fans will come out when/if the team starts winning so long as the team doesn't continually dick them over in a Marlins-esque fire sale cycle.
I still recall an old Sports Illustrated article from the early 90s bemoaning how the Astros were selling off the entire team. How were they going to compete without old vets like Danny Darwin, Glenn Davis and Larry Anderson? The '91 Astros lost 97 games, but it was with young guys like Steve Finley, Jeff Bagwell, and Craig Biggio (and just imagine if they hold onto Luis Gonzalez, Kenny Lofton, and Curt Schilling!), and just two years later they won 85 games. Six years later they would go on a run of four playoff appearances in five seasons.
Also, minor league seasons are shorter.
I'm not saying that the Astros shouldn't make trades that will pay off in 2015. I'm saying they should actually fill their existing roster with players who aren't below replacement level. That the Astros are going the route of building an unimaginably bad roster for an unprecedentedly low payroll suggests strongly to me that Astros fans shouldn't be optimistic that 1993 is right around the corner. The 1991 Astros had some well-paid good players (Ken Caminiti and Mark Portugal most notably), and they added more in the following years. I doubt Crane has plans to make upgrades of that sort, given the ludicrous payroll he's looking at for 2013.
If you include the playoffs, Carter hit 44 HR in 149 games in 2008.
We were talking in an earlier thread about the 2009-2010 Nats, and how Adam Dunn is the greatest bad team player of all time. On a good team? "Oh, god, why didn't you catch that?" On a bad team? "We don't care about the terrifying defensive WAR numbers, we just want to see some dingers!"
The Astros could use a guy who is fun, and Carter seems like he can be that.
Dave Kingman on the 1984 A's. I was too young to know he was a dick.
Exactly. Selling off assets to build the farm is fine. But bring in some cheap FA talent to at least be respectable. That prevents fan interest/revenue from cratering, and puts you in a better position to afford good players when you get some.
You can get the #1 pick with 100 losses, you don't need to shoot for 120.
They're not going to lose 120. You have to try really hard to lose 120. The 2003 Tigers (who did not lose 120) had just one player accumulate 2 WAR or better (Dmitri Young). ZIPS projects four Astros to post a 2 WAR or better (Pena, Altuve, Dominguez, Norris) and newly acquired Chris Carter could do so as well if given playing time. They also have a few other young players that could breakthrough like Jordan Lyles and Alex White and maybe even Brett Wallace or Jason Castro. Justin Maxwell and Lucas Harrell were each 2 WAR players last year. The Astros are dirt cheap but they're not totally bereft of talent. They'll lose 100 easy, but 120 takes a special brand of sucking.
Adding free agents merely moves the ledger from 100 losses to 95 losses. Who cares?
Adding free agents merely moves the ledger from 100 losses to 95 losses. Who cares?
They lost 107 last year, and seem to have subtracted more talent than they've added.
There's a big difference between a 90-loss team and a 110-loss team, and the Astros have enough gaping holes that they could add more than 5 wins by spending an extra $25M this year.
2) Once you get into the 75-win projection range, you have a chance at a good season because of the unpredictability of baseball results. Clubs should never plan on being truly terrible for more than a year or so, because being terrible means you can't luck into a good year.
3) Most importantly, the Astros have a roughly $15M payroll. They can easily afford some free agents to improve the roster without blocking any of even their fringey prospects. That they aren't doing it, again, suggests that this isn't about baseball, it's about Jim Crane squeezing profits out of a ballclub he bought mostly with debt.
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