How shortsightedness on Astros’ needs has rehashed familiar refrains, remedies
Apr 20, 2022, 3:50 pm
The name on the lips of so many Astros fans of late has been Jeremy Peña. Sports (and the debates that are sparked from them) often unfairly position certain guys as lightening rods for dramatic storylines. Through no fault of his own, Peña finds himself filling the shoes of the greatest SS in team history and now leading off in the order in replacement of the team’s greatest second basemen ever. The latter or which sparked conversations on air:
Jeremy Pena is batting leadoff for the Astros today.
— ESPN 97.5 Houston (@espn975) April 19, 2022
The Killer B's: @PackManJoel & @JeremyBranham debated the idea earleir. pic.twitter.com/VMqqE4CeWY
With Jose Altuve out, Jeremy Peña has been tasked with leading off the #Astros lineup.
Is this the right move by Dusty Baker? @JakeAsman, @Cody_Stoots, and @BradKellner certainly seemed to think so when the news broke earlier today on #TheWheelhouse. #LevelUp pic.twitter.com/Z270k4yjuT
— ESPN 97.5 Houston (@espn975) April 20, 2022
How did Peña respond to that pressure? Here’s his first home run at home in MMP:
There's a new shortstop in H-Town and he can swing it.
Top @astros prospect Jeremy Peña goes up and out for his first Minute Maid Park blast. pic.twitter.com/roqhStT2ry
— MLB Pipeline (@MLBPipeline) April 20, 2022
Besides that mammoth shot, he’s also putting up some impressive numbers already.
Hitters with the most barreled balls in MLB during this very young season. Barrels are the ideal blend of exit velocity & launch angle.
Last year, barreled balls resulted in a .772 AVG and 2.591 SLG in MLB - 84.8% of all home runs were barrels.#Mariners pic.twitter.com/osX9lhncvP
— Luke Arkins (@luke_arkins) April 20, 2022
284 of the 311 HR(91.3%) this year have had LAs between 18-35*
Hitters with most BBE 18-35*:
Jose Ramirez: 15
Jeremy Peña: 13
Alex Verdugo: 13
Michael Brantley: 13
Luis Robert: 12
Ozzie Albies: 12
Marcell Ozuna: 12
Nick Castellanos: 12
Josh Bell: 12
CJ Cron: 12
Marcus Semien: 12
— Chris Clegg (@RotoClegg) April 20, 2022
So while Houston fans understandably spent the winter arguing over whether the Astros would miss Correa, now find their concerns shifting to missing guys like Lance McCullers Jr and Jose Altuve.
McCullers is on the 60 Day IL. Altuve is on the 10 Day IL with a strained hamstring. The Houston sports gods giveth and taketh.
Interestingly, that infamous deal that didn’t get done, an extension for Correa, has overshadowed the deal that did: Justin Verlander’s extension. And THAT one is looking like classic Jim-Crane-doing-Jim-Crane-things: specifically, out-maneuvering the Yankees. The only difference between the Astros’ & Yankees’ offer to Verlander was the extra guaranteed year. How much do you think Brian Cashman would LOVE to have Justin Verlander’s dominance distracting New Yorkers from Gerrit Cole’s current spiral?
The Yankees pulled Gerrit Cole with two outs in the second inning.
‣ 1.2 IP
‣ 2 ER
‣ 5 BB
‣ 68 pitches pic.twitter.com/aKowug5kC7
— Sporting News MLB (@sn_mlb) April 20, 2022
Meanwhile in Houston, Jim Crane’s feeling some heat of his own as fans continue to watch the team shed a considerable amount of payroll and team depth. He had some interesting quotes for Mark Berman you can hear here:
Jim Crane w/ a message to @astros fans:”Talking about the payroll.The payroll’s driven by the fans-They pay the bills.I try to use the money wisely.We have great fans.Thank u Houston for your support-If we got to make some adjustments at the turn,we have the resources to do that” pic.twitter.com/t3L53SL3tg
— Mark Berman (@MarkBermanFox26) April 18, 2022
Say what you want. Jim Crane’s the best owner this city has ever seen. Admittedly, that’s not historically been a “super” high bar, but it is now. He’s also one of the best owners in MLB as evidenced by the 5 straight ALCS appearances and going to 3 of the last 5 World Series. Both the money he DID spend over the offseason (JV) and the money he didn’t (Correa) both look good in early returns.
But Houston’s cold offense and shaky bullpen in a small sample size have some fans speculating on what might have been if the Astros were more aggressive. Make no mistake, if you’re betting against Jim Crane, you’re betting against the trend. As the gambler’s saying goes: the trend is your friend.
Prosperity berths high expectations. Yes, the Astros are coming off winning the pennant again, but what have you done for me lately, Mr. Crane?
We just expect the Astros to flip a switch every year at the beginning of the season and turn on the winning machine. And for the most part, that’s exactly what they do. But not every season plays out the same, and even the best seasons have their struggles.
Here is how the Astros 2019 team looked vs this year’s team in the first 7 games.
The 2019 team is one of the greatest offensive teams in franchise history. #7GamesDontMatter pic.twitter.com/dpkZnagaIx
— Michael Schwab (@michaelschwab13) April 16, 2022
So yes, in this time of Astros uncertainty, in this stupidly young season, take heed of perspective.
If there’s one thing we can all be certain of, the fans will always be patient and level-headed.
RIP Astros this season
— Omar Villarreal (@OmarV1016) April 20, 2022
There's no denying that this year's World Series champs (LA Dodgers) have some serious firepower on their roster. And one of the ways they were able to assemble such a talented team involved players like Shohei Ohtani being willing to differ their money.
Just this week, there was some speculation that the Yankees could do something similar when restructuring Gerrit Cole's contract, that would allow them more flexibility in the present.
The Yankees ended up calling Cole's bluff about opting out, and no adjustment was made to the contract.
But this situation got us thinking, would the Astros consider a tactic like this to maximize the roster? At this point, it doesn't seem all that likely. Just last year, the team handed out a $95 million contract to Josh Hader, without any differed money.
The other factor that also has to come into play is the tax threshold. The organization would have to give the okay to go over it again in order to make a splash signing this offseason. Which unfortunately does not sound like the plan right now when listening to GM Dana Brown at the Winter Meetings.
Astros pitcher hires a new agent
Now that MLB free agency is in full swing, most of the attention moving forward will be focused on players like Alex Bregman, Pete Alonso, and Juan Soto.
But for Astros fans, there might be someone else to keep an eye on this offseason and next. Starting pitcher Hunter Brown quietly hired super agent Scott Boras recently.
With Brown still another season away from his first year of arbitration, he should be with the Astros for the foreseeable future.
However, the hiring of Boras does raise some interesting questions. Why make the move now? Certainly, Brown could use some more cash, as he's set to make less than a million in 2025.
Perhaps Brown wants to land some HEB commercials to fatten his wallet. And if Bregman does leave the team in free agency, a spot will open up for another player, in theory. And three of the players in the HEB ads are represented by Boras (Jose Altuve, Lance McCullers Jr. and Bregman).
Jeremy Pena has been stacking cash from Taquerias Arandas for several years now, maybe Brown would like an opportunity to do an endorsement similar to that.
I say all this half kidding, but Brown does look like the future ace of this staff, and I'm sure there are plenty of advertisers that would have interest in Hunter.
There is another element that could have initiated the hiring of Boras. Would Brown be willing to sign an extension early with the Astros similar to the deal the team made with Cristian Javier?
Their situations are actually pretty comparable, except Javier was one year further into his career (3 years of MLB service time) and eligible for arbitration before agreeing to the extension.
If Brown was heading into arbitration this offseason, it wouldn't be surprising at all for the Astros to be considering a long-term deal with him that buys up all his arbitration years. The 'Stros love these types of contract extensions. We've seen them do it with Bregman, the aforementioned Javier, and others.
One of the main differences though between Brown and Javier is their rookie year numbers. Brown only pitched 20.1 innings in his first season (2022). While Javier pitched 54.1 innings his rookie year. However, his rookie season was in 2020, so Javier completed a full year of service time despite the shortened season. Whereas Brown didn't get called up until September 2022.
Another difference is performance. Javier never posted an ERA over 3.55 in his first three seasons. As opposed to Brown, who had a disastrous year in 2023. He made 29 starts, recording an ERA over 5.
It wasn't until May of 2024 that Brown started using his two-seam fastball with great success and becoming one of the most dominant pitchers in the American League.
The Astros had a bigger sample size to judge Javier. However, if Brown has another quality season in 2025, Houston and Brown should definitely be having conversations about an extension. Especially with Framber Valdez being in the final year of his contract in 2025. Hunter could be the unquestioned ace one year from now.
Still, though, there are some concerns with handing out these early extensions. For example, if the Astros had it to do over again, would they still extend Javier?
After receiving his extension before the 2023 season, he went on to post the highest ERA of his career (4.56), and then blew out his elbow in May 2024.
And if we're going by Luis Garcia's recovery timeline from Tommy John surgery, we may not see Javier pitch at all in 2025.
So even with a sample size of three terrific seasons, the Javier extension looks like a miss with the benefit of hindsight. It will be interesting to see if that deal impacts Dana Brown's decision-making going forward.
Especially since Javier was Dana's first big contract extension as the Astros GM.
Be sure to watch the video as we discuss how the Astros can get the most out of their roster, the pros and cons of signing Hunter Brown early, and much more!
*Catch our weekly Stone Cold ‘Stros podcasts. Brandon Strange, Josh Jordan, and Charlie Pallilo discuss varied Astros topics. The post for the week generally goes up Monday afternoon. Find all via The SportsMap HOU YouTube channel or listen to episodes in their entirety at Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
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