TEXANS FINALLY SIDE WITH FANS
Houston breathes a sigh of relief as Texans punt controversial front office VP
Oct 17, 2022, 4:52 pm
The Texans showed the fans they care on Monday. Composite image by Brandon Strange.
Whatever words you want to use - “dismissed,” “fired,” “parted ways,” “resigned” — ding dong, Jack Easterby is gone as executive vice president of football operations for the Houston Texans.
A collective sigh of fans’ relief spread across Houston when intrepid ESPN reporter Adam Schefter broke the story of the controversial and roundly despised Easterby’s departure early on Monday, October 17. Relief followed by good riddance and what took the Texans so long?
Easterby joined the Texans in 2019 and quickly gained power through his friendship with team owner Cal McNair. Easterby was roundly criticized for weaving religious fervor in his role as head of football operations. According to the Texans website, Easterby was “responsible for the vision and oversight” of the team.
Let’s review: during Easterby’s tenure, the Texans went 9-29 on the field, the team’s star quarterback went on a rampage of sexual misconduct with 20, or 22, make that 24 female masseuses (and counting), traded perhaps the most talented receiver in the NFL for a broken down running back and a handful of magic beans, hired and fired coaches to where the Texans currently are paying three different head coaches, and watched fans abandoned going to games.
Only a few years ago, the Texans had a waiting list in the tens of thousands for season tickets. Now the stadium is half-empty and seats can be had for pocket change on secondary ticket sites. The Texans are 1-3-1 this season, in last place in the AFC South.
For years, Houston sports talk hosts and writers pleaded for the team to unload Easterby. That could be one reason that Easterby lasted as long as he did. NFL owners ain’t about to let the media dictate how they run their teams.
Today, we’re hearing comments like “there’ll be rejoicing throughout the organization” and “a pox on the team is gone.”
My football buddy Ed said, “you can’t call him a cancer on the team because cancer kills you, the team is still around. He was more like an STD that lingered.” (Don’t scratch, that only makes it worse.)
Easterby avoided the media like a biblical plague. In the few glimpses we got of him, he came off like, as Jimmy Buffett would describe, a conniving “television preacher with bad hair and dimples,” the only difference being Easterby had no hair.
A Sports Illustrated exposé on Easterby revealed that he brought a “culture of mistrust and constant chaos among staff and players,” arranged for illegal team practices and flouted safety rules during COVID, and reportedly hired private eyes to follow players during their off-hours.
Easterby, 39, started as an academic tutor at the University of South Carolina, then an entry-level intern with the Jacksonville Jaguars, became team chaplain for the New England Patriots, then character coach, before his meteoric and totally baffling rise to head of football operations with the Texans.
The S.I. piece pinned Easterby with backstabbing other executives and decision-makers, breaking NFL rules, pushing the trade of Hopkins, and generally leaving the Texans organization a $4.7 billion dumpster fire.
The Texans released this statement on Monday afternoon from McNair:
“I met with Executive Vice President of Football Operations Jack Easterby and we have mutually agreed to part ways. For the remainder of the season, effective immediately, his responsibilities will be absorbed by our Football Operations staff. We acknowledge Jack's positive contributions and wish him and his family the best in the future.”
As fans are gleefully and sarcastically note on talk radio and online discussion boards: “He won’t be missed.”
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The woeful state of the Astros' farm system has made it very expensive to continue maintaining a good team, prohibitively so (in part self-imposed) from having a great team. Even if they re-sign Alex Bregman, trading Framber Valdez and/or Kyle Tucker for prospects could snap the Astros' run of eight straight postseason appearances. But if they KNOW that no way do they intend to offer Framber five years 130 million dollars, Tucker 7/225 or whatever their free agent markets might be after next season, keeping them for 2025 but getting nothing but 2026 compensatory draft picks for them could do multi-year damage to the franchise.
Preliminary Kyle Tucker trade talks between the Astros and Cubs involve both Seiya Suzuki and Isaac Paredes, sources tell @Ken_Rosenthal and me - https://t.co/kIRATDQpEn
— Chandler Rome (@Chandler_Rome) December 11, 2024
The time is here for the Astros to be aggressively shopping both. It doesn't make trading them obligatory, but even though many purported top prospects amount to little or nothing (look up what the Astros traded to Detroit for Justin Verlander, to Pittsburgh for Gerrit Cole, to Arizona for Zack Greinke) if strong packages are offered the Astros need to act if unwilling (reasonably or not) to pay Valdez/Tucker.
Last offseason the Milwaukee Brewers traded pitching ace Corbin Burnes one season ahead of his free agency and then again won the National League Central, the San Diego Padres dealt Juan Soto and wound up much improved and a playoff team after missing the 2023 postseason. But nailing the trades is critical. The Brewers got their everyday rookie third baseman Joey Ortiz and two other prospects. The Padres got quality starter Michael King, catcher Kyle Hagashioka, and three prospects.
Back to Bregman
Meanwhile, decision time approaches for Alex Bregman. He, via agent Scott Boras, wants 200-plus million dollars. Don't we all. If he can land that from somebody, congratulations. The Astros' six-year 156 million dollar contract offer is more than fair. That's 26 million dollars per season and would take Bregman within a few months of his 37th birthday. If rounding up to 160 mil gets it done, ok I guess. Going to 200 would be silly.
While Bregman hasn't been a superstar (or even an All-Star) since 2019, he's still a very good player. That includes his 2024 season which showed decline offensively. Not falling off a cliff decline other than his walk rate plunging about 45 percent, but decline. If Bregman remains the exact player he was this season, six-156 is pricey but not crazy in the current marketplace. But how likely is Bregman to not drop off further in his mid-30s? As noted before, the storyline is bogus that Bregman has been a postseason monster. Over seven League Championship Series and four World Series Bregman has a .196 batting average.
The Astros already should be sweating some over Jose Altuve having shown marked decline this season, before his five year 125 million dollar extension covering 2025-2029 even starts. Altuve was still very good offensively though well down from 2022 and 2023 (defensively his data are now awful), but as he approaches turning 35 years old in May some concern is warranted when locked into paying a guy until he's nearly 39 1/2.
Jim Crane is right in noting that long contracts paying guys huge money in their later years generally go poorly for the clubs.
Bang for your buck
Cleveland third baseman Jose Ramirez is heading into the second year of a five-year, $124 million extension. That's 24.8 million dollars per season. Jose Ramirez is a clearly better player than Alex Bregman. Ramirez has been the better player for five consecutive seasons, and only in 2023 was it even close. It should be noted that Ramirez signed his extension in April of 2022. He is about a year and a half older than Bregman so the Guardians are paying their superstar through his age 36 season.
Bregman benefits from playing his home games at soon-to be named Daikin Park. Bregman hit 26 home runs this year. Using ball-tracking data, if he had played all his games in Houston, Bregman would have hit 31 homers. Had all his swings been taken at Yankee Stadium, the "Breggy Bomb" count would have been 25. In Cleveland, just 18. Ramirez hit 41 dingers. If all his games were home games 40 would have cleared the fences, if all had been at Minute Maid Park 47 would have been gone.
Matt Chapman recently signed a six-year 151 million dollar deal to stay with the San Francisco Giants. That's 25.166 million per season. Chapman was clearly a better player than Bregman this year. But it's the only season of Chapman's career that is the case. Chapman is 11 months older than Bregman, so his lush deal with the Giants carries through his age 37 season.
The Giants having overpaid Chapman doesn't obligate the Astros to do the same with Bregman. So, if you're the Astros do you accept overpaying Bregman? They would almost certainly be worse without him in 2025, but what about beyond? Again, having not one elite prospect in their minor league system boxes them in. Still, until/unless the Seattle Mariners upgrade their offense, the Astros cling to American League West favorites status. On the other hand, WITH Bregman, Tucker, and Valdez the Astros are no postseason lock.
For Texans’ conversation, catch Brandon Strange, Josh Jordan, and me on our Texans On Tap podcasts. Thursdays feature a preview of the upcoming game, and then we go live (then available on demand) after the final gun of the game: Texans on Tap - YouTube
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