ROSTER BUILDING
Salman Ali: Rockets opt for conservative but practical offseason
Salman Ali
Aug 1, 2018, 9:07 am
Bringing Chris Paul back was the Rockets biggest off-season move. Photo by Hannah Foslien/Getty Images
If you were hoping for a summer where the Houston Rockets made a splashy move, this wasn’t it. If you thought the Rockets would throw caution to the wind and spend deep into the luxury tax to overpay key role players like Trevor Ariza, you thought wrong.
Houston went into this summer with several tough decisions to make as nearly half of their playoff rotation was up for new contracts. They faced the delicate balancing act of prioritizing core pieces like Chris Paul and Clint Capela while trying to bring other rotation pieces back for reasonable deals. The Rockets have a history of valuing star players as the highest commodities in basketball (and rightfully so) and viewing supporting players as fungible or replaceable pieces. Look no further than the summer of 2014 when the Rockets made an all-out pursuit for multi-time All Star Chris Bosh.
In the background of their pursuit, the Dallas Mavericks had agreed to a 3-year, $46 million offer sheet with Houston’s Chandler Parsons and when Chris Bosh chose to stay in Miami, the Rockets opted not to match Parsons’ offer sheet. The Rockets were able to successfully replace his production with forward Trevor Ariza. In the moment, Houston’s reluctance to overpay key role players is often met with skepticism, but general manager Daryl Morey’s track record of finding good supporting players on the margins is enough to give Houston the benefit of the doubt.
So it’s no surprise that history is repeating itself once again. The Rockets, again, placed a high value on star talent (Chris Paul in this instance) and a lower value on supporting pieces (Ariza and Luc Mbah a Moute). Houston chose to give Chris Paul a 4 year, $160 million contract on July 1st and let Ariza walk for a 1 year, $15 million contract the same night. They also lost out on Mbah a Moute to the Clippers just eight days later. This has been met with puzzled reactions across the board but speaks to a principle the Rockets have lived by since the day Morey took over: “We don’t overpay for role players, especially if we don’t have to.”
Now this is by no means a hard and fast rule that the Rockets have written on a whiteboard somewhere. Rather, it’s a philosophy that they try not to stray from. That doesn’t mean they’ve never overpaid (ex: Ryan Anderson). Houston prefers their contracts to be team friendly and tradeable if need be. They rarely ever hamstrung themselves as they want to keep the roster as flexible as possible. Signing an aging Trevor Ariza to $15 million annually is a non-starter.
If you were to describe Houston’s summer in three words it would be “conservative, but prudent.”
A four year deal for 33-year old Chris Paul isn’t ideal, but the Rockets did good by avoiding a fifth year. Clint Capela for 5 years, $90 million is already good value, but making $10 million of it incentives is fantastic. Few casual fans know who he is, but if James Ennis can replace 80% or more of what Trevor Ariza provided the Rockets for his minimum deal, that’s a bargain. And if the Houston can get more from Carmelo Anthony and Michael-Carter Williams than their previous teams did, those can also be good value contracts.
Most importantly, Houston left pathways to improve their roster before playoff time on the table.
Specifically, Houston is on track to finish the offseason with most of their taxpayer mid-level exception intact and their 2019 1st round pick. Those are two very valuable pieces the Rockets can use to improve their team midseason if need be. By signing guys like Gerald Green, James Ennis, Michael-Carter Williams, and Carmelo Anthony to veteran’s minimum deals, the Rockets retained most of their taxpayer mid-level exception which they can still use at any point this season. They also have yet to trade away their 2019 1st round pick. (Of note: Houston has traded away their 1st round pick every season for the past four years).
This effectively guarantees that the Rockets aren’t done making moves and may not be done until late February. In fact, Brian Windhorst reported that Houston has been on the market to move Ryan Anderson for a few months now. He went on to say that he wouldn’t be surprised if they “made a move for a defensive player or two before training camp.” Also, with their taxpayer mid-level exception in hand, they will almost assuredly try to add a significant player to help bolster their depth on the buyout market.
It makes sense the Rockets would keep their roster a work in progress considering that’s always been their mindset as an organization. Here’s a clip of Daryl Morey preaching the patience in constructing a roster for the playoffs.
Overall, it seems Houston’s plan this summer was to prioritize keeping only the most essential parts of their core, keep their cap sheet reasonable (fourth highest salary in the league), take chances on players they felt like the market undervalued, and retain flexibility to improve later on in the year. So while it seems like the Rockets took a step back for now, it may be in an effort to take two steps forward later on. Patience is a virtue.
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After finishing up with the Guardians the Astros have a rather important series for early May with the Seattle Mariners heading to town for the weekend. While it’s still too early to be an absolute must-win series for the Astros, losing the series to drop seven or eight games off the division lead would make successfully defending their American League West title that much more unlikely.
Since their own stumble out of the gate to a 6-10 record the Mariners have been racking up series wins, including one this week over the Atlanta Braves. The M’s offense is largely Mmm Mmm Bad, but their pitching is sensational. In 18 games after the 6-10 start, the Mariners gave up five runs in a game once. In the other 17 games they only gave up four runs once. Over the 18 games their starting pitchers gave up 18 earned runs total with a 1.44 earned run average. That’s absurd. Coming into the season Seattle’s starting rotation was clearly better on paper than those of the Astros and Texas Rangers, and it has crystal clearly played out as such into the second month of the schedule.
While it’s natural to focus on and fret over one’s own team's woes when they are plentiful as they have been for the Astros, a reminder that not all grass is greener elsewhere. Alex Bregman has been awful so far. So has young Mariners’ superstar Julio Rodriguez. A meager four extra base hits over his first 30 games were all Julio produced down at the ballyard. That the Mariners are well ahead of the Astros with J-Rod significantly underperforming is good news for Seattle.
Caratini comes through!
So it turns out the Astros are allowed to have a Puerto Rican-born catcher who can hit a little bit. Victor Caratini’s pedigree is not that of a quality offensive player, but he has swung the bat well thus far in his limited playing time and provided the most exciting moment of the Astros’ season with his two-out two-run 10th inning game winning home run Tuesday night. I grant that one could certainly say “Hey! Ronel Blanco finishing off his no-hitter has been the most exciting moment.” I opt for the suddenness of Caratini’s blow turning near defeat into instant victory for a team that has been lousy overall to this point. Frittering away a game the Astros had led 8-3 would have been another blow. Instead, to the Victor belong the spoils.
Pudge Rodriguez is the greatest native Puerto Rican catcher, but he was no longer a good hitter when with the Astros for the majority of the 2009 season. Then there’s Martin Maldonado.
Maldonado’s hitting stats with the Astros look Mike Piazza-ian compared to what Jose Abreu was doing this season. Finally, mercifully for all, Abreu is off the roster as he accepts a stint at rookie-level ball in Florida to see if he can perform baseball-CPR on his swing and career. Until or unless he proves otherwise, Abreu is washed up and at some point the Astros will have to accept it and swallow whatever is left on his contract that runs through next season. For now Abreu makes over $120,000 per game to not be on the roster. At his level of performance, that’s a better deal than paying him that money to be on the roster.
Abreu’s seven hits in 71 at bats for an .099 batting average with a .269 OPS is a humiliating stat line. In 2018 George Springer went to sleep the night of June 13 batting .293 after going hitless in his last four at bats in a 13-5 Astros’ win over Oakland. At the time no one could have ever envisioned that Springer had started a deep, deep funk which would have him endure a nightmarish six for 78 stretch at the plate (.077 batting average). Springer then hit .293 the rest of the season.
Abreu’s exile opened the door for Joey Loperfido to begin his Major League career. Very cool for Loperfido to smack a two-run single in his first game. He also struck out twice. Loperfido will amass whiffs by the bushel, he had 37 strikeouts in 101 at bats at AAA Sugar Land. Still, if he can hit .225 with some walks mixed in (he drew 16 with the Space Cowboys) and deliver some of his obvious power (13 homers in 25 games for the ex-Skeeters) that’s an upgrade over Abreu/Jon Singleton, as well as over Jake Meyers and the awful showing Chas McCormick has posted so far. Frankly, it seems unwise that the Astros only had Loperfido play seven games at first base in the minors this year. If McCormick doesn’t pick it up soon and with Meyers displaying limited offensive upside, the next guy worth a call-up is outfielder Pedro Leon. In January 2021 the Astros gave Leon four million dollars to sign out of Cuba and called him a “rapid mover to the Major Leagues.” Well…
Over his first three minor league seasons Leon flashed tools but definitely underwhelmed. He has been substantially better so far this year. He turns 26 May 28. Just maybe the Astros offense could be the cause of fewer Ls with Loperfido at first and Leon in center field.
Catch our weekly Stone Cold ‘Stros podcast. Brandon Strange, Josh Jordan, and I discuss varied Astros topics. The first post for the week generally goes up Monday afternoon (second part released Tuesday) via YouTube: stone cold stros - YouTube with the complete audio available via Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.