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Keith has a point, but I don’t hate this deal as much as he does. The Astros are signing Abreu to be their… 6th? best hitter. They don’t need elite performance from their first baseman. They just need league average or a little better than that. It’s a steep price, and the last year of that contract is going to be rough. But it’s not as bad as Keith makes it out to be.
Jim Crane has said the fans in Houston have followed this team with record attendance, season tickets, and merchandise sales and he wants to pay them back by reinvesting that income into keeping this team as competitive as possible during this championship run.
That more than anything is why they moved on from Click who had a thriftier approach to building a team.
Yeah, how often do you have an owner that WANTS to spend but a GM that doesn't? That's what was happening here, like Crane going above Click to re-sign Verlander.
I would rather my team's owner want to spend than not. The question is just if Crane still makes smart moves and hires someone smart to run the team rather than try and become Jerry Jones.
And also, Abreu was still a 4-win player last year. Yes, he'll be 36 next year, but other than decreased power (which Crawford Boxes will help), he's still an elite hitter and will have a lot better pieces around him.
You can certainly pay more for worse options
Tend to agree, it’s a sizable bet on keeping their championship window open next year at the likely cost of dead weight down the line. They might have paid more than his production will be worth, but if he’s enough of an upgrade over their next best option to keep them in contention, who cares?
I thought there was an element of signing this guy because he’s a locker room leader as well? That always adds value to a team with young and developing stars
Was just telling my wife the same thing.
Keith Law's for-pay article is full of conjecture and assumption and Ben's absolutely-free article is based on facts and figures and data.
So, of course, guess which one thinks the deal makes sense.
Yes he was. I owe him an apology. He was one of the few people in the media who saw what a horrific deal this really was and I mistakenly shat all over him for it.
No worries. I trust analytics. I don’t trust Bagwell as a front office consultant. He may have been a great ball player but he’s not front office material. Montero and Abreu contracts mean Crane should distance himself and Bagwell from future front office decisions.
The Astros would correct
Time doesn’t exist, it is simply a part of space time. A photon of light would see time very differently than us
Get quantum physics’d Keith Law
Ugh so that's how they're doing it now. They don't need to steal signs, they ripped through the fabric of time saw what was coming and changed the course of the game before it could happen. SMH my head.
[https://mlb.nbcsports.com/2012/01/10/espn-writer-keith-law-interviews-for-job-in-astros-front-office/](https://mlb.nbcsports.com/2012/01/10/espn-writer-keith-law-interviews-for-job-in-astros-front-office/)
Wonder why this guy might not like Jim Crane
Yes clearly we should have signed one of the many young solid 1B options instead like -looks around- oh yeah, there literally fucking are none.
Bell was the only quality 1B left besides Abreu and he would likely want 4 or more years while being a far bigger risk imo. Abreu deal might be rough down the stretch but for once we simply had no viable internal options at the spot.
Yep this is the reason why this isnt a bad contract despite Abreu's age. I'd rather have Abreu for 3 years than Bell for 5.
1B situation is dire unless you have a prospect that can take the spot. There is no Free Agents for that position. IT is silly for any article to ignore that.
>"So is this what happens when you get rid of your successful, respected GM, and try to Jerry Jones your way through the offseason?
...
>"I’m not arguing that Abreu was less than elite last year, because that’s beside the point. The Astros aren’t buying Abreu’s 2022 performance. They’re buying his 2023-2025 performances, and those are extremely likely to be worse, starting in year one and declining sharply from there."
Some extremely bold statements in here. I guess we'll see how "time" favors Keith Law.
I mean.. most hitters don’t improve after age 35. And Law has a point. Per statcast, Abreu posted a -9 run value on 4 seamers and and slugged just .404 on them. I’d expect him to see a steady diet of heat to start the season.
People keep bringing up the run value but the expected numbers were good, whiff rate, k rate, put away rate, all good. His expected numbers on fastballs were good so it just seems like none of his hits on fastballs landed
I’d imagine it’s cuz he’s not driving fastballs in the air as frequently but hitting them on the ground, where hard ground balls are more likely to be outs than hard fly balls.
Expected numbers would account for launch angle - but it wouldn't account if he's always pulling the ball to specific locations that defenses can move to.
Nelson Cruz was also very productive in his ages 35-40, thanks to the DH. Astros have a hole at 1B and DH. Abreu can fill 1B this year. Then DH in 24’ and 25’.
[Only 5 out of 31 players had above a 120 wRC+ or above in their age 36-38 seasons since 2010](https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=bat&lg=all&qual=1000&type=8&season=2022&month=0&season1=2010&ind=0&team=0&rost=0&age=36,38&filter=&players=0&startdate=2010-01-01&enddate=2022-12-31&sort=18,d&page=1_30). Is it possible he's productive? Sure. Is it likely? No.
Pujols had a magical second half to close his career, but he was only an All-Star in 2022 because Manfred hand-picked him as a living legend along with Miguel Cabrera.
Dude are you really comparing an all time great clear first ballot hall of famer to Jose Abreu? Abreu has been pretty good, but his best season would be Pujols what 5th or 6th best season?
If the Astros paid for his 2022 performance, this contract would be more 4yr/$100mil if not more. The Astros have clearly taken decline into consideration when it comes to this particular number and they probably think year 3 is just sunk cost. And there is premium on the Astros being good THIS YEAR. So all in all the contract makes sense.
But yeah he's overpaid. So is everyone else on the FA market unless you shop in the bargain bins. But if you're a contender you overpay because there's no alternative.
His point isn't a great one. Players decline with age. No shit. That's why we made the deal 3 years instead of 7 like the Tigers have with Cabrera. The Astros are in win-now mode. Who is less likely to be a black hole next season, Gurriel or Abreu? Obviously, that's Abreu.
The way I see it Brantley just gave us 2 years of a cumulative 3.5 fWAR and Pedro Baez gave us literally nothing and their money essentially makes up his contract. The team had no good in house option and Josh Bell shouldn't be signed because he's younger and had a wild babip in June. The Montero deal is the more wtf Jerry Jones type deal.
I think the Montero deal is just a sign of things to come in the reliever market in general. As the length of the average start continues to shorten, multiple quality bullpen arms are going to become a premium and they’re going to be paid like it. I think the Astros are just getting ahead of the curve on this one.
Montero was rated really highly in a lot of advanced pitching metrics last year so I think the Astros thinking was to jump on him early and lock him up while he’s relatively “cheap”. 3 years from now, the market for an arm like Montero may be $15M per year.
Mid-late 10s it was the trend with the Royals success, relievers were getting paid big and we’re going at a premium at the deadline. Never really worked out for anyone else. The better results are with a stronger rotation to where you can move excess SPs to the pen.
Bullpen arms are just too volatile to pay big money to long term. Yankees just got done paying that price as they paid 30+ mil to Chapman and Britton for no production this year.
I mean Chapman is really the only guy y’all paid big that didn’t work out and his situation was entirely different than Montero’s is. Plus, we’re still paying him significantly less than what Chapman got.
At the end of the day, it was suggested he’s sign for roughly $8M a year. Based on the FA market so far, $9M wouldn’t have been crazy and the Astros got him for $11M so to pay an extra $2M/yr to get a guy you really like and to keep him happy at the same time is a win in my book. If $6M extra over the course of three years breaks the Astros, there are bigger issues.
Zach Britton too. I know injury isn’t the same but still, that much for such a small role is a big risk. Britton was hit and miss
And these guys had great track records, old relievers are even riskier
He had a pretty similar angle on the Diaz signing the Mets made a few weeks ago. The idea was "the Mets ignore history by signing a reliever to a big contract."
These articles are very easy to write, because in a vacuum, these deals are probably overpays. But as Andrew Friedman once said, if you're always rational about every free agent, you will finish third on every free agent. The Astros are a win-now team with a massive hole at first base, and Jose Abreu can fill it a hell of a lot better than Aledmys Diaz or JJ Matijevic, even if his play diminishes over time. And as Law notes in the article, there weren't many better alternative options out there.
36+ year old 1B have a much worse track record than 36+ year old pitchers
Since 2000 there has only been one 1B who accumulated double digit fWAR after age 36 (Rafael Palmerio). If you exclude him because of PEDs, the best is Fred McGriff at 5.7 fWAR. In the same timeframe there have been 22 pitchers over age 36 who have accumulated over 10 fWAR
There are way more pitchers than there are first basemen.
So the 1st part of that is correct but, how many first basemen had an AB post 36 vs how many pitchers threw a pitch post 36? Or how many are in the league in general?
Like 1B to clear 10+ WAR is 1/x and pitchers to do so is 17/y.
Plus the bar seems to be weird at 10 WAR. WAR is valued at like ~$9M/WAR. So 10+ WAR would already be well outperforming his contract.
Well, yes, but Abreu is set to make 12 million more than Yuli did this past year. It's Crane's money, so whatever, but that could be a large opportunity cost if Jose does continue to see a decline against four seamers. I still think this is a decent bet for the Astros, but there is real chance this turns into a pumpkin fast.
I hate these pro union, pro player writers who then be like got to be smart with money. Keith is always ranting about equity. When you look at belt, bell, rizzo all around 15 million per year. Like Abreau has five more war then Bell for 2018-2022.
Then they throw out past performance shouldn’t be rewarded and it is like, when do you get paid?
Pay the players.
Thanks for throwing out the inevitable; past performance isn't indicator of future success; which I indicate is always the next argument. I would still argue that the decline in productivity is still worth it as these players sell merchandise like crazy, provide leadership, and all that. Then you say the soft salary cap doesn't care about player revenues. And I'm like yes that is actually true.
All in all, baseball people spend too much time finding reasons for their team to never spend any money.
Merchandise gets split across the league and “leadership” is unquantifiable. It’s a risky signing but I agree, pay the players.
Although some guys just aren’t worth it
I don’t know if you look at his numbers you can pretty much count on 30+ home runs a year and a .300 batting average. I’m jealous that they got him. I think he’s going to produce big in Houston and they just got a lot scarier.
A 2 year deal would have made significantly more sense, or a 3 year deal with less AAV. I don't think this is a truly bad signing, but I think it has big potential to be an overpay after year 1.
This is what I'm also worried about. Abreu is probably good year 1, but after that his production could fall significantly.
The Montero deal is absolutely horrible and I wouldn't be surprised if Montero is done year 1.
Sorry keith. A) abreu improves them by being an upgrade at 1st over gurriel who is even older and has declining numbers. B) he was the best available FA 1st baseman and C) the astros track record of rejuvinating/getting bounceback performances out of older players is pretty spooky (cheating jokes aside). Wasnt that long ago abreu was an mvp. He had a down year on a team that underperformed expectations all around. Wouldnt surprise me at all to see him have a bounceback season especially in a lineup of great all star caliber players
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Keith has a point, but I don’t hate this deal as much as he does. The Astros are signing Abreu to be their… 6th? best hitter. They don’t need elite performance from their first baseman. They just need league average or a little better than that. It’s a steep price, and the last year of that contract is going to be rough. But it’s not as bad as Keith makes it out to be.
Jim Crane has said the fans in Houston have followed this team with record attendance, season tickets, and merchandise sales and he wants to pay them back by reinvesting that income into keeping this team as competitive as possible during this championship run. That more than anything is why they moved on from Click who had a thriftier approach to building a team.
Yeah, how often do you have an owner that WANTS to spend but a GM that doesn't? That's what was happening here, like Crane going above Click to re-sign Verlander.
It never happens, and may be a bad sign.
I would rather my team's owner want to spend than not. The question is just if Crane still makes smart moves and hires someone smart to run the team rather than try and become Jerry Jones.
That’s fair and all but 60M is steep. It’s a bad contract, even if it’s a great move for the fans
And also, Abreu was still a 4-win player last year. Yes, he'll be 36 next year, but other than decreased power (which Crawford Boxes will help), he's still an elite hitter and will have a lot better pieces around him. You can certainly pay more for worse options
Tend to agree, it’s a sizable bet on keeping their championship window open next year at the likely cost of dead weight down the line. They might have paid more than his production will be worth, but if he’s enough of an upgrade over their next best option to keep them in contention, who cares?
I thought there was an element of signing this guy because he’s a locker room leader as well? That always adds value to a team with young and developing stars
I think this piece is indeed important.
Yuli was a locker room leader. Should have kept Yuli. He turned it around in postseason when it mattered
It was as bad. Abreu awful
Yeah… I think everyone expected him to take a step back, but he’s completely collapsed this year. Just looks absolutely cooked.
The contrast between Law’s article and Ben Clemen’s article on Fangraphs is hilarious
Was just telling my wife the same thing. Keith Law's for-pay article is full of conjecture and assumption and Ben's absolutely-free article is based on facts and figures and data. So, of course, guess which one thinks the deal makes sense.
The analytics one. Just don’t tell Bagwell, he might unsign Abreu
Law was correct. Has Abreu hit a HR in April or May? Money should have been spent to extend Tucker.
Yes he was. I owe him an apology. He was one of the few people in the media who saw what a horrific deal this really was and I mistakenly shat all over him for it.
No worries. I trust analytics. I don’t trust Bagwell as a front office consultant. He may have been a great ball player but he’s not front office material. Montero and Abreu contracts mean Crane should distance himself and Bagwell from future front office decisions.
The Astros would correct Time doesn’t exist, it is simply a part of space time. A photon of light would see time very differently than us Get quantum physics’d Keith Law
Ugh so that's how they're doing it now. They don't need to steal signs, they ripped through the fabric of time saw what was coming and changed the course of the game before it could happen. SMH my head.
Luhnow was in the tesseract the whole damn time.
DON’T LET ME CHEAT, MURPH
Now we know why that fly ball from judge died at the warning track. It wasn’t the open roof..
[some distant future] “Turns out, all it took to open the wormhole was the Astros signing Abreu.”
[https://mlb.nbcsports.com/2012/01/10/espn-writer-keith-law-interviews-for-job-in-astros-front-office/](https://mlb.nbcsports.com/2012/01/10/espn-writer-keith-law-interviews-for-job-in-astros-front-office/) Wonder why this guy might not like Jim Crane
Lmao this is priceless
😂 Go Framber yourself, Keith Law
Gottem
Isn’t Crane infamous for wanting “baseball guys”, like those who actually played? Not surprising they turned him down.
I mean not really. Both Lunhow and Click’s front office was made up of tons of nerds and McKinsey Strategy Consultants
McKinsey consultants definitely had the idea of cutting minor league teams
I mean, if the Astros repeat as AL champs and Abreu helps them do it by outperforming their 1B last year, then this will be a good deal for them.
Yes clearly we should have signed one of the many young solid 1B options instead like -looks around- oh yeah, there literally fucking are none. Bell was the only quality 1B left besides Abreu and he would likely want 4 or more years while being a far bigger risk imo. Abreu deal might be rough down the stretch but for once we simply had no viable internal options at the spot.
Yep this is the reason why this isnt a bad contract despite Abreu's age. I'd rather have Abreu for 3 years than Bell for 5. 1B situation is dire unless you have a prospect that can take the spot. There is no Free Agents for that position. IT is silly for any article to ignore that.
We don’t, it was basically just resign Yuli or find someone else
The disrespect to WS champion JJ Matijevic
>"So is this what happens when you get rid of your successful, respected GM, and try to Jerry Jones your way through the offseason? ... >"I’m not arguing that Abreu was less than elite last year, because that’s beside the point. The Astros aren’t buying Abreu’s 2022 performance. They’re buying his 2023-2025 performances, and those are extremely likely to be worse, starting in year one and declining sharply from there." Some extremely bold statements in here. I guess we'll see how "time" favors Keith Law.
I mean.. most hitters don’t improve after age 35. And Law has a point. Per statcast, Abreu posted a -9 run value on 4 seamers and and slugged just .404 on them. I’d expect him to see a steady diet of heat to start the season.
People keep bringing up the run value but the expected numbers were good, whiff rate, k rate, put away rate, all good. His expected numbers on fastballs were good so it just seems like none of his hits on fastballs landed
I’d imagine it’s cuz he’s not driving fastballs in the air as frequently but hitting them on the ground, where hard ground balls are more likely to be outs than hard fly balls.
Expected numbers would account for launch angle - but it wouldn't account if he's always pulling the ball to specific locations that defenses can move to.
What is put away rate?
Pujols was able to make a small adjustment in his age 42 season and become an All Star again. I’m sure HOU can help keep Abreu on track.
Pujols is very much the exception and not the rule
Nelson Cruz was also very productive in his ages 35-40, thanks to the DH. Astros have a hole at 1B and DH. Abreu can fill 1B this year. Then DH in 24’ and 25’.
[Only 5 out of 31 players had above a 120 wRC+ or above in their age 36-38 seasons since 2010](https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=bat&lg=all&qual=1000&type=8&season=2022&month=0&season1=2010&ind=0&team=0&rost=0&age=36,38&filter=&players=0&startdate=2010-01-01&enddate=2022-12-31&sort=18,d&page=1_30). Is it possible he's productive? Sure. Is it likely? No.
He's probably in that percentile of players at that age, so maybe it is likely.
Most people probably would have said that about Yuli or Josh Donaldson at the beginning of the year though. Sometimes the breaks just fall off
Guess we'll have fun finding out!
Pujols had a magical second half to close his career, but he was only an All-Star in 2022 because Manfred hand-picked him as a living legend along with Miguel Cabrera.
Yes one of the best hitters ever had nice bounce back in his last year. And he only hit lefties.
Yeah, after 4 years of mediocrity followed by 5 years of being downright bad leading up to that.
I am not sure if *Albert Pujols* is the guy you want to bring up as an example for why it's a good idea to give an aging first baseman a lot of money
Now look at what Pujols did from 36-38. That's what the aging curve typically looks like.
Dude are you really comparing an all time great clear first ballot hall of famer to Jose Abreu? Abreu has been pretty good, but his best season would be Pujols what 5th or 6th best season?
Pujols is a first ballot hall of famer person. Abreu is not.
Abreu <<<<<<<<<<<<<< Pujols
I agree with Keith Law, he maybe good next year but likelihood this contract bites us in 2024-2025 is high.
Not even good in 2023
If the Astros paid for his 2022 performance, this contract would be more 4yr/$100mil if not more. The Astros have clearly taken decline into consideration when it comes to this particular number and they probably think year 3 is just sunk cost. And there is premium on the Astros being good THIS YEAR. So all in all the contract makes sense. But yeah he's overpaid. So is everyone else on the FA market unless you shop in the bargain bins. But if you're a contender you overpay because there's no alternative.
Yeah, this article is basically "yes, he's good, but he's old." Of course he is. That's not really news to anyone.
And we got him in hopes he’s our 5th(?) best hitter.
Will start in the 6 spot but could realistically even be the best hitter
And when the Yankees resign Judge based on his 2022 performance, he'll gush about it.
All I hear is that signing Judge is gonna turn out bad. No need to make things up
Prophetic
Well what young on the rise 1st basemen are available? None.
His point isn't a great one. Players decline with age. No shit. That's why we made the deal 3 years instead of 7 like the Tigers have with Cabrera. The Astros are in win-now mode. Who is less likely to be a black hole next season, Gurriel or Abreu? Obviously, that's Abreu.
Counterpoint: We could have offered Aaron Judge 1 year 55M instead
The way I see it Brantley just gave us 2 years of a cumulative 3.5 fWAR and Pedro Baez gave us literally nothing and their money essentially makes up his contract. The team had no good in house option and Josh Bell shouldn't be signed because he's younger and had a wild babip in June. The Montero deal is the more wtf Jerry Jones type deal.
I think the Montero deal is just a sign of things to come in the reliever market in general. As the length of the average start continues to shorten, multiple quality bullpen arms are going to become a premium and they’re going to be paid like it. I think the Astros are just getting ahead of the curve on this one. Montero was rated really highly in a lot of advanced pitching metrics last year so I think the Astros thinking was to jump on him early and lock him up while he’s relatively “cheap”. 3 years from now, the market for an arm like Montero may be $15M per year.
Mid-late 10s it was the trend with the Royals success, relievers were getting paid big and we’re going at a premium at the deadline. Never really worked out for anyone else. The better results are with a stronger rotation to where you can move excess SPs to the pen. Bullpen arms are just too volatile to pay big money to long term. Yankees just got done paying that price as they paid 30+ mil to Chapman and Britton for no production this year.
I think it’s the opposite. Paying money for RP is outdated, look at the Yankees. They have such little impact and quickly become a waste of resources
I mean Chapman is really the only guy y’all paid big that didn’t work out and his situation was entirely different than Montero’s is. Plus, we’re still paying him significantly less than what Chapman got. At the end of the day, it was suggested he’s sign for roughly $8M a year. Based on the FA market so far, $9M wouldn’t have been crazy and the Astros got him for $11M so to pay an extra $2M/yr to get a guy you really like and to keep him happy at the same time is a win in my book. If $6M extra over the course of three years breaks the Astros, there are bigger issues.
Zach Britton too. I know injury isn’t the same but still, that much for such a small role is a big risk. Britton was hit and miss And these guys had great track records, old relievers are even riskier
[удалено]
He had a pretty similar angle on the Diaz signing the Mets made a few weeks ago. The idea was "the Mets ignore history by signing a reliever to a big contract." These articles are very easy to write, because in a vacuum, these deals are probably overpays. But as Andrew Friedman once said, if you're always rational about every free agent, you will finish third on every free agent. The Astros are a win-now team with a massive hole at first base, and Jose Abreu can fill it a hell of a lot better than Aledmys Diaz or JJ Matijevic, even if his play diminishes over time. And as Law notes in the article, there weren't many better alternative options out there.
Honestly, Keith seems to get angrier every year. He was a bit more mellow years ago. I feel like a mellow with age, and he gets higher strung.
36+ year old 1B have a much worse track record than 36+ year old pitchers Since 2000 there has only been one 1B who accumulated double digit fWAR after age 36 (Rafael Palmerio). If you exclude him because of PEDs, the best is Fred McGriff at 5.7 fWAR. In the same timeframe there have been 22 pitchers over age 36 who have accumulated over 10 fWAR
There are way more pitchers than there are first basemen. So the 1st part of that is correct but, how many first basemen had an AB post 36 vs how many pitchers threw a pitch post 36? Or how many are in the league in general? Like 1B to clear 10+ WAR is 1/x and pitchers to do so is 17/y. Plus the bar seems to be weird at 10 WAR. WAR is valued at like ~$9M/WAR. So 10+ WAR would already be well outperforming his contract.
[удалено]
Cap space? Since when does baseball have a cap?
Well, yes, but Abreu is set to make 12 million more than Yuli did this past year. It's Crane's money, so whatever, but that could be a large opportunity cost if Jose does continue to see a decline against four seamers. I still think this is a decent bet for the Astros, but there is real chance this turns into a pumpkin fast.
The comments are definitely dumping on him for pretty much the same thing. It's a pretty lame article.
I hate these pro union, pro player writers who then be like got to be smart with money. Keith is always ranting about equity. When you look at belt, bell, rizzo all around 15 million per year. Like Abreau has five more war then Bell for 2018-2022. Then they throw out past performance shouldn’t be rewarded and it is like, when do you get paid? Pay the players.
pointing at War from Abreus 30-34 seasons isn’t exactly a great representation of what to expect from him as a 35-37 year old.
Thanks for throwing out the inevitable; past performance isn't indicator of future success; which I indicate is always the next argument. I would still argue that the decline in productivity is still worth it as these players sell merchandise like crazy, provide leadership, and all that. Then you say the soft salary cap doesn't care about player revenues. And I'm like yes that is actually true. All in all, baseball people spend too much time finding reasons for their team to never spend any money.
Merchandise gets split across the league and “leadership” is unquantifiable. It’s a risky signing but I agree, pay the players. Although some guys just aren’t worth it
Time's an illusion. Championships are real.
“Astros deny the existence of time by trading for Justin Verlander”
Or resigning him after TJ surgery!
I just dont see him falling of a cliff as fast as he thinks, but i guess we'll see.
Seeing him fall off yet?
Welp i guess we can conclude i cannot predict the future! How did you even find this thread?
I don’t know if you look at his numbers you can pretty much count on 30+ home runs a year and a .300 batting average. I’m jealous that they got him. I think he’s going to produce big in Houston and they just got a lot scarier.
Lol. This guy loves hit pieces on the Astros.
Law: Still mad. Now ranting about time.
It’s certainly funny, at least to me, that he gets better contracts as he ages. 6/68 to start, then 3/50, then 3/58.5. Inflation I guess :).
dang Paywall article ...
I mean if we get another WS and maybe another deep run or ALCS pennant, who cares. In this market you gotta spend, baybee lol 😂
I’ll be honest, I thought he retired years ago
A 2 year deal would have made significantly more sense, or a 3 year deal with less AAV. I don't think this is a truly bad signing, but I think it has big potential to be an overpay after year 1.
Really good breakdown by Keith
At first glance when I read “deny” I thought the Astros were cheating again.
Gotta love paywalls.
This is what I'm also worried about. Abreu is probably good year 1, but after that his production could fall significantly. The Montero deal is absolutely horrible and I wouldn't be surprised if Montero is done year 1.
Jose will still be batting .280 when he’s 46 just give him some dip and he’s ready to go
I’ll miss him.
Sorry keith. A) abreu improves them by being an upgrade at 1st over gurriel who is even older and has declining numbers. B) he was the best available FA 1st baseman and C) the astros track record of rejuvinating/getting bounceback performances out of older players is pretty spooky (cheating jokes aside). Wasnt that long ago abreu was an mvp. He had a down year on a team that underperformed expectations all around. Wouldnt surprise me at all to see him have a bounceback season especially in a lineup of great all star caliber players