Astros’ trade could be canary in the Cole mine
Top teams avoiding a quiet and costly free agent market
A sleepy baseball off-season, defined by the ongoing stalemate between a slew of high-end free agents and a slew of high-end teams that seem determined to avoid them, was jolted awake Saturday when the Houston Astros pulled off a trade with the Pittsburgh Pirates for former all-star right-hander Gerrit Cole.
Once again, a high-profile team, the defending World Series champion Astros, made a splashy move without committing tens of million of dollars in annual salaries well into the next decade. The deal will do little to soothe the fraying nerves of all those free agents watching the calendar creep closer to opening day, but more than ever, this is how baseball’s off-season marketplace operates.
The trade for Cole, 27, cost the Astros four younger players — pitchers Joe Musgrove and Michael Feliz, third baseman Colin Moran and outfield prospect Jason Martin — none of whom were indispensable. It positions them for another run at a championship in 2018, and the Astros have two years of Cole’s services before he reaches free agency.
Cole, a 19-game winner in 2015, a flame-thrower with one of the best fastballs in the game and a workhorse with two 200-inning seasons in the past three years, was the ace of the Pirates’ staff, but he will likely be the No. 3 starter in a deep Astros rotation headed by Justin Verlander and Dallas Keuchel. Charlie Morton, a World Series hero who closed out the decisive Game 7 against the Los Angeles Dodgers with four dazzling innings of relief, is reduced to an expected role as the Astros’ fifth starter in 2018.
The decisiveness of the Astros’ front office during the past four and a half months has been something to behold. On the morning of Aug. 31, 2017, the Astros were 80-53 and running away with the American League West division, which they led by 11 games at the time. But general manager Jeff Luhnow and his lieutenants — in perhaps the most analytics-driven front office in the game — saw the roster as something less than championship-worthy.
Since that date, the Astros acquired Verlander and now Cole, at a cost of seven talented young players. Perhaps just as important, the Astros’ trade for Cole kept the big right-hander from going to the New York Yankees — the team the Astros vanquished in seven games in the American League Championship Series last October.
The Yankees are yet another top team with the means, but not the desire, to spend heavily in free agency this winter. They made their biggest move by far, acquiring 28-year-old slugger Giancarlo Stanton, via a trade with the Florida Marlins, and they were known to covet Cole as well — though not so much that they were willing to include shortstop prospect Gleyber Torres in the deal.
Spring training camps open in a month, opening day is 10 weeks away and baseball’s free agent marketplace is awash with talented players looking for a home. Cole was not among them, but perhaps the Astros’ trade for him will be the spark to ignite what’s been a quiet winter.