Will battery be included?
Club heads to meetings with pitcher, catcher concerns under cloud of sign-stealing scandal
Team seeks pitching and catching amid continuing controversy.
A contingent of Astros personnel will descend upon San Diego this week with a mangled reputation and looming anxiety of severe consequences. The electronic sign-stealing scandal that has ensnared the franchise leaves it in a state of uncertainty, rendering any baseball-related rhetoric second fiddle.
Still, the team has offered contracts, met with agents and made two marginal transactions. Customary offseason scouting meetings were held at the team’s spring training facility in West Palm Beach, Fla. Jim Crane attended the owners’ meetings. The team’s offseason radio show premiered Tuesday, curiously without the usual first guest: general manager Jeff Luhnow.
Amid Major League Baseball’s ongoing investigation, Houston has tried to harbor a hint of normalcy. It will maintain that at the winter meetings, where Luhnow’s most simple directive is similar to his 29 other counterparts — continue to build and bolster a 2020 roster. The Astros will indeed field a team next season, one of the only certainties in an otherwise murky future.
“We’re going to be active in terms of talking to clubs and agents,” Luhnow said this week. “But whether or not deals happen, it seems the last few years less deals have happened at the winter meetings, but this may be different. You never really can tell. But we’ll be active in terms of working hard to see if there are opportunities to improve our club.”
One year after an uneventful gathering in Las Vegas that epitomized the glacial pace of the sport’s offseason, this installment of the winter meetings may promise more action. As of Friday, 27 free agents had signed major league deals. Sought-after starting pitcher Zack Wheeler struck a five-year, $118 million deal with the Phillies. Infielder Mike Moustakas and catcher Yasmani Grandal got lucrative contracts, too.
“There are bigger deals being done before the winter meetings, which is nice to see,” Luhnow said. “The last few years, it seems like the pattern has been the bigger signings don’t happen until the new year. Having some big chips go early makes the market more fluid and I think that’s good for everybody.”
After two minor moves during the last three weeks — signing backup catcher Dustin Garneau and trading outfielder Jake Marisnick to the Mets — Luhnow’s focus centers on pitching and catching. Houston requires at least one starting pitcher, perhaps one reliever and an everyday catcher.
The sport’s most active market is catcher. Grandal (White Sox), Travis d’Arnaud (Braves), Alex Avila (Twins) and Yan Gomes (Nationals) have all found homes in free agency. The Mariners traded Omar Narvaez to the Brewers this week, too.
The market attrition leaves the Astros more likely to consider a reunion with either Robinson Chirinos, Martin Maldonado or Jason Castro — all of whom are among the best free agents still available. Luhnow seemed unconcerned that the market is moving so quickly, reiterating the Astros will continue a patient approach that’s permeated his entire tenure.
“We’re not going to panic and do something that we regret,” Luhnow said. “We’re going to take our time, methodically go through it, and if something presents itself, we’re ready to act.”
Chirinos’ familiarity with returning rotation anchors Justin Verlander and Zack Greinke would make him the most ideal fit. He caught every inning of Verlander’s 2019 Cy Young Awardwinning regular season — the first personal catcher of Verlander’s 15year career.
Chirinos’ .790 OPS was a boon for an Astros lineup that, for the last few years, received next to nothing offensively from its catcher. Castro’s .767 OPS in Minnesota was stellar, too. His pitch framing and overall defense bests Chirinos’, but at 32 he may be seeking a longer-term deal than the 35-yearold Chirinos.
Comprising the other half of the battery is Luhnow’s next goal. At the general managers’ meetings, he intimated adding multiple starters. This week, Luhnow said only that “we’d like to add another starter.” Bolstering a bullpen that lost five free agents must be done, too.
Internal options to fill the fiveman rotation and provide relief are multiple — Bryan Abreu, Jose Urquidy, Francis Martes, Framber Valdez and Forrest Whitley foremost among them. Adding a veteran starter to eat innings behind Verlander, Greinke and Lance McCullers Jr. is a must.
Wheeler — a top-end starter in this market but still nowhere near Gerrit Cole or Stephen Strasburg’s status — received five years and $118 million. Strasburg should eclipse that easily. Cole will shatter it. The Astros may not be in a position to make a legitimate run at any.
Cole, the tremendous former Astros ace, has met with both the Angels and Yankees in the last week. ESPN reported Thursday the Yankees have ownership-level approval to offer a deal that would surpass David Price’s record-setting, seven-year, $217 million contract.
Such a deal — or anything remotely close to it — would not be financially feasible for the Astros, who may resort to a signing similar to Wade Miley’s $4.5 million deal last season. Houston did meet with Miley’s representatives at the general managers’ meetings.
Given what they still require, it may be impossible for the Astros not to exceed the $208 million competitive balance tax threshold. Crane said last month it was a “possibility” — after saying before the playoffs he would “prefer not to” pass it.
But, as they head to the winter meetings, Houston has $146,433,333 committed to nine guaranteed contracts. It is projected to pay $52.1 million to its eight arbitration-eligible players, too, according to MLBTradeRumors. Exceeding the $208 million threshold seems inevitable.
Whether Crane allows the team to cross the second benchmark at $228 million is unknown. An attempt to ask that question — along with any others — was thwarted at the owners’ meetings last month in Arlington.
After telling a group of reporters he would not address the signstealing controversy consuming his franchise, the 65-year-old owner asked if there were any other questions. Before one could be asked, a uniformed police officer whisked him away up the stairs of a luxury hotel.
A day after the sign-stealing investigation opened in November, Luhnow acknowledged “we haven’t done everything properly, but I do feel confident that, in general, most of the time, we did things right and we try and follow the rules.” Comments have been sparse since.
Manager A.J. Hinch declined comment when the sign-stealing allegations were first levied in November. A Tuesday evening media availability in San Diego will be his first public appearance since the investigation started.
Among a frenzied four days that feature almost all of the sport’s dignitaries, Hinch’s session is sure to command almost all its attention for nothing to do with baseball — fitting for the precarious state of the franchise.