Already a sense Springer chase is headed down dead-end street

It could have been a simple answer.

Yes, the Astros will be as competitive as possible in the attempt to re-sign George Springer this offseason.

Or: The Astros are definitely going to try to keep Springer in Houston but know he will be highly valued on the free-agent

market.

Or: The Astros know their fans are totally going to freak out if Springer leaves, so the team will at least go through the motions of trying to look like a hot-stove contender.

None of the above arrived Monday during the team’s season-ending video conference.

And while much can change from the time the 2020 World Series ends in Arlington until Springer signs his next (huge) contract, the Astros’ first response to Springer Watch initially sounded like the franchise’s freeagent pursuit of Gerrit Cole in 2019 — which wasn’t a pursuit at all.

Cole told you everything you needed to know about his baseball future when he wore a Boras Corp. hat after the Astros lost a painful Game 7 of the 2019 Fall Classic inside Minute Maid Park. And despite the team’s once insisting it hoped to find a way to keep Cole in orange and blue, there was no way in the world the Astros were paying Cole $324 million to stay in Houston.

First-year general manager James Click got the easy part right Monday.

He praised the heck out of No. 4.

“First of all, let me just say that you cannot say enough good things about George Springer,” Click said. “He’s one of the best players to ever wear an Astros uniform. He’s a tremendous human being. He’s a tremendous leader in the clubhouse.”

The next part was obligatory but accurate.

“We wouldn’t be doing our jobs if we didn’t pursue players like that, whether they were from another organization or from here,” Click said.

And then the real initial answer arrived.

The world is in a weird place.

Baseball is in a weird place.

There’s no guarantee that ballparks will even be semi-filled with fans next April.

And the big-city Astros have to keep balancing it all if they want to keep returning to the American League Championship Series — and potentially add another world championship to their trophy case.

“We have to contend with the fact that there is just tremendous uncertainty in our industry right now,” Click said. “The industry has sustained $2.7 (billion) to $3 billion worth of losses and it may take us years to try to recover from this. Our spending is going to be dependent on what we think 2021 is going to look like operationally and what the market bears out as a result of that.”

Technically, there’s nothing wrong with that answer. As with former GM Jeff Luhnow, there’s no doubting Click’s intelligence or his understanding of the endless minutiae that make up the modern grand ol’ game.

But I’ll be honest. Hearing the above in response to a question about the Astros being competitive in Springer’s free agency, after not being competitive with Cole, was a little … discouraging.

Or just too factual and real, two days after the Astros fell short of history via a 4-2 defeat to Tampa Bay in Game 7 of the ALCS.

The Los Angeles Dodgers are back in the World Series again. The Rays, Click’s old crew, made the trip to Arlington instead of the Astros.

Maybe a little downtime will make Click and the Astros realize they should at least be as competitive as possible trying to resign Springer this offseason.

Monday, the final part of the answer sounded like a finality.

Michael Brantley and Springer will be really expensive. Sorry, y’all, but we already know right now we definitely can’t afford them. Unless one of them is willing to take a short-term deal and apply a home team discount.

“It’s obvious to everybody how good (Springer and Brantley) are at the game of baseball right now, how much they bring to this team on and off the field,” Click said. “The question is always how do we balance everything and make sure that we put this team in a position to succeed, not only in the short term but in the long term.”

The Astros, without Cole, made it further than the Yankees, with Cole, this season.

The small-market, nearempty stadium Rays have redefined the correlation between spending and success in the last decade.

Yet hearing on the second day of the offseason that it’s a serious long shot, at best, for the Astros to keep Springer in orange and blue?

Maybe Click was still down from watching Tampa Bay end up where the Astros wanted to be.

But a little hope would go a long way right now.

The Astros never had a chance with Cole. If they can’t even be a financial contender with Springer, maybe they already paid the wrong guys all the big money.