Transmogrified Tiger

I do not see a ton to be particularly jazzed about with Warren outside of 'good stuff, maybe a different org connects some dots for him'. But if his league reputation exceeds his results I'm more than fine to send him on to Houston if it keeps someone like Brown off the table. That's generally how I would think about a Bellinger trade to begin with, getting a little prospect depth that either directly or indirectly makes it easier to pull off the trades the offseason requires.

The main problem with this is the Seiya projection is off by a full win in all likelihood, so even post-Alonso you're probably marginally worse. The good news is that the Seiya stuff(and especially the Paredes + Seiya + more nonsense) increasingly looks like a voice in Jon Heyman's head.

I think there's room for nuance here. They may not be able to make a deal contingent on an extension, orwith a negotiating window they can back out of. But you can get a sense for Tucker's willingness and ask to know about the probability of getting him signed.

who wants to get stupid

I think if they trade Paredes they probably have optimism that Shaw will be on a similar timeline to PCA last year, though hopefully with a faster learning curve at the plate. So I think you could see a stop gap brought in, preferably one that is LHH and could play a little 2B, which would be a platoon hedge for Shaw and have a role off the bench spelling Nico. Jorge Polanco and Josh Rojas are the two cleanest fits among free agents. Today's Rule 5 pick Workman may also qualify, but an R5 pick with not much pedigree feels like a bridge too far when you're risking 2025 performance with Shaw to begin with.

It is slightly odd that no one has been able to get the likely terms on Kelly, but considering Counsell's coy remark on day 1 I don't think there's a legitimate hangup

I think it's worth getting very specific about if we're talking about nominal payroll or luxury tax payroll for these purposes. Thankfully there aren't any huge backloading considerations for existing contracts, but the calcs can still make a difference. That 180 million you quoted is basically nominal payroll(guarantees + arb estimates + pre-arb buffer to fill the roster), but not inclusive of the roughly 20 million of player benefits, Minor league 40 man salaries, and pre-arb bonus pool payments that count towards the luxury tax. This matters because if we're talking about the ceiling being 235ish *in relation to the luxury tax line*, a nominal payroll of 235 would put them about 15 million over the tax line. But if 235 *luxury tax* payroll is the ceiling, then Jed has 35 million on the absolute high end to spend, and a mere 20 million on the low end.

Astros MLB.com Beat writer

There are so many things you could legitimately complain about with the front office, why do you have to invent bad faith arguments

If I'm taking on Pressly and giving Paredes, I think the 2nd piece needs to be below the Alcantara/Caissie/Ballesteros level. Triantos sure, Rojas I'm open to it, but I'd just as soon send that package without Pressly.

Ohio having a normal one

Not gonna venture to Musklandia to find the specific tweet, the important thing is the text here is Rome the Astros guy again

Tucker is one of the rarest commodities around(a consistent 5 win player) on only 15ish million and will get you a QO pick on the back end if you don't extend him. It's gonna hurt to acquire him. That said, I don't think Paredes + Smith is an outcome that's particularly likely.

I won't re-do my previous rambling in full, but if it's Paredes instead of Busch, you could do everything the same, hopefully grab Jorge Polanco for 8ish million, and then you get down to only needing SP for about 15 million. At that point a Cease deal would seem pretty possible? Happ/Tucker/Seiya/Busch/Swanson/Polanco/Hoerner/Kelly/PCA Steele/Cease/Shota/Taillon/Boyd Finnegan/Hodge/Pearson/Morgan/Miller/Merryweather/Little/Assad The lineup is a bit shallow, but that's almost certainly a division winner on paper.

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5987064/2024/12/11/astros-cubs-kyle-tucker-seiya-suzuki-trade/ Rosenthal and Rome (Astros beat guy) It also goes on to say that after Soto's deal, a Tucker extension is probably in the 400-500 million range.

Pretty sure you can have an extension that starts in 2026, though I think that would require them agreeing on a 2025 arb salary first. It's just a question of whether you'd rather have another dead(ish) year of Tucker's contract in his mid-late 30s, or find a way to fit it all in this year.

This is mostly thinking with my fingers, cause I wanted to see the end result if they did trade with an intent of extending Tucker. Let's say that it's Busch that goes out, I see the Paredes fit but given the very real interest in Bregman and how him going to the Astros seems to make this more likely, that seems favored on the Astros side. Call the final package Busch, Caissie, Wesneski. Let's assume Tucker is extending at 35M AAV, that might end up slightly conservative but not beyond budget margin for error anyway. We previously assumed the team had 40ish million to spend, and was looking to add C, SP, RP. They now have 5 million and need all those things plus 1B/DH, so Bellinger obviously has to go. I don't see a clean way that his return can solve for one of the 4 spots needing filled, so let's say wherever he goes is for prospect capital that makes other trades easier. Now you have 33 million. First up is catcher, since it seems clear Kelly is at the finish line. Call it 9 million AAV to be conservative since he's one of the last ones standing. 24 million for SP, RP, 1B. Reliever now. They were linked with Finnegan, and he seems like a decent fit for this scenario as someone who won't break the bank but has the stuff and pedigree to qualify as the leverage relief add. Call it 8 million AAV, 16 million for SP and 1B. Now is when you have to decide on the trade option, because you're not doing both of those in a satisfactory way on 16 million, and in FA probably not SP alone. Maybe you make a run at Cease or King since SD has to cut payroll and they're 1 year options in range? That also requires a 1B option that isn't late arb or FA. King + Yandy Diaz is very close(especially if our FA/Tucker estimates were at all high) but requires a lot of trade assets and would require ever more creativity next year with both King and Yandy being FA. Just a very narrow road.

Here are the things I'm really really curious about a potential Tucker deal. Can you extend him at all? And does that extension start in 2025? I assume that would be Jed's preference to avoid another post-prime year, but that eats up a lot(almost all?) of the money the team has to work with on the current roster What MLB talent has to go to get Tucker? Paredes going out might help a little with any money crunch, but creates a hole that is difficult to fill(Shaw cannot be the opening day plan A). Busch plays an easier to fill position but exacerbates the spending problem in order to backfill him. What's the plan for pitching? If Tucker is eating up monetary and trade resources, it makes for a very narrow road to getting both another SP and a late inning RP unless all indications were way off about payroll. Or, Tucker isn't extended and you've used a ton of resources and shuffled the roster significantly for a single shot at 2025. These aren't unanswerable questions(even in a Tucker extension scenario), but boy am I not really sure how Jed would do it.

He is only one year from Free Agency. I believe we don't know a ton about his interest in an extension, other than the Astros didn't get much of anywhere with that. He is not a Boras client.

For those who want to go down a rung from the beat reporter level of speculation

ZiPS gets released team by team throughout the offseason, so you won't see the leaderboard style tables until around Spring Training. 12 teams have been released so far, you can click to see the post for any individual team from the home page or any of those posts: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/2025-zips-projection-colorado-rockies/

Astros beat writer: Notable in that he 1) when asked to make a 'bold prediction' says that Tucker will not be in Houston Opening Day 2) uses prospect haul as one of the motivations for that deal

Cubs move down to 17