A few weeks ago, new Astros GM Dana Brown said he wanted to make sure Alex Bregman and Jose Altuve finished their careers in Houston. He wants to make them members of the Astros for life, in effect.
It is true that with big players from the last few years (George Springer, Carlos Correa, Yuli Gurriel, Gerrit Cole and Justin Verlander, in particular) who have left, it is normal to want to keep a bit of team culture in town.
In fact, the more time passes, the more we understand the mentality of the CEO. What he wants is to keep good players quickly in the long term (he keeps talking about contract extensions, especially with Framber Valdez and Kyle Tucker) and develop through young people.
His background as a guy assigned to the repechage appears.
His plan is therefore to make sure to have Altuve and Bregman as long as possible in order to give himself time, in several years, to have their replacement on hand.
It should be understood that Bregman and Altuve will be free as air in two years and that we should not however expect to see the guys signing this winter. It could go to in a year … at least.
I allow myself to add at least because it is Scott Boras who represents the two men. He will not give gifts to the Astros, we will tell each other.
Normally he likes to establish the value of his clients in the market, but in the case of two icons like Altuve and Bregman, maybe the guys will ask their agent to arrange to stay in Houston without going through the market of autonomy.
After all, they are the ones who decide. If they want to stay in town, they will stay.
Jim Crane, the owner, is not accustomed to excessive contract extensions of this kind. That said, with its new CEO, this is the way to go.
- A relatively complete alignment.
- Jurickson Profar in Colorado?
