Springer likely to leave Houston, but Crane needs to keep Correa
LLANO, Texas — Hot Stove Season began early, with winter still weeks away. The droplets from the World Series celebration in Arlington had barely dried before the richest man in New York buys the Mets, and the best closer in baseball is released by Cleveland, and the game’s best manager is hired by Detroit, where nothing good ever happens.
A.J. Hinch, too brilliant for his own good, arises from the Houston dumpster, or trashcan as it were, to take over the Tigers after the more title-ready Chicago White Sox were handed to the often contending and contentious Tony La Russa.
The White Sox front office was so sure Hinch was their man that they had a batch of his signed photos ready to be mailed out. Oops, some of them got mailed.
White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf, 84, took a stand against age discrimination to tab his old friend, 76-year-old La Russa, whose expertise apparently was lost on the Arizona Diamondbacks. With age suddenly in style, Dusty Baker, 71, got extended for another year as manager in Houston, where Hinch and cohorts conducted their illegal surveillance en route to the 2017 World Series championship.
The pandemic made Trashcangate seem distant and trivial. Covid still controls baseball, chewing up its bottom line and causing far more upheaval than we’d see in a healthy off-season.
The Mets are the biggest winners, because their new owner, hedge fund mogul Steve Cohen, has no pandemic losses and will be eager to pick up bargains on the flooded free-agent market. Most teams are not hanging onto aging assets. They are just hanging on in an industry recovering from $2.7 billion in losses. Allegedly.
The Astros will be losers because they have much to lose. Some of their brightest stars – George Springer, Carlos Correa, Michael Brantley – are free agents, and owner Jim Crane will not try to keep them all.
First out the door could be slick-fielding first baseman Yuli Gurriel, who’s 36 and ebbing – hit and slugged .114 in the postseason. He is signed for $8 million in 2021, but the Astros can buy out the contract for $550,000. Consider it done. He can be replaced by Aladmys Diaz, 30, who plays left field and all the infield positions, hit .353 and slugged .529 in 17 postseason at-bats, after slugging .483 in the regular season.
Astros owner Jim Crane wants to move on from the veterans who are tied to the cheating scandal, which would mean goodbye to Springer, 30, and Brantley, 33, even though they’re among the most effective hitters in baseball.
The Mets are expected to go all out for Springer, who’s from Connecticut and married to a New Yorker.
Houston’s free agency losses will be somewhat offset by the return of Yordan Alvarez, 2019 Rookie of the Year who missed most of his sophomore season with Covid and knee surgery. And fourth outfielder Kyle Tucker, 23, is seen as a future superstar after leading the team in RBI, hits and stolen bases in 2020.
Crane faces a tough decision on Correa, a remarkable shortstop who throws 97 mph. If Jeff Luhnow were still in charge he would be a goner. Luhnow soured on Correa because of physical frailties and a perception that he hit “mistakes” and was overwhelmed by quality pitching.
But Luhnow departed after the spying scandal, and Correa became a civic treasure. He stayed healthy throughout the 60-game irregular season. In 13 postseason games he had 17 RBI and OPS of 1.229. More than the splashy numbers, he provided the most captivating moment of the playoffs. He called his shot: a walkoff home run that propelled the Astros to Game 7 of the American League Championship Series. They fell short against Tampa Bay, but Correa established himself as leader of the team. At 26, he’s a free agent who’s a cornerstone.
Not only is he beloved by his teammates but by the city at large. Born in Puerto Rico and married to a Miss Texas, Correa is a philanthropist. He bought $500,000 worth of medical supplies to help Houston battle coronavirus, and he provided financial aid and his own hands for hurricane cleanup in Houston and in Puerto Rico.
I think he’s the most civic-minded Astro since Hall of Famer Craig Biggio, who spent countless hours visiting cancer-afflicted children. Astros owner Drayton McLane pinched pennies everywhere, but he made sure to keep Biggio for 20 years.
Unlike Biggio, Correa is no ironman. Crane is understandably reluctant to invest $100 million in a player who last year was disabled by a chest massage.
But Crane will not hear the end of it if Correa goes somewhere else and has a Hall of Fame career. Joe Morgan’s 1971 departure to the Big Red Machine of Cincinnati was devastating to Houston. Just as John McMullen’s refusal to pay Nolan Ryan in 1989 had lasting impact.
Houston is peculiarly star-crossed with baseball. The Astros made their first World Series appearance in 2005 and got swept. In their second World Series, 2017, their victory was hugely tainted by sign-stealing and trashcan-banging. How long will it be before they have a legitimate world championship?
The roster is stocked with talent, young as well as old. The postseason roster included seven pitchers 26 and younger. Lefthander Framber Valdez emerged as the staff ace, 3-1 in the postseason with a 1.88 ERA. Lance McCullers, 27, had a predictably uneven season returning from Tommy John elbow rebuild. His 3-3, 3.93 augurs a forward step in 2021.
Jose Urquidy, 25, was limited by Covid but had a 2.73 ERA, allowing 22 hits in 30 innings. He won his World Series start last year, and any team would be happy with him as a No. 3 starter. Zack Greinke in 2021 will be in the final year of his contract but at 37 is not running on fumes.
The Astros in 2020 had the fourth-highest payroll in MLB, befitting the fourth-largest city in the U.S. Crane in June said his team “will be in a position to be aggressive no matter what the market looks like.” He hasn’t commented since, but he’s in better position than most owners to take advantage of a buyer’s market.
