FanSided Faux Winter Meetings: Romo, Hochevar, Castro Updates

The FanSided Faux Winter Mettings are well underway with big offers being made to big free agents. Needless to say, we have been unable to go after some of the big names, due to needs and financial constraints. The focus for us has been adding to the bullpen, which we did immediately by adding Jordan Walden from the Braves (he was traded to St. Louis in real life earlier this week).

Earlier this week, I wrote that we had that deal in the works, and also that an offer had been made to Luke Hochevar. Since then, our offer to Hochevar has been beaten, and he will likely sign somewhere else. He has been offered a 2 year, $8.5M contract by the faux Red Sox. We felt as though the 2 years, $7M may have been overshooting for the services of the 31-year old righty, especially coming off of an injury. Since we were outbid, we will let their offer stand.

In “retaliation” we placed an offer to Sergio Romo at 2 years, $15M, with a third year player option at $8M. I wrote about how Romo would fit in with Houston last week, so going after him for slightly more than he made last season feels like a good play. The player option is a marginal increase over the first two years, but it could end up being a bargain when the Astros start adding more payroll for their 2017 World Series run, as predicted by Sports Illustrated.