Astros: Mid-year review of Houston’s offseason acquisitions

The All-Star break, the unofficial halfway point of the season, is here. A good time to review the Astros’ free agent and trade pick-ups of the offseason.

All winter long, Astros fans kept waiting for that big splash trade or free agent signing. There were talks of J.T. Realmuto for catcher, maybe a big name pitcher like Patrick Corbin, and rumblings about Paul Goldschmidt at first. But as we all know, none of that took place.

It seems as though GM Jeff Luhnow wasn’t about to break the bank or fess up some of the Astros top prospects in the process. He had other plans in mind. From what we’ve seen in this first half of the season, once again, it looks like he’s made the right moves, for the most part.

Not only were the Astros able to maintain their talented pool of athletes in the Minors, but enough money was also saved to have the ability to sign extensions to two of Houston’s key players, Justin Verlander and Alex Bregman.

Even after all of the offseason acquisitions and contract extensions, the Astros managed to stay approximately $7.5 million under that dreaded Luxury Tax Threshold of $206 million. Jeff Luhnow even stated during the offseason that he was willing to get right up close to that limit.

Maybe he’s left a little wiggle room for one of his famous pre-deadline trades for one or two pieces, that could put this team in a great position for another postseason push. We’ve seen him do it before, a.k.a. Justin Verlander in their Championship season, and I would be surprised if he didn’t pull one out of his hat again this season.

So, let’s step back and take a look at how the players that were acquired in the offseason are paying off for Houston. Namely, Michael Brantley, Robinson Chirinos, Aledmys Diaz, and Wade Miley.

Wade Miley – LH/SP

Miley was another free agent addition in the offseason that didn’t move the needle on the Richter Scale a whole lot. I think most fans were expecting the front office to go after a top tier starting pitcher and I think they did inquire about a couple, but I feel the price tag was probably too high.

Last season was Miley’s best season of his career going 5-2 with a 2.57 ERA and a 161 ERA+. Those numbers were even better than his rookie year when he had a 16-11 record and an ERA of 3.33. That season he was selected to the National League All-Star Team and came in second in the voting for the Rookie of the Year Award.

What worried me, and many other fans I’m sure, was the five years in between last season and his rookie year. In that span, Miley only won 43% of his games and his ERA was a much higher 4.59. So, was his 2012 and 2017 seasons a fluke or was he just going through hard times in the middle? Plus, his 2018 season was cut short, marred by injuries. Will the real Wade Miley please stand up?

Well, it looks like last season may not have been an anomaly after all. In all 16 of Miley’s appearances last year, he never gave up more than three runs a game. He carried that streak into this season, going eight more straight games of never surrendering over three runs. He finally gave up four runs in his ninth game, but he still has only done that twice so far this season.

In fact, if you take out the strikeout numbers, Miley has stats extremely similar to Gerrit Cole‘s. In both of their first 18 starts, they each had a 3.28 ERA, both had given up 86 hits, and they both had the exact same ERA+ of 136. Many other numbers across the board are also very close. It’s like he’s the left-handed version of Cole, without the strikeouts.

Miley has become quite a pleasant surprise this season and is costing the Astros only $4.5 million in 2019. That’s a huge difference than what one of those more well-known pitchers would have cost. Unfortunately, he becomes a free agent next year, right along with Cole.

Robinson Chirinos – C

This is another position where fans were hoping to land one of the bigger fish in the pond. Rumors swirled around J.T. Realmuto quite a lot in the offseason. It just seemed like the Marlins were insisting on one or more of the Astros “untouchable” prospects in any trade deal for Realmuto and therefore a deal never took place.

Yasmani Grandal‘s name would arise occasionally in the rumor mill, but once again, any kind of deal just wasn’t in the cards. Hence, free agent Robinson Chirinos enters the scene, signing a one year contract with Houston.

With fans pining for that star quality catcher, and the popular Brian McCann no longer in the picture, Chirinos had an uphill battle from the get-go. It also didn’t help that he had a batting average of .233 over his six-year career and was only averaging 66 games per year.

Chirinos had a decent start to the year silencing many of the naysayers. In his first 33 games, he was slashing .268/.398/.546 with a .945 OPS. Those were decent numbers and better than his career average. Maybe Chirinos wasn’t such a bad offseason pick up after all.

Unfortunately, the rest of the first half of this season didn’t quite go so well. In the following 34 games, Chirinos batted .193/.321/.377 and an OPS of .698. That’s a significant drop in performance, to say the least. It’s like he had two completely different seasons in this first half of the year. What lies ahead in the second half of the year after the All-Star break is anybody’s guess.

Chirinos appears to be a short-term rental with his one-year $5.75 million contract. What doesn’t help the situation, is that the catchers behind him, Max Stassi and Garrett Stubbs, aren’t particularly making much of a push to step into the position of everyday catcher. This next offseason, fans may be aching for that top-notch catcher again.

Aledmys Diaz – IF/OF

Diaz had the unenviable position of being the apparent replacement of fan favorite Marwin Gonzalez. In the fans’ eyes, that was a tall order, big shoes to fill. Gonzalez was one of the most popular players on the team, by fans and players alike.

Marwin earned $5.125 million in 2018 and was expected to command a significant raise, especially with Scott Boras as his agent. The Astros front office didn’t make a qualifying offer, making Gonzalez a free agent. Jeff Luhnow optioned to go the cheaper route, trading for Aledmys Diaz and signing him to a one-year $2 million contract.

Diaz was primarily a shortstop, but with Carlos Correa at that position, Diaz was going to be the versatile utility player, and that he was. He has played every infield position and even left field a couple of games.

He’s had a decent year offensively slashing .286/.321/.510 with a .831 OPS. Not that it matters, those numbers are better than Gonzalez is producing, across the board, for Toronto. On top of that, Diaz is costing the Astros $10 million less than Gonzalez. Not a bad deal on paper.

But Diaz has had health issues this season with a nagging hamstring strain. He has appeared in just 32 games for Houston, a little less than half of their games. He will be back prior to Correa’s return, so he might see some significant time at short until Correa is back. But with the way Yuli Gurriel is playing lately, will he be losing more playing time, once Correa is back at short?

Trent Thornton was the trading piece to acquire Diaz and he hasn’t been exactly tearing it up in his first Major League season. He has a record of 2-6 with a 5.18 ERA and a WHIP of 1.545.

So, I’d say to this point the Astros may have come out ahead in the overall deal. They won out in the player swap and definitely came out ahead economically. We’ll have to see how the remainder of the season plays out to really grade out the offseason transaction.