Inside the Carlos Correa trade

00:00:02
Speaker 1: And the Roma hustling yesterday just typing away, typing away, the Houston astros were making moves, making headlines, and he covers them for The Athletic, along with Crush City Territory, which you should check out, subscribe to it on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. I want to start this way, Chandler, the headliner astro's Trade Deadline takeaways. You wrote Jim Crane cements his title as Baseball's most aggressive owner. Can you elaborate on that one?

00:00:31
Speaker 2: If I want to give a shout out to Tyler Stafford and Josh Reddick who ran Crush City Territory today solo. Excellent job by both of them. Please go rate, review, please like and watch that they did a great job. Yeah, it's difficult to call Jim Crane anything else other than the most aggressive. Notice I said most aggressive owner at the trade deadline. You know, look aj Preller, very Depoto. They obviously get their flowers as guys that wheel undeal a bunch, but no owner is quite like Jim Crane, a guy that when he has somebody that he wants, when he has identified players as I want this guy nine times out of ten. The Astros get them. You know, you look at Justin Verlander in twenty seventeen. Again in twenty twenty three. We had Jeff Luno on Crush City Territory a couple of weeks ago, and he basically said that Jim Crane was a huge factor in getting Zach Grinkey in twenty nineteen. Remember too that the Astros had a deal agreed upon to acquire Bryce Harper from the Nationals in twenty eighteen that was nixed by Nationals ownership. And then also bear in mind that at the twenty twenty three deadline, Jim Crane came out and said, we tried to acquire two players from the Padres. It was Blake Snell and Josh Hater. They couldn't get on the same page. Ended up pivoting to Verlander. Boo did Jim Crane and Dana Brown sign the next winner Josh Hater. So look, if if Jim Crane sees that the Astros his team has a legitimate shot at a chanceampionship, he breaks all precedent. He kind of loosens his restrictions if you will, on money and see and the luxury tax, things of that nature. And he goes for it, and you have to commend him for that as an owner that is disaggressive, as an owner that prioritizes winning this much, and an owner that sometimes just says, you know what, through it, We're going for it, We're going all in, We're pushing our chips all and that's what this team did. That's what he did. At the deadline. The Ashers needed a jolt, They needed some energy in their clubhouse. They lost twelve of nineteen going into the deadline. Their lineup has just been ravaged by injury. And you know, there were other hitters out there that maybe made more fiscal sense. There were hitters out there that maybe fit the lineup a little bit better. But no one has the pachet, no one has the star power, and no one can bring a jolt to the city of Houston and the Asher's Clubhouse like Carlos Korean.

00:02:57
Speaker 3: Well that's my next question. Jim Craig just love stars, doesn't he He loves stars. Carlos Korea is a star. And we had Bob Nightingale earlier who said this was an owner to oh, this was a poll out, and Jim Crane Trade GMS be damned, this was a pollout. And Jim Crane trade that was done between the two involving all the money. So how much of that is true? And why does Jim Crane love stars so much? I mean, it's amazing he loves collecting him.

00:03:23
Speaker 2: I mean, you'd have to ask Jim why he loves stars so much. But I think I think a little bit of it is, you know, stars are more you know, there's a little more assurance there. There's a little more guarantee that these stars are going to come in and perform well. You know, you don't know how getting a guy from maybe an uneasy situation or a guy that's never been in the spotlight, a guy that's never been in kind of the pressure cooker that is when you come into an Astros clubhouse that expects to contend for the World Series every years. There's a lot of pressure there, and you know, there's people that are meant to handle that. There's people that, you know, as Dana Brown likes to say, have the stomach for it. Carlos Korea is certainly one of those guys. Justin Berlander as we know as one of those guys. Bryce Harper would have been and still is in twenty eighteen, Zach Grinkey got them to within I believe, eight outs of a world series in twenty nineteen, so that's part of it. You know, Look, Jim Crane had a huge hand in this. Dan Hayes and I at the Athletic, you know, when this started the summer on Wednesday, you know, we wrote a story that basically said, look, there were sources from both the Twin side and the Astros side that were really downplaying this as a possibility. You know, it could happen, but it's very, very unlikely to happen. But every Astros person that I kept talking to there was just kind of this inherent understanding with them.

00:04:39
Speaker 1: You know.

00:04:39
Speaker 2: They would they would say everything, and they'd be like, but you know, Gim's involved, and Jim is usually when Jim Crane has his eyes on something, nine times out of ten he gets it. And I trust Bob implicitly. I do believe that it was a lot of you know, Jim Crane to the pole ads there in Minnesota. I think that is true. And that is the case because with the amount of money you're talking about here, with the amount of money that the Twins are paying, with the amount of money that the ashers are taking on. That's an ownership level decision. That would have been the case in twenty nine, twenty eight. Other teams too, like ownership would have had to get involved. So, but make no mistake this, Jim Crane's influence in this deal was massive.

00:05:22
Speaker 4: We're used was jolt that Carlos Correa is gonna bring to this team. You look at these stats right now. Is there gonna be a jolt? I get it. You can have clubhouse guys, but you know what clubhouse guys get paid. They get paid what I got paid. It's a it's a half a year thing. It's a you know it's under You don't have two commas in your paychecks. Jim Crane's a very successful businessman, and successful businessmen do not waste their money. Is there a chance they see something that maybe could be unlocked, especially with moving to third base and maybe getting him off his feet. I'm assuming they know what his foot injury was. Is there something there or is it just a complete roll of the dice for seventy some million dollars.

00:06:08
Speaker 2: Well, first of all, Kratz, you've shared a clubhouse with Korea. You know the influence and the impact just his presence has like sometimes he doesn't even need to speak, it's just his his aura and his being there. It just kind of alters the way a clubhouse functions. You know, he's a guy that can team with Jose Altuve and really be, you know, the leaders of this clubhouse. When he left in twenty twenty one, he was the unquestioned leader of the Astros clubhouse vocally, presence wise. Sometimes he didn't even need to speak, but a lot of times he did use his words and was the leader. So that'll help, you know. I do worry, not worry. Worry's probably the wrong word. I do find it fascinating to look at his stats because, look, this isn't the same Carlos Korea that left here in twenty twenty one. I believe he was worth ten point four war in his Minnesota Twins tenure. He had two separate seasons with the Astros worth seven war. This is the player that has on paper declined. I have not watched Carlos play a bunch since he left, so I can't tell you specifically. It's this, this, and this. Some of that has been injury related. He had the oblique issue earlier in his Twins career. He's had some foot issues, he had some planner fasciitis issues. Part of it is he's got to stay on the field. Part of it too, You know, I have no doubts that he'll transition to third base and be absolutely excellent there. The one thing that has never fallen off as his defense, Like he's one of the better defensive shortstops I've ever seen. I think that'll be a seamless kind of transition him going to third base, and who knows, maybe there's something there like there was with jose Al Tuove when Josel Tuove moved a left field in spring training. I think I've told you guys before that this is the most engaged and the most like happy and energetic I've ever seen Josel Tuba in the eight years I've covered, and that position switch kind of energized him. Maybe that can be the case for Korean even though it's only moving over a few feet on the left side of the field, Maybe that can be the case. He has he has said that he want he wanted to play third base. He has he had talked to the Twins about doing that, but the roster construction just never lent itself to playing third base. So third base is not the worry for me. What I would worry about a little bit is the offensive numbers. The slug has not been there recently, you know, you look at he's been susceptible to sliders. The batting average is still he's round, still round, a two sixty two seventy hitter, but just has not provided the thump that they need. But if this lineup gets at full strength, then you have Jeremy Pana and Jordan Alvarez back and joseel tub who's having a nice year, and then Jake Myers who's hitting three hundred if he can come back. You look at it, and he doesn't really have to be this one thousand ops guy that's going to carry the lineup. He'll be surrounded by some pretty good pieces there. But that's a big if. If the Astros get back to full strength.

00:08:54
Speaker 4: All right, not to discourage or to say what you said was wrong, but a minus two who outs above average maybe as fielding range is men third base increases that. I get what you're saying. The aura, the aura factory. It makes my kids cringe when I say that, But you're in Fenway. Right now, the two teams are gonna play against each other that that did not do anything to take care of their starting pitching needs. Who's in a worse spot, the Astros or the Red Sox with their starting pitching? And where are the Astros at what they're starting pitching because they didn't get ceased, they thought that was gonna get pushed across the finish line.

00:09:37
Speaker 2: Yeah, as far as the Astros go, they're gonna have to hope and pray that Christian Javier and JP Frantz and Spencer Aarraghetti and Luis Garcia they come back. And look, it seems now they are going to get all four of those guys back. They are going to activate them off the injured list at some point and they're going to be on a major league mound. The question is their efficiency. You know, Christian Haavier hasn't pitched a major league game in thirteen months, Luis Garcia hasn't pitched a major league game in twenty seven months. Spencer Araghetti is probably the more sure thing out of this, uh, these four guys, because he did pitch some this season and he's not coming back from you know, reconstructive elbow surgery or a long thing. He just broke his thumb on his right hand. Not that that's a nothing injury, but certainly not to the level that Javier France and Garcia have been through. So they've looked okay, most of them have looked okay in their minor league rehab starts. But you know, it's a different animal at the big league level, and they're gonna have to roll the dice here that these guys are ready to get out at the big league level. You know, Dana Brown was asked yesterday why they didn't acquire pitching, and it was the answer was pretty simple. The prices were just too high in lieu of trading away some of either the one zero to three controllable talent they have or some of their precious few top prospects. You know, Jim Crain decided to take on the month, take on Carlos Carea's money, and that allowed them to keep a lot of their controllable talent and their prospects in the system. You know, they were very hard after Dylan ceased. Dylan Cease was their primary target throughout this deadline until the Carlos Correa stuff really started to pop up. So the fact that they went so hard after dylan cease does kind of reaffirm that there is at least some worry about what these injured guys are going to come back and provide. But look, they're in a good spot with the top two guys in their rotation. Hunter Brown's going tonight and he hasn't been as dominant in his last four or five starts. I think tonight is a pretty crucial start for him, just to see if he can get back on track and get deeper into the games. Pitch efficiency has been a problem for him lately. Froberveldez has been incredible the last two or three months. You know, you kind of pencil him in as a guy you know you're going to get six or seven innings out of every time they go out there. They feel comfortable with those two guys. They feel comfortable set up man Brian A.

00:11:58
Speaker 4: Bray.

00:11:59
Speaker 2: Obviously John at the back end has done great work, but everything behind that there's a lot of question marks. And it's proof that with how hard they were pushing for Dylan Cees that they know that this could go awry a little bit. Not saying it will, but they're putting a lot of confidence and some injured guys that have not been on a major league mound in a while to come back in a pressure filled situation in a race for the division and get out and get them deep into games. And that's a dangerous gamble to wage.

00:12:32
Speaker 1: Chandler last one. Let's grade it. Just give us a grade for their trade deadline? Did you do one for the athletic.

00:12:40
Speaker 2: I didn't do one myself. I probably give them a B plus. You know that look they had. We haven't talked about Haesue Sanchez yet. I think that's probably the biggest acquisite. Like obviously Carlos Carea is Carlos Carea We're gonna put into the side for a minute, but functionally for their roster, getting Hayesue Sanchez was massive. This is this is a lineup that has taken the fewest at bats against left handed pitching all season. This is a lineup that is very, very right handled. He sus Sanchez comes in and he has like something like an eight to fourteen ops against right handed pitching. Left he hits left handed, will bring balance to their lineup while your and Alvarez is out, will continue to bring it. Once he's back, and I think more importantly, they can spell Cam Smith now on right field because as we've watched Cam Smith really since the All Star break, it looks like the rookie wall is approaching for him. If he's not hit it already, he's coming dangerously close to hitting it. He's up toward a workload in a threshold that he's never played before. He's never played this much. So they can now maybe put him in a semi platoon situation. Start Sanchez against a bunch of right handed pitching, bring Cam back against some lefties. I don't think it's going to be a strict platoon in that way, but this will help Cam Smith out a bunch. It will help, you know, managers, not avoid managers just unleashing all their right handed hitter, all their right handed pitching on this all right handed lineup. It'll give them some second thoughts as to how they deploy their pitching staff. But you know, I think that was a pickup that went under the radar because of what happened with Korea. But I do think because they didn't address the rotation or the bullpen, because they didn't get at least some pitching help. I would have to give it a B plus, but all in all, a good deadline for Dana Brown the Astros.

00:14:24
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm with you, good stuff. Chandler, thanks for the time and what a day, What a day. It was fun to watch it, cover it on Twitter and in the Athletic. Thanks man. And then of course yeah it's problem. Tyler, Stafford and Josh Reddick on the way out here on Chush Citty Territory taking over. That's Chandler room. You can catch him Reddick sometimes, Stafford all the time. Part of the FT Network. Check them out YouTube wherever you get your pods. They're great and sort the astros this year and every year for the past decade.