The Astros hired Dana Brown to be the club’s new general manager in January, plucking him from his previous job as vice president of scouting for Atlanta. Since then, he’s been quite open about his desire to replicate that club’s penchant for signing core players to long-term extensions, though his tune has been changing this week.
Brown’s previous employer has been very aggressive at locking up players to lengthy deals, with Austin Riley, Matt Olson, Ronald Acuña Jr., Spencer Strider, Sean Murphy, Ozzie Albies and Michael Harris all recently putting pen to paper. Since switching clubs, Brown has mentioned Cristian Javier, Framber Valdez, Kyle Tucker, Jose Altuve and Alex Bregman as some of the players he’s hoping to be similarly locked up with his new club.
The Javier extension was crossed off the list last month but it seems the plans for the others have hit a few snags since then, as it was reported last night that the club isn’t very close to a deal in its talks with either Valdez and Tucker. Brown provided some comments on the situation to reporters today, including Chandler Rome of the Houston Chronicle, acknowledging that he “felt a little less optimistic” about getting deals done with those two players.
The reporting yesterday indicated that Brown expected to have more information in the next 48 hours. That timeline still seems to be holding today, with Brown saying he’s expecting to hear from the representatives of both players by Thursday afternoon, though he doesn’t want to characterize it as a deadline. “We’re trying to have conversations and, at some point, the player wants to play,” Brown said. “We can still talk. It’s not a deadline. It’s like ‘Hey, I’ll get back to you in the next 24-48 hours and give you an update.’ It’s not that it’s over. It’s just that, for right now, we may decide to wait a little bit.”
Despite Brown’s initial eagerness to get these deals done, he’s now operating in a new organization. As Rome points out, the largest extension that the Astros have given out under owner Jim Crane is the five-year, $151MM deal for Altuve, followed by six years and $115MM for Yordan Alvarez and then five years and $100MM for Bregman. Brown suggests that Crane is willing to go a bit beyond the five-year mark, but not substantially.
“I think Jim is willing to (go) further, I just don’t know that I have the comfort of going as long as, say, maybe I’ll have to to get Tucker done,” Brown said. “I just don’t like big deals. If they’re open for something a little more than five, maybe I would be open to doing that. I’m sure Jim would be, too. I think Jim is very open. But doing 10-year deals, I don’t know if we’ll ever get to that point. That’s a lot of years, man. I’m not comfortable doing 10. I don’t mind doing 10 if you get a guy to the big leagues in the early 20s, really feel like he’s a big piece of the franchise, face of the franchise, and get him done for 10 and he finishes it out at 32-33. I’m OK with that,” Brown continued. “These deals that go beyond 33, for me, I’m uncomfortable. The analytics on that is not good.”
Rome adds that he asked Brown about the fact that Atlanta, under president of baseball operations Alex Anthopoulos, gave Olson $168MM over eight years and then $212MM over ten years to Riley. “Alex was the boss there. I don’t know if I would have done those deals because I’m just not a 10-year guy. But I would do multiple years. I would even go up to seven.” Riley’s ten-year deal is set to go through 2032, when he will be in his age-35 season. Olson’s will go through 2029, which will also be his age-35 season. Atlanta has a club option on each player for their respective age-36 seasons. According to Brown’s framing, those deals both went beyond his comfort zone but that Anthopoulos had a greater willingness to lengthen those deals to get them done.
Tucker is 26 years old right now and is set to make $5MM this season after losing his arbitration battle to the club. If the Astros were to offer him a seven-year extension that begins next season, it would go through 2030, which would be Tucker’s age-33 campaign. Taking Brown’s comments at face value, it seems that is where his comfort zone ends. It’s possible that this is merely a negotiating tactic and that the willingness to do a longer deal is greater than he’s letting on. But it’s also possible that the reason a deal hasn’t come together yet is that Tucker’s camp is trying to push for a longer pact that goes into his mid-3os, like those secured by Olson and Riley.
Whether the Astros can bridge those gaps and get extensions done remains to be seen, but it seems Brown’s preference would be for them to come together soon. “I don’t like to do much of it during the season, if you can avoid that,” he says. In the grand scheme of things, these comments perhaps point to Brown changing course from his time in Atlanta, either because that is his prerogative or the organization’s. If one takes him at his word, then this means the club will perhaps have less risk tolerance than Atlanta and will therefore be less likely to hand out extensions to its players. The club’s eventual actions will be more important than words in establishing the reputation, but the outward suggestion is that the blueprint in Houston won’t be exactly the same as it was in Atlanta.
Wow!
Brown smart guy, doesn’t like to go beyond 33. He should announce a hard rule the organization will not sign deals that go beyond that year. Owner would be wise to do that too.
What would that announcement accomplish? Would miss out on a few great players at bargains. Teams made out like bandits with the Harper Machado deals. If I was SD I would have paid him a little more and did away with the opt out. No reason to box yourself in by saying you won’t go past 33. Obviously most the time you wouldn’t want to.
I’m sure every free agent and young player the Astros have will be just fine signing for only their prime years. Every GM in the game would love to only sign players through their prime and then let em walk. Most obtuse comment I have ever heard coming from a GM.
@iverbure: The analytics Brown refers to do not take into account that the training methods are better these days and that current players tend to stay in shape year round. Neither Tucker or Valdez would agree to a five year deal, so why bring up the fact you want to extend them if the club isn’t willing to go long enough to get the extension done? All that does is get the fans excited for nothing.
Interesting seeing his thought process.
Interesting he is transparent. Most gms say a lot but don’t actually say anything. Bunch of generic bs.
Ok, you probably don’t have to go to 10 years, but in that case the AAV is going to need to be higher. The players care most about the total guarantee.
Exactly. Who cares about age. Pay them what you think they are worth for their services. Pay them until age 40 45 50 as long as you believe you will get surplus value. Lower that aav, delay paying them as long as you can. Maybe they age well and you really make out.
this is interesting because it seemed like most of those deals in Atlanta got done because they were willing to go 8 or so years. It seems going 5 years for a pre arb player doesn’t benefit the player much, especially for star players like tucker
It would benefit him if he starts to decline or gets injured before he becomes a free agent. I would rather take 250 million now vs hoping things keep going well and getting 300 330 or whatever 3 years from now. Some guys want every cent. And sometimes a team doesn’t offer enough. I think if both sides are reasonable extensions should happen.
This guy sounds worse than Click. 33-37 are usually OK years for big players.
So you want to pay 25 30 35 40 million a year for ok years?
Depends on how many in the late 20s early 30s you get. For a guy like Tucker who is only 25, yes
He’s 26. He will be 29 his 1st free agent season. Don’t blame him for wanting paid until his mid to late 30s. Don’t blame a smart team for not wanting to do so. They will move on to other players and find someone who wants 100s of millions guaranteed for a few less declining years.
Give Tucker a $235M deal cover 2023 through 2032. That’s 10 years, 3 arbitration and 7 free agent. He’ll be 36 during his last year on the deal. $23.5 cap hit each year. He’ll be worth that as a DH his last 3 years.
Ballparking his arbitration years I’d say he makes $23M over these 3 years. That means he is getting about $29.5M for his free agent years.
Trade him or take the comp pick. Let someone else pay him 200 million for his worst years. 30 million a year for age 30’s seasons with 3 as a dh doesn’t sound appealing to me. Sounds like a free agency desperation move instead of a beneficial extension.
In principle I agree with Brown. One thing to do 10 years for an Alvarez but I wouldn’t do 10 years for Tucker. There is the top tier and a tier just slightly below, not by much, but there is a difference.
Brown should have stayed in Atlanta and he Definitely should not be second-guessing his former boss, AA,
Bad form but he will learn.
So forego a promotion, with a raise, into the best organization in baseball, who happens to be the defending World Series champs is bad form? ATL is prob the 2nd best org in baseball but you wiffed on that one meister.
He’s his own man now. He can now talk the truth about AA. So many people praise AA for these extensions, but wait till one or more of these contracts go bust.
Happy for Dana but putting that much info out there for everyone to chew on? You don’t want to alienate the players with the homebase if they walk post arb yrs.
Wow another case of analytics ruining the game. Doesn’t Dana know that “feel” says you have to pay guys $40 million until they’re 41 years old? Clearly a Jim Crane puppet.
Players make way less than tenured players for 6 long years to be able to sign a big money deal.
They don’t want to give up their prime early FA years without either getting insane money or including their mid to late 30s in the deal.
Brown is being open which is great as a fan but no way he extends any star players until only 32 or 33 without making the AAV very high.
So now, if he does go past that point (33 y.o.), he can give the impression he ceded to make the contract happen.
Any time he goes past 33, it looks like he gave to make the deal happen.
I don’t understand the current penchant of GMs, agents, and players needing to communicate publicly about on-going negotiations especially for controlled players. What is the benefit in that for the involved parties?
I like Crane’s style of not signing deals over 5-6 years. Not sure too many top players are going to sign those extensions anymore given the funny money we saw go out this off-season though.
Why sign until you’re 33 and hit FA out of your prime when SDP & a few others will pay you until you’re 40?
There will always be owners and GMs who will go over.
That means that a team with that policy needs to be willing to let that player go. Just like the Astros have for the past
Aa a fan it sucks and I don’t think it’s wise to have a blanket policy. It’s better to be willing to make decisions on a case by case basis.
A player’s prime is roughly ages 24-33. Most already are forced to play most of that at less than top salaries. For a team top take that and then say they are not willing to commit to a player beyond that is unfair to the player while being perfectly legal and the best way to maximize the chances of winning.
The only leverage a player has is the first few years of FA while still in his prime. If he gives those up by either not attaching later years or having an exceptionally high salary in his contract then he has lost millions.
Aa a modern, realistic fan I want somewhere in the middle. I hope more star players stay on teams 10+ years by signing longer extensions but at a younger age.
But that means the team must limit this and have a large pool of league average players shuffling through the roster after 3-6 seasons
A team must have prearbitration players or cheaper arbitration eligible players to keep the total salary down.
For example Yordan Alvarez is making just over $19M (AAV towards CBT) despite the fact he would have been close to the $5M Tucker is making if he had not signed the extension.
It should be a very affordable deal for Houston but those $19M instead of $5M deals will add up if you have too many at once.