George Springer’s departure from the Astros, made official with Tuesday night’s news of his reported six-year, $150-million contract with the Blue Jays, wasn’t a surprise. His longtime team never seemed to be a serious player to sign the outfielder once he became a free agent, which is in itself telling about how Houston has operated for years.
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This is the third consecutive offseason the Astros have let a star player walk in free agency. After 2018, it was Dallas Keuchel. Following their World Series loss to the Nationals in 2019, it was Gerrit Cole. Now, it’s Springer, and the trend raises an obvious question about what will become of Carlos Correa when he hits free agency after the 2021 season.
Correa, because he will be just 27, has a good chance to cash in even more than the 31-year-old Springer, especially if the shortstop has a healthy and productive 2021 season. And the Astros, who embody the obsession with efficiency and long-term payroll flexibility that permeates modern baseball front offices, have never been one to win a bidding war for a marquee free agent during Jim Crane’s ownership tenure.
Dating to Crane’s hire of ex-general manager Jeff Luhnow ahead of the 2012 season, the Astros’ model has called for building the roster through the draft and player development. In their contention years, they’ve primarily used free agency to supplement their homegrown core with veterans on one- or two-year contracts. Many of their signees have been buy-low candidates in whom the team sees the potential for surplus value. Once those players build value and re-enter the market, the team usually lets them walk, too.
It remains to be seen how differently they will operate under Luhnow’s successor, James Click, who is less than a year into the job. But for the Astros to be serious players for Correa next offseason, they would have to stray from their usual way of operating. Since the team became a contender in 2015, it has rarely retained its own players via free agency.
More importantly, the Astros of recent years have never spent even half of what Springer just netted on any individual free agent. The $52 million over four years they agreed to pay Josh Reddick in Nov. 2016 represents their largest free-agent contract since Crane purchased the team in 2011. Yuli Gurriel’s $47.5 million over four-plus seasons from July 2016 ranks second.
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They haven’t spent in free agency, but to say they haven’t spent would be a mischaracterization. Their luxury tax payroll exceeded $200 million in 2019 and 2020 (in 2020, it was on a prorated basis), and they paid the tax for the first time in team history in 2020. Salaries for arbitration-eligible players, some of whom were acquired via trade, and a few extensions for cornerstone players accounted for most of it.
Their pre-free agency deals with Jose Altuve in March 2018, and Alex Bregman and Justin Verlander in March 2019 actually represent the three largest contracts of the Luhnow era. Altuve’s extension, for a $151-million guarantee, came two seasons ahead of his free agency and added five years to his tenure with the team. Bregman’s contract, for $100 million, bought out all three of his arbitration years and delayed his free agency by two years. Verlander’s two-year, $66-million extension is the most money the Astros have guaranteed a pitcher under Crane. They took on another large contract via trade, having absorbed $53 million of the $77 million owed to Zack Greinke over two-plus seasons when they acquired him from the Diamondbacks on July 31, 2019.
But once the Astros must bid against the other 29 teams to retain a star player, it’s become all but a foregone conclusion they will lose that player. On top of Keuchel, Cole and Springer, they’ve also let important players like Charlie Morton, Will Harris, Marwin González and Robinson Chirinos walk in recent years. Their risk-averse ways in free agency are why they’ve placed such a heavy emphasis on player development, and having that next wave of controllable, cheap talent ready to step in. Fans’ desires for the team’s moves are often driven by sentimentality. The front office is driven by economics.
Since the Astros made the transition from rebuilder to contender in 2015, they’ve brought back only four of their free agents, and all four were complementary players. The first, Colby Rasmus in Nov. 2015, came back by accepting the one-year qualifying offer, then valued at $15.8 million. A month later, the Astros re-signed lefty reliever Tony Sipp for three years and $18 million. It wasn’t until December 2019 when they re-signed the next of their own: righty reliever Joe Smith for $8 million over two years and catcher Martín Maldonado for $7 million over two years.
It’s not only the lack of guaranteed money that’s notable but also the length of the free-agent contracts the Astros have signed since they returned to relevance six years ago. Reddick, Gurriel and Sipp are the only free agents in that span to sign contracts that guaranteed more than two seasons. In the last four offseasons, including this one, every free agent the Astros have brought in on a major league deal has been on a one- or two-year contract.
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2017-18
RHP Joe Smith — two years, $15 million
RHP Héctor Rondón — two years, $8.5 million
2018-19
OF Michael Brantley — two years, $32 million
C Robinson Chirinos — one year, $5.75 million
LHP Wade Miley — one year, $4.5 million
2019-20
RHP Joe Smith — two years, $8 million
C Martín Maldonado — two years, $7 million
C Dustin Garneau — one year, $650,000
2020-21
RHP Pedro Báez — two years, $12.5 million
RHP Ryne Stanek — one year, $1.1 million
The 2020-21 offseason isn’t over, and the Astros still have needs in the outfield, on their pitching staff and at the backup catcher spot. But in a small sample, their approach to free agency under Click doesn’t feel much, if any different than their approach under Luhnow.
The only reason to think the strategy might change next offseason is the amount of money that will come off their books after the 2021 season. Their two highest-paid players, Greinke ($35 million salary in 2021, about $10 million of which is covered by the Diamondbacks) and Verlander ($33 million salary in 2021), will both be free agents at season’s end.
But Correa is positioned to be only one of five members of a historic free-agent shortstop class, and the Astros are also set to have a massive hole in their rotation before 2022 because of the free agencies of Verlander, Greinke and Lance McCullers Jr. Catcher, first base, the outfield and the bullpen might also need to be addressed, and it just so happens that the team’s best position player prospect, Jeremy Peña, is a shortstop. Given the Astros’ track record, which outcome seems more likely: a massive contract for Correa, or the front office spreading money around to several free agents?
The team’s outlook in the next three to five years is also a significant factor. When Altuve signed his extension, the Astros were around the peak of their contention cycle. They’re now on the other side of that peak. And while Click’s goal is to prolong their contention window, the possibility of a rebuild in the next half-decade isn’t particularly conducive to aligning on long-term contracts.
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This brings us back to Correa, whose rise from No. 1 overall pick and uber-prospect to AL Rookie of the Year Award winner in 2015 coincided with the franchise’s revival. His tenure with the Astros has featured stretches of superstardom and others as an injury-prone afterthought. The perception of him in Houston is a case study in recency bias.
But despite it all — the broken thumb in 2017, the back injury in 2018, the massage-induced cracked rib in 2019 — Correa has still managed to produce 26.8 bWAR in parts of six seasons. Even as his offensive production has fluctuated, he’s turned himself into an elite defender at a premium position. His youth, postseason success and the notion that there’s more to unlock from his bat will make him one of the premium free agents available next offseason.
All the missed time in 2017-19 has cost Correa millions of dollars in the salary arbitration process. Even if he wins his upcoming arbitration hearing against the Astros and gets a $12.5 million salary for 2021, it would be about $10 million less than the salary of Mets shortstop Francisco Lindor ($22.3 million), a contemporary and fellow 2021-22 free agent. Correa’s first free agency will be the best opportunity of his career to maximize his earning potential. If he seeks top dollar, it would surprise no one. He’s just unlikely to get it from the Astros, if recent history has taught us anything.
(Photo: Thearon W. Henderson/Getty Images)
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