Houston Astros: Roster moves begs the question, will the team be able to improve?

The Houston Astros have already made their decisions about the players due to hit free agency. Needless to say, it’s a very emotional one.

The qualifying offer deadline for teams to extend to players who are pending free agents has passed. For the Houston Astros, they have already made their intentions clear. Only Dallas Keuchel was given the qualifying offer of $17.8 million for the 2019 season.

Keuchel, for his part, has until November 12th to either accept or decline the qualifying offer. If he accepts, he stays with the team for the amount listed above. If he declines, he will enter free agency and whichever team he signs with will give the Astros a compensation draft pick.

Unfortunately, the other players eligible were not given one. They include Charlie Morton, Marwin Gonzalez, Evan Gattis, and Tony Sipp. Martin Maldonado was not on the roster a full year, so he was ineligible to receive a qualifying offer.

Additionally, Will Harris had his club option declined, though he remains under team control for another year. The process involving him is a bit more complex, as he is still eligible for arbitration and likely to stay with the team for a smaller amount of money.

Earlier this week, Brian McCann had his $15 million club option declined. Jandal Gustave was outrighted by the team, meaning there were no strings attached to that decision. No money owed, nothing disciplinary, just a typical team cut.

The Way We Were

Should Keuchel surprise most of us, namely the league analysts and experts, and accept the qualifying offer, the starting rotation will be pretty firmly set. Both Justin Verlander and Gerrit Cole still have one year left in their current deals, and Collin McHugh and Lance McCullers will likely round out the rest of the starters.

It will, however, come at the cost of depleting the bullpen. You could search from within and get Josh James and Framber Valdez to fill in those two spots. It will be a vast risk, but one that is certainly worth taking on these two.

Then, there are the key position players that did not get the qualifying offer. Marwin, Gattis, and McCann were not exactly dead weight. All three were key in getting the Houston Astros their very first championship. And while Tyler White and J.D. Davis are the ideal men to replace them, they are both still incredibly young to this league and possess some weaknesses of their own.

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In another move, the Houston Astros also added a catcher on Friday from the Seattle Mariners. They waived Chris Herrmann, a Tomball native, in an effort to clear space off of their 40 man roster. The Astros claimed the catcher who is entering his final year of arbitration.

The front office is going to have to play some strategic chess the rest of this offseason to fill out the nearly third of the team that is now gone to the market. It should also be noted that not extending a qualifying offer does not exclude a player from being signed by the Astros. They actually are still eligible to, just for less money.

Sure, there will be some upgrades out there in the market for those we’ve lost. But the question is, can they maintain the same kind of key team chemistry the championship-winning squad had? Or will egos present future problems?

Only time will tell. Winter is coming, and it figures to be an active one for the Houston Astros. We’ll have to see just how different the team will look going forward. I’m confident, but also a little nervous.