Thursday's Three Astros Things

Some things to talk about while Humberto Quintero is out of a job...

1) Pedroia's contact compared to Altuve

It's easy to compare Jose Altuve and Dustin Pedroia. They're both second basemen and they're both short. Great, I'm so original. By all accounts, Pedroia has more power, better defense and a better batting eye.

But, what I'm interested in here is the comparison of their two contracts. See, both second basemen recently signed extensions that can be termed "team-friendly" and it's remarkable how the numbers dovetail.

Here's Pedroia's breakdown:

Signing bonus: $1 million
2014: $12.5 million
2015: $12.5 million
2016: $13 million
2017: $15 million
2018: $16 million
2019: $15 million
2020: $13 million
2021: $12 million

Pedroia signed his first mega-deal after he'd accrued two years of service time, like Altuve. Here were his numbers on that deal:

09:$1.5M, 10:$3.5M, 11:$5.5M, 12:$8M, 13:$10M, 14:$10M, 15:$11M club option ($0.5M buyout)

Altuve's first big deal will pay him about six million less than Pedroia, but went for a similar length. He won't make quite as much money over the life of the deal (Altuve's two option years are for 6 and 6.5 million), but Pedroia also had the better offensive numbers to bolster his case. That and a World Series ring.

As much as it will define every second baseman's market in the future, I feel like Pedroia's just-signed deal will also have a bearing on Altuve's own negotiations in four or five years.

2) 30 for 30 Short: Tommy John

If you've got 10 minutes, go check out this short from ESPN's 30 for 30 documentary series. It's on Tommy John and Dr. Frank Jobe, who performed the surgery that bears his patient's name.

I'd embed it here, but ESPN doesn't like that, so you'll have to follow this link. It's definitely worth your time, as they discuss the surgery, what people did before it was invented and how many pitchers are indebted to it now. Over 500 pitchers have undergone the surgery that Jobe pioneered.

3) Move back the trade deadline?

Dave Cameron (not me) makes some great sense over at FanGraphs, talking about how baseball should push back the trade deadline. He goes on for great length, but here's the crux of the argument and what I immediately started thinking when he brought up the idea.

Teams are already making trades in August anyway. Let's just do away with the distinction between the waiver and non-waiver deadlines and have a unified trade deadline of August 15th, or even August 31st if you really don't care about a team's playoff roster looking like their Opening Day roster. After all, with the Luxury Tax as a spending deterrent, there are other tools in place that are serving the supposed function of the trade deadline.

Yep. Teams are already making trades into August. Why not just make the trade deadline the same day which teams have to set playoff rosters? In an added benefit, don't you think this would encourage teams to trade earlier and more often during the season? Well, maybe not more often, but you'd see deals happen more erratically, rather than waiting just for the deadline.

If you can't tell, I'm completely on board with Mr. Cameron. That's without the fact that Astros baseball gets REEEAAALLY boring after trade season ends.