Astros 2014-2015 offseason transaction infographic flowchart

This offseason has been a lot more active than the past few years in terms of trades and free agent signings. Sure, there were trades and free agent signings, but none to the major league quality and quantity of this past offseason. It has lead to quite a bit of optimism for the Astros fan base and has even led David to put up an approval poll for Jeff Luhnow. To recap this offseason I've created the infographic below in a flowchart format.

For those of you that played World of Warcraft (WoW) seriously you may recognize this as the same layout for the Simplified Feral Druid DPS Rotation Flowchart. In WoW a class has a certain rotation to maximize damage, except for the feral druids, which started simple enough but quickly devolved into button pressing chaos. Mechanics aside, I thought the flowchart format fit the Astros crazy offseason. You won't need to know anything about WoW to understand the flowchart, however, one part did seem to stick out in the realm of confusion.

For those unfamiliar with John Madden, he is a former Super Bowl-winning head coach who also became a very successful broadcaster and the face of the most popular football video game franchise (which Jon Bois actively tries to break on SB Nation). During broadcasts he would use his pen to write on the screen to highlight certain aspects of plays, sometimes it got a little crazy and humorous which gets touched on in this tribute video. The best example I can think of is the movie The Replacements in which he breaks down a ridiculous play that ends with his screen covered up in TV traces (can't find video of scene).

Here are some statistics and facts about the Astros offseason:

• The Astros acquired five major league ready players via trade, for five prospects and one major league player.
• The Astros made trades with the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, Atlanta Braves, Chicago Cubs, and Texas Rangers.
• One anagram for the four teams the Astros traded with would be Cara.
• The Astros spent $62M for nine years guaranteed plus $1.5M to $12.5M on two options years to acquire four regular major league players via free agency.
• The Astros acquired players with a total FanGraphs WAR of 43.7; and traded away players with a total FanGraphs WAR of 10.2.
• Nick Tropeano is ranked 10th on the Angels Baseball America Top 10 prospects.
• Mike Foltynewicz is ranked 78th on MLB.com Top 100 Prospects list.
• Mike Foltynewicz is ranked 2nd and Rio Ruiz is ranked 10th on the Braves Baseball America Top 10 prospects.
• The Astros acquired 10 players this offseason while trading away seven.