Dealing for Justin Verlander Cost the Astros Half of The Value of Their Farm System

Quantitative evidence of what I have qualitatively argued: the Astros paid a high cost to get Verlander. The front office is all in to win in '23 and '24, and will figure out '25 and beyond later.

The Astros made a big trade at the deadline, acquiring Justin Verlander (and a lot of Steve Cohen’s money to pay a hefty share of Verlander’s salary) in exchange for two of the team’s top prospects in Drew Gilbert and Ryan Clifford.

Verlander has looked the part of a #2 in the playoff rotation so far, throwing a quality start in both of his appearances in an Astros uniform in 2023. His 11/2 K/BB ratio is an encouraging sign for the future.

But as I have noted in my writing about the trade, the Astros paid a high price in prospects to get Verlander. The word I kept using is cost. In my trade reaction piece, I titled a section “A Significant Cost in Prospects” and in my follow up piece about the false choice between prospects and parades, I titled another section “The Costs of the Verlander Trade Are High.”

The language is very economics-based. There are prices and costs to trading prospects and to acquiring pitchers for your playoff rotation.

So based on that language, I was particularly attuned to an article published Friday at Fangraphs by their prospect writer Eric Longenhagen titled “How the Draft and the Trade Deadline Affected Our Farm System Rankings.” It showed me the actual cost of dealing Gilbert and Clifford.

My interest was not based primarily on the rankings themselves. I had written in the parades versus prospects article that Fangraphs—which updates their rankings contemporaneously—has “the Astros ranked as the 30th farm system in major league baseball.”

Instead, the article tracked the changes in farm system value created or taken away by each team’s deadline moves. And since Fangraphs’ system places a monetary value on each prospect,¹ Longenhagen was able to track the dollar value added or subtracted by the deadline moves.

Not surprisingly, the deadline sellers added the most value. The White Sox added $64 million in prospect value from selling major leaguers like Lucas Giolito, Lance Lynn, and Jake Burger. The Guardians gained $34 million in value from swapping starter Aaron Civale for prospect slugger Kyle Manzardo. And the Cardinals gained $33 million from selling Jack Flaherty, Jordan Montgomery, and Jordan Montgomery.

But the team that gained the most prospect value from the deadline—it was the Mets. They added $73 million in prospect value. And where did most of that value come from? Yep, from our Astros.

After the MLB Draft, Fangraphs credited the Astros with having $119 million in prospect value. After the trade deadline, it says the Astros have $57 million in prospect value.

The difference? $62 million.

In essence, the Astros have traded away half of the value of their farm system in essentially one move.

Longerhagen also a column for “current rank” of each farm system. I was able to sort it not from the top but from the bottom, and have put the “top” of that chart below. You can see the numbers for yourself.

I wrote frequently that there was a significant “cost” in prospect value to acquiring Justin Verlander. And this tells me exactly what the cost is—literally half of the farm system’s value.

Why This is Important

This is now the third straight article that I have written that has highlighted the cost of trading Gilbert and Clifford for Verlander. I do promise to stop writing about it after today, but I’m emphasizing this aspect of the trade because I find it quite important in what it tells us about the direction of the franchise.

They are all-in to win this year and in 2024.

I wrote in my trade analysis that:

“The trade shows that owner Jim Crane is all in on winning another World Series his season or next season. It also shows the Crane has made a choice to focus on the 2023 and 2024 seasons at the expense of the team’s future in 2025 and beyond.”

In short, the Astros trade deadline in 2023 represents a crossroads for the team. And the choice—which I feel certain was made at the ownership level—is that the Astros should focus on 2023 and 2024.

Part of that choice is based on the team’s contract situation—the contracts of Jose Altuve and Alex Bregman expire after 2024, and Ryan Pressly and Justin Verlander could be out of contract if their options do not vest next season.

And part of that is due to aging. Much of the lineup will age further past the peak age of 27 (Altuve, Bregman) while others will move from pre- to post-peak (Tucker, Alvarez, Framber, Javier) in that time period. The does have a number of young regulars right now (Jeremy Pena, Hunter Brown, Yainer Diaz), but that seems less strong of a core than the previous two waves of Astro prospects.

There were different ways to look at the Astros farm system before the trade deadline. One was that it was improving and thanks to a quality draft in 2022, it would once again provide cost-controlled regulars when the team needed them in 2025 and beyond.

Crane looked at it as a way to boost the team’s chances of winning in 2023, and was thus willing to use some of his best prospects as a way to get the #2 starter the team truly needs in this year’s playoffs.

It cost a lot to do that. And that cost will matter a good deal in 2025.

Is it worth it? We’ll find out the real answer to that this October. And next October.

1. Or more precisely, on each grade on the 20 to 80 scouting scale that Fangraphs develops for each player.