Friday Morning Hot Links

*Mike Trout won his 3rd AL MVP award last night, edging Alex Bregman by a total vote of 17-13. Bregman finished 2nd. It's his second straight Top-5 MVP finish.

Here's how the voting shook out. Like with the Cy Young, each AL market gets two votes.

Baltimore: Trout
Boston: Split
Chicago: Split
Cleveland: Trout
Detroit: Split
Houston: Split (AP's Kristie Rieken voted for Trout)
Kansas City: Bregman
Los Angeles: Split
Minnesota: Split
New York: Split
Oakland: Split
Tampa Bay: Trout
Texas: Bregman
Toronto: Trout

Congratulations to @MikeTrout and Marcus on incredible seasons!! It was an honor to play against y’all all year!! Thanks to my family, teammates, coaches and friends!!! Cant wait for spring training!!!

— Alex Bregman (@ABREG_1) November 15, 2019

*George Springer finished 7th, Gerrit Cole finished 10th, and Justin Verlander finished 11th.

Let's just appreciate Bregman's evolution over the past three seasons:
2017: .284/.352/.475, 19HR, 71RBI, 97K:55BB, 125 OPS+, 3.5 fWAR
2018: .286/.394/.532, 31HR, 103RBI, 85K:96BB, 152 OPS+, 7.6 fWAR
2019: .296/.423/.592, 41HR, 112RBI, 83K:119BB, 162 OPS+, 8.5 fWAR

2020 will be his Age 26 season. Bregman's top-rated Similarity Score through his Age 25 season is Jim Thome. That's crazy.

*The Astros have never signed a player tied to draft pick compensation. The richest free agent contract for a pitcher under Jeff Luhnow went to Scott Feldman, who got a 3yr/$30m contract prior to the 2014 season.

*Gerrit Cole officially declined the Astros' qualifying offer of pitching in 2020 for $17.8m. Seems risky to me but what do I know. It also means that whatever team signs Gerrit Cole will give the Astros a pick in Comp B Round in the 2020 Draft, which MLB will most assuredly take as punishment for the Can Banging.

*Justin Verlander, on Gerrit Cole's free agency:
I think every club in Major League Baseball would love to have Gerrit Cole. It's a matter of obviously he is going to require a big paycheck, and I don't know if our organization is willing to pay that or not. I would hope so, as I think every other player...would hope so, because he makes us better. But everything has turned very economical recently, and that's kind of above my pay grade. I know that Gerrit had a great time playing here, and I know he would like to return if possible, but that is now on Gerrit, his family and the people above me.

The Yankees, Rangers, Angels, and Phillies are already hot after Gerrit Cole while the Astros say they "haven't given up."

*"A Ballplayer" said that "every team does the camera shit."

*SI: The Astros could face a lawsuit over the sign-stealing controversy.

*USA Today's Bob Nightengale has the scene from Scottsdale and the GM Meetings:
There may be 30 different agendas at these meetings, but this time virtually all were united on one front. They want to see the Astros go down. And go down hard. They want the Astros to pay a fortune in penalties, being fined a record amount of money, forfeiting draft picks, international signing bonuses, and two even told USA Today Sports they wish MLB would force them to vacate the 2017 World Series title.

Look, I think this is a real bad look for the Astros and yes, it's embarrassing to the organization. But if we're going to vacate 2017 then I think MLB should step in and vacate 2016, as well. And let's be honest here: the other GMs/execs want the Astros to "go down hard" because this is a convenient hand-wringing way to justify how much you hate Luhnow & Co.

*Emma Baccellieri: Sign-stealing isn't going anywhere.

*FanGraphs' Craig Edwards: The worst teams in baseball history. The Astros occupy a spot on the list of the best and worst teams of the decade. Feels like it's harder to do that than it is to win two World Series in three years. Wait.

*Jayson Stark: The ten numbers that defined 2019.

*Two were killed and three more injured in a school shooting in Southern California.

*Venice is under water.

*I am reading Zone One by Colson Whitehead and it is extremely good.

*A Musical Selection:

Qualifying Offers and Other Notes

*Patrick and I interviewed Astros Director of Pro Scouting Kevin Goldstein for Lima Time Time.

*Jose Altuve, Mookie Betts, and Mike Trout are the three finalists for the AL MVP award. As McTaggart notes, Altuve is the first 2B to get to 100 runs, 200 hits, 40 doubles, 20 homers, 95 RBI, and 30 SB in a single season.
If I win it's going to be great, if not, I'm going to feel proud because I feel like I did what I had to do to help my team and I don't want to stop here. Like I said before and will say 100 times, I want to keep getting better. 

*McTaggart also notes that the Astros may have no choice but to overpay for Jason Castro, but could be major players in free agency.

*Predictably, the Astros did not extend the 1yr/$17.2m qualifying offer to any of their impending free agents: Colby Rasmus, Jason Castro, Luis Valbuena, or Doug Fister. It's worth noting that some potential free agent targets Edwin Encarnacion, Yoenis Cespedes, Mark Trumbo received Qualifying Offers from their respective teams. This would mean the Astros would lose their 1st Round pick in the 2017 draft should they sign one of these players. Catchers Wilson Ramos and Matt Wieters did not receive a QO.

*That said, the Blue Jays are reportedly making a push to re-sign Edwin Encarnacion.

*You can filter through MLBTR's free agent tracker.

*Francis Martes is using his time in the Arizona Fall League to work on his changeup, while Garrett Stubbs is trying to add some bulk to his frame, and Aaron Rowand - remember him? - guarantees that Ramon Laureano will be a major-leaguer.

*Carlos Gomez would like a five-year deal, please and thank you. Heyman:
Boras pointed out that Gomez, by virtue of his movement from Houston to Texas in-season, can not get a qualifying offer, which should aid him in free agency. The agent also credited the Rangers with helping him receive information that aided his vision, and led to a stark turnaround in performance. 

*Pitchers & Catchers report on February 14.

Friday Morning Hot Links

*Put in your time-off request now: the Astros and Yankees will play on ESPN at 12:05pm Central on Monday, April 4.

*Jeff Luhnow said that he talked to 12 teams yesterday.

*Dallas Keuchel finished 5th in the BBWAA AL MVP voting. Altuve finished 10th, while Correa got one 8th-place vote.

*Keuchel thanked Brent Strom and Craig Bjornson for refining his game.

*The Masked Marvel wrote up a sweeter farewell to Jonathan Villar than I did.

*The Astros learned a lesson with last year's Rule 5 draft - losing DeShields and Rollins - and are hoping to avoid a repeat. (As a reminder: here's What The Heck Bobby's 2015 Rule 5 primer).

*File this under Well Of Course, but the Astros have checked in on Phillies reliever Ken Giles. Giles came to Philly from Dallas in the Hole Camels trade. (Note: The previous sentence has been stricken because I did not follow the advice of an Internet Commenter and check my facts before I wreck my facts). Basically, if the guy looks decent in the 6th-9th innings, the Astros will have checked in on him.

Astros underserving MVP votes

In working on a different post that I ended up scrapping, I came across something interesting. In 1969, Houston catcher Johnny Edwards received an MVP vote. Now, I'm sure it was from some Astros beat writer who was just throwing one of his favorites a bone (you'll see why later), but it got me thinking...how many unworthy Houston players have received award votes? Let's waste some time and find out. Baseball Reference explains that a WAR under 2 is below starter level, so that will be my cutoff.

1969 - Johnny Edwards (1 pt, t-36th) appeared in the voting. Edwards was an All-Star with Cincinnati from 1963-1965, but his best years were behind him by '69. Edwards hit .232/.306/.333 with six home runs, good for just 1.6 WAR.

1973 - Lee May (9 pts, 19th). May hit .270/.310/.479 with 28 HR and 105 RBI, but totaled just  1.5 WAR, due to his well below average defense.

1980 - Joe Niekro (3 pts, 19th) is a surprising inclusion here, as he looked to have a good year on the surface. Niekro went 20-12 with a 3.55 ERA, for a surprisingly low 0.9 WAR. That ERA was actually 7% below league average that season, though. He did add another 0.9 WAR at the plate, though, after hitting .275 with 5 doubles and 10 RBI that year.

1995 - Derek Bell (12 pts, 14th) barely makes the cutoff here due to missing the last month of the season. Bell hit .334/.385/.442 in 112 games with 8 HR and 27 SB, totaling 1.9 WAR.

2008 - Jose Valverde (3 pts, t-24th) makes the list, mainly because relief pitchers WAR is usually lower due to the limited number of innings they pitch. Valverde had 44 saves with a 3.38 ERA, 1.3 WAR.

2009 - Miguel Tejeda (3 pts, t-23rd). Tejeda hit .313/.340/.455 while tied for the league lead in doubles with 46. His degrading defense dragged him back down, though, as he ended up with 1.9 WAR.