When news broke just before the weekend that the Astros signed 32-year-old Cuban third baseman Yulieski Gurriel to a five-year, $47.5 million deal, it wasn’t the outcome folks had been expecting. While Gurriel had been one of the biggest international free agents available since he was declared a free agent in mid-June, he’d been linked to other teams, especially the Mets and Dodgers, who seemed like they might be better fits in terms of organizational needs. Well, it turned out that Houston decided to sign first and worrying about positions later, so let’s take a look at the player, where he fits on the team, the contract and whether it makes sense overall.

MLB teams don’t hand out $50 million contracts to 32-year-olds with no MLB experience willy nilly, but Gurriel checks all the marks of the kind of player that deserves it. He’s a lifetime .335/.417/.580 hitter over 16 seasons, with 15 of those seasons played in Cuba. In his one season playing in Japan’s NPB, he hit .305/.349/.536 with 11 home runs in 62 games. Trying to project exactly how Gurriel is going to make the transition to MLB pitching isn’t a simple formula you can plug some stats from another league into, so we’ll just close with the fact that, not only are we talking about Cuba’s biggest star all of a sudden being available for any team to sign, but also that he hit .500/.589/.874 in his last season in Cuba. Surely he’s the kind of player worth taking a bit of a risk on.

The bigger issue for Gurriel signing with Houston, though, is that they’ve got one hell of a logjam building up in their infield. Rookie of the Year shortstop Carlos Correa and All Star (and even potential MVP) José Altuve surely aren’t going anywhere. Third basemen Luis Valbuena is having his best season to date, but he’s a free agent after this season. First baseman A.J. Reed may be struggling mightily against his first taste of MLB pitching but he’s a consensus top hitting prospect and the Astros won’t be moving him anywhere right now except back to the minors for more seasoning, into a platoon arrangement or over to DH. While there are other options at first for the Astros, if Gurriel is playing third, then the sensible move would be to move Valbuena to first and call it a day.

Unfortunately for that plan, there’s a catch. Shortstop Alex Bregman, the 2nd overall pick in the 2015 draft, has sprinted through the minors and is now in AAA with a 1.130 OPS over 13 games. Small sample size, yeah, but he’s knocking at the door and, of course, he plays in the infield, which is why the Gurriel signing raised eyebrows. The thing is, for all of the talk about worries about where to place players, the Astros will figure it out. There’s going to be some outfield shuffling going on after this season in Houston, if not sooner, and having a plethora of players who are plus hitters is never going to be a problem, especially since they moved to the AL and have the DH position to fill. That’s before you even get to the potential for trades assuming that some or all of these players end up contributing as the organization hopes, which is realistically unlikely.

It’s also important to look at the way in which the contract is structured in analyzing this deal. It’s a $47.5 million deal that will employ a 32-year-old player who has never appeared in an MLB game through the 2020 season, which could seem a bit scary in isolation. However, Gurriel will only make $3.5 million this year, and then will receive $14 million, $12 million, $10 million and $8 million in the four remaining years. Given the Astros' current payroll situation, the deal makes even more sense. The Astros’ most expensive player, Colby Rasmus, may be hitting well enough that he’s going to exceed the value of his qualifying offer, but it’s unlikely that the Astros are going to extend another one, and he’s the only player getting paid over $9 million this year. The next two biggest ticket players on the roster, Carlos Gomez ($9 million) and Scott Feldman ($8 million), are free agents after this season.

With so few large commitments going forward, and with pretty much all of Houston’s best players like Altuve, George Springer, Correa, Dallas Keuchel and Collin McHugh under team control for years at below market rates, there’s plenty of room to play around a bit with money. While arbitration raises will certainly prop the payroll up, this move isn’t going to break the bank.

One thing that’s come up in terms of the deal and perhaps some “off-the-record” value that it might have is whether or not it gives Houston a leg up in signing Gurriel’s younger brother, Lourdes Gurriel Jr.. Lourdes is only 22 years old and is considered a top international prospect. It was previously noted that the two would like to play for the same team and the Astros have already indicated that they are going to be pursuing him. There may or may not be some even more than normal behind-the-scenes negotiations going on here, but we’re definitely getting into some deep speculation and can’t award any points on that front. Unless, of course, Lourdes signs with Houston at bargain basement prices and then hits like Barry Bonds, in which case I reserve my right to come back here and edit this last paragraph and change my grade to an A+++++.

Grade for the Astros: B+

The deal certainly can’t be considered an out of the park success in light of Gurriel’s age, inexperience facing MLB pitchers and some of the potential positional issues that it creates for the Astros going forward. All that being said, the Astros are in a position to take some risks given their financial situation and it’s not as if they’re emptying their wallets to sign Gurriel. There’s no draft pick compensation attached and (contrary to so many backloaded contracts) the contract gets cheaper as Houston’s younger players get arbitration raises and Gurriel will be gone around the same time that many of their oldest young stars will be hitting free agency (barring extensions, obviously).  

The Astros jumped on an interesting player who was available with no strings attached other than cash money. If it works out, that’s great and they address the so-called problems of figuring out where to play players or trading them later. The best move that you can make as a team is assembling as much talent and potential talent while taking the smallest amount of risk and spending the smallest amount of money possible, and this deal seems like a pretty solid move on the Astros’ part.