Gourmand

n/m

Would be the likely one to lose his place on the roster and it's not like he's locked a spot down anyway since the injury seemingly tanked his production and/or confidence at the plate.

Gonna go out on a limb and bet he makes the opening day active roster as the fourth outfielder.

Tune in to the top of the 1st! 1 H 2 BB 2 K 1 ER

Same, and honestly it was hardly even noticeable except every once in a while when I looked around and saw the unobtrusive digital clock counting down from :25. Look, I'm as old school as most everyone else and I'm firmly in the camp of "baseball is fine as it is, stop whining?" but the twitter/redditverse losing its mind over the implementation of this new rule in the first games of spring training tells me that few fans paid close attention at all to minor league games last year. Pitchers need to hurry up and pitch, batters need to stop fucking around with their batting gloves and wrist guards and step into the box. I don't recall any at bats in the games I watched last year that were affected by pitch clock violations (I'm sure there were some) but I definitely noticed a consistent and improved pace of play between pitchers and hitters. Umps are not going to decide big moments of games on these violations, but they are going to set a tone early to let players know they need to be aware of and honor the pitch clock rule. It's a welcome change imo.

BOOOM Dirden!

Thanks for the tip! My subscription was set to renew in a couple of days at $149.99 but I joined the MLBPA and got my discount link yesterday and successfully applied it to a new MLB.TV subscription with a $75 discount.

Whitley's chances of ever amounting to jack shit as an Astro are about as likely as Helo accurately predicting a Yankees/Astros postseason series.

god he is such an insufferable twat 99% of the time. He basically used Parker Mushinski as a jumping off point to bitch (again) about the Astros not making his job easy. Mushinski's injury is a throwaway element for him, the meat is whining about Baker citing HIPAA when everyone knows it's probably just a bullshit ruse to not have to answer Chandler's question.

Altuve needs three hits to pass Jose Cruz for #3 on the Astros career leaderboard. He's 379 hits behind Bagwell for #2 overall. I say he passes Cheo in gm 2 on March 31st vs ChiSox and catches Bagwell before the All Star break in 2025 after he's signed an extension to finish his career in Houston.

Jumped about $20 from last year but at least this year it includes MiLB.TV, plus you get all the archived games as well. Watched the condensed clinching gm 6 earlier this week late at night and woke up feeling prettay prettay good.

The haters can suck it. I love Machete.

“I’ve been in the game many years. It’s something, for me, that motivates me moving forward,” Maldonado said. “It’s funny because you see the comments of the fans, all that stuff. We had just won the World Series. I know they weren’t happy about my batting average, I understand that, but I hit 15 homers — a career-high — a career high in RBIs. I was a little disappointed in some fans that they were a little more against me than happy we were after Contreras.”

Really chaps me that this stuff isn't painted outside Dell Diamond.

At least we still have those sweet booby moments with Kate to make us miss him less.

Agreed, I think it is more likely the Astros get Framber under contract before he hits FA in 2026 than Tucker. Tucker is the one driving that car but you have to wonder how far the front office is willing to go to sign Tucker to a long-term deal with Gilbert, Melton, and Leon waiting in the minors.

https://www.houstonchronicle.com/texas-sports-nation/podcast/article/astros-evan-drellich-winning-fixes-everything-17770669.php?utm_source=marketing&utm_medium=copy-url-link&utm_campaign=article-share&hash=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuaG91c3RvbmNocm9uaWNsZS5jb20vdGV4YXMtc3BvcnRzLW5hdGlvbi9wb2RjYXN0L2FydGljbGUvYXN0cm9zLWV2YW4tZHJlbGxpY2gtd2lubmluZy1maXhlcy1ldmVyeXRoaW5nLTE3NzcwNjY5LnBocA==&time=MTY3NjE0NjM2Mzc5OQ==&rid=ZWIwYjZmZGItNjBmOS00MzQ1LTg5OGYtYjVhYjc3YTdjMjdl&sharecount=MQ== One that really stood out to me was him saying the Astros were trying to sign Springer to an extension before he'd made his debut (basically what they did with Singleton) and they brought him to Houston under the guise of a medical/eye exam and then sat him down to talk contract extension WITHOUT HIS AGENT present and that pissed George off to the point where he told others around him that he'd get his when the time came (money/revenge?).....Also, Luhnow and Hinch weren't the best of friends and clashed on many occasions. Hinch was tossed in the first inning of a game vs TB during Harvey and used that time to get on the phone with his connections in Detroit to get JV trade talks back on the radar. Also dished on Taubman as Luhnow's key operative (along with Mike Fast being the most unheralded important contributor to their success) and said that Taubman was pissed about not being named Special Asst to the GM and that may have fed into the incident during the playoffs. Also there was obvious conflict between Hinch and Cora.

Based on what data exactly? From what I've read it originated with Bill James arguing that groundball heavy pitchers tend to suffer more rotational injuries, which was later rebutted by others weighing in. There's one article from Fangraphs about one study asking this question but it's from 2016. I'm not arguing there isn't data to support this idea, but I'm asking how much we can actually put into that one article as an article of faith as it relates to an anomaly like Framber Valdez. What about guys like Tim Hudson, Tom Glavine, Greg Maddux? And Hernandez had a helluva career even if he was out of MLB by his age 33 season (with a shitload of IPs on his arm).

Well I also disagree with your truth gospel that all 30+ groundball pitchers will wash out.

i generally agree with this but i think it's worth the risk to give him a 5 year deal right now that would pay him through his age 33 season.

You're missing a key point here. He is free to leave and test the market, but if he does so without the organization making a fair and reasonable extension offer along the way as you'd have them do is not only dirty but exceptionally dirty. You seem to forget that players talk to each other and they all understand how the CBA process works and they understand how their current performance should be rewarded in future negotiations. They all understand that young guys gotta pay their dues before they can get paid big time and all that work they did in their controllable years is used to pay older players with more service time who may not have performed on the field as well as their younger counterparts. The Astros did not want to lose any of the aforementioned players and all of them were engaged in talks with the front office along the way but the parties could not agree on the years or total dollars. The reason I specifically brought up Springer was not because of the contract he eventually got in FA and whether it's fairly valued but the manner in which the team approached him early on to sign a deal (without his agent present) and how that left an impression on Springer.

how many of these "aging groundball pitchers" signed at 21? how many innings did those guys have on their arms in their age 29 season vs Framber Valdez? Framber is an anomaly and his age should not be used against him in negotiations by the organization given the light use on his arm and his ascendance to one of the premiere starting pitchers in MLB. The idea of the team using the CBA process to maximize their control over him and then telling him to hit the road once he hits UDFA status would be a very bad move and one that would not go unnoticed by other players. But I have faith they are talking and will not do him dirty as you would have them do.

Btw it case any of you assholes missed it, my most hated ex-Chron Astros beat reporter appeared on Greg Rajan's podcast this week to hawk his new book about the Astros and discuss the shit we're tired of hearing about but also inside information about the Astros front office he learned from his time covering the Luhnow Astros. I hate to say it, but he came off better than I expected in this podcast (which I only listened to because I trust Rajan) and he revealed some interesting details outside of the sign-stealing scandal that I'd never heard before (re Springer and also AJ Hinch/Luhnow/JV trade). https://www.houstonchronicle.com/texas-sports-nation/podcast/article/astros-evan-drellich-winning-fixes-everything-17770669.php