Snake Diggity

One of Musk’s fantasies is having an army he can control.

Meyers and Dubon are plenty good against LHP. McCormick is great if he can find his 2022-2023 form. One of their young guys (or Trammell) can likely be serviceable against RHP. So all they likely need is an affordable corner OF who hits RHP well. Winker, Verdugo, Polanco, Pederson, Heyward, Canha, McCutcheon, Turner, or Martinez all could fit the bill. Just gotta pick the right guy.

It’s worth noting that Houston’s 2 highest ceiling prospects likely to graduate in 2025 (Jacob Melton and Zach Dezenzo) are best suited for OF. I think they will make a move to bring in an OF before the season starts but it would not surprise me if those prospects were factored heavily into how Houston has handled the offseason roster construction and if one of those 2 guys finished in the top 5 for 2025 AL ROY voting.

Serious question: do you have Down Syndrome?

Jose Altuve is the one athlete who still stirs my emotions the same way my sports heroes did when I was a kid. The combination of his personality, size, production, clutch performances, and that he’s an Astro for life are unmatched. Hell, the way he handled the sign stealing stuff was so high character, taking responsibility, shielding his teammates, and continuing to perform, just made me root for him even harder. He’s the one guy I would really be affected by if he went and played for another team or got caught up in some scummy/criminal activity. I literally love Jose Altuve.

I’m in this boat. Combination of a lot of things. Paralysis by analysis because of too many options. Lack of time to watch TV or go to the movies because of kids. Large budget films/shows racing to the lowest common denominator. Better alternatives like YouTube that require much less time investment. On the other hand, we are in the golden age of entertainment. I’ve gone to the movies 2-3 times per year over the last 5 or so years and I enjoy it every time. There are still good movies getting made. And I’ve made myself invest in a few shows (Masters of the Air, Franklin) over the last couple of years that were worth it. There are literally hundreds of shows and movies I see on streaming services and think “that looks interesting”, but then I just move on. I have a recurring fantasy of havin a decade or so catching back up on all these shows and films once I’m too old to do shit else.

Astros don’t seem to recognize the difference between bringing in a guy who is 32 and late in his prime (like McCann and Brantley) vs bringing in a guy 34+ who has already shown clear signs of decline (like Beltran and Abreu).

Kepler and Verdugo are 2 cheap corner OF options that have good upside. I prefer Verdugo but both make sense if Houston spends all their other money on 1B or SP.

I am not sure if Framber is getting traded, I’d probably put the odds at about 20%. But regardless, there are too many OF better than Dubon, both internally and externally. They’re not running those 3 guys out as their opening day OF unless there’s been an absolute epidemic of injuries.

0% chance the opening day OF is McCormick/Meyers/Dubon. Anyone who listens to anything Dana Brown says in an interview is a fool. Dude has proven that nothing he says should be taken seriously.

Major holes: 1B, RF Minor holes: LF/CF, SP ~$30M in available payroll. They can use that along with trading Framber and Pressly and go into 2025 with an extremely deep lineup, a much improved farm system, and a good pitching staff that carries a lot of upside/risk. Let’s see how the rest of the offseason plays out. Christian Walker might be in play if his market doesn’t develop. Hell, Bregman might still be in play.

Decent trade. Not a home run but very good value for a rental, even if it was a borderline mvp caliber player. Astros lost a net 4 wins in RF, gained a net 2 wins at 3B, gained half a win in pitching, and added ~$10M in available payroll. Thats the 2025 impact; a net loss of 1-2 wins, pending what they do with that $10M. For 2026 as beyond, they added ~10 wins at 3B/1B and a couple wins in pitching. Net net they just traded 1 2025 win for a dozen wins over the next 5 years. Like homey said in Dances with Wolves, “good trade.”

Paredes and Smith to me is not enough. Needs to include Suzuki or Bellinger (with Cubs eating some $) or another good prospect.

Meh. He was worth 4.2 fwar last season. Whether he’s a 4 win player or a 5 win player, it doesn’t affect my point.

Astros currently have the 5th best projected roster in the league. 6th best offense, 9th best pitching staff. They are favored to win their division by 3 games. Their team is still very good. I think the vast majority of fans way underestimate how much impact the pitching injuries had. They had 7 SP on the IL at one point and still won their division. They also had the most negative impact player in the league in their lineup most days for a third of the season (Abreu). The 2017 team won the goddam World Series with Mike fuckin Fiers leading the team in innings, Brad Peacock the #4 SP, and the corpse of Carlos Beltran getting 500 plate appearances. The roster doesn’t have to be 2019-level to be a contender. A total rebuild like what was done in 2011-2014 is not possible these days because of rules changes and how other teams are run. Theres a draft lottery that makes it nigh impossible for a team to get 3 straight #1 picks. Almost every team manipulates their draft pool to try to get overslot signings in later rounds (the Astros were the first to really do it in 2012). Houstons best bet is to try to win as much as they can while Altuve and Alvarez are still productive. They are going to have to rely on Dana Brown to draft/scout/develop their way to contention after 2025. But this offseason they are in a good spot. Shopping Tucker and Framber is them following the market. If they can trade away a 4 win player (with 1 year left) and release a 0.5 win player to add a 3 win player (with 4 years left), a 3 win player (with 2 years left), and an elite prospect, that’s a good move for both 2025 and beyond. And that’s the kind of package the Astros should be demanding. If Houston ends up trading Tucker for a middling package like Gil and Rice alone, that’s not a good move. But if they get something like Suzuki, Paredes, and Shaw, that’s a home run move.

Luhnow was saying toward the end of his tenure that injury prevention/recovery was going to be the next arena where teams found a competitive advantage. Doesn’t look like it’s happened yet. But I would imagine any team that could find a secret solution to having pitchers constantly throw heat and spin without tearing a UCL would be big winners.

Amen. Crane was always going to have to raise payroll to accommodate the maturing roster along with make up for a near-decade of late draft picks and buyer deadlines, which all comes with winning. So they were always likely going to have to run a top 10 payroll by now to remain a contender. Then they got hit with the draft pick penalties for sign stealing, which back of the envelope was probably about a $100M hit. Then they signed Montero and Abreu to dead-money deals and had McCullers die and Javier need major surgery, leaving $70M in dead money for 2025. It’s up to Crane as to whether he wants to spend his way out of the hole he dug by his first GM getting caught and then the further hole he dug operating without a GM (and enduring some bad injury luck). To do that he’d have to probably run a $275M payroll for the next 2-3 seasons to allow Brown to rebuild the farm. It doesn’t look like that’s going to happen, so likely the only way Houston remains a contender beyond 2025 is if Dana Brown is able to far outperform his resources via the farm system.

Yes, and Correa also has several vesting options that are very affordable. His contract is not really a negative for any team with a little payroll flexibility. I do think he has a NTC so that limits which teams he’d go to. My guess is he will only go to a team that will play him at SS, which is why I think Houston would trade Pena if they got Correa, but all this is a pipe dream.

My pipe dream is they move Pena to make room to get Correa back.

Astros everyday 2025 lineup likely to only return about half the players from 2024. Bregman will sign with the Yankees, Tucker and at least one of Meyers/McCormick/Pena will be traded. Singleton will be DFA or back in a bench role. Now the other chips should fall in the next 48 hours. If Houston doesn’t make at least 2 very significant moves before end of day Friday it will appear very likely Dana Brown and the Astros were not proactive about the offseason and were caught off guard by the market and by Bregman signing elsewhere.

https://www.mlb.com/astros/news/first-full-2025-mlb-mock-draft?t=mlb-draft-coverage MLB.com’s first mock has Cunningham going 6th overall and Belyeu 14th. I had no idea Belyeu was that highly rated.

Anecdotally the people I’ve seen who get on Ozempic and other drugs like it end up eating healthier because it eliminated cravings, which is the condition where most junk foods get eaten. I do think there’s some big potential downsides to those drugs (mainly that they reduce people’s incentives to exercise), but I do think they could be a key part of addressing the obesity epidemic.

https://www.newsweek.com/birth-rate-population-timebomb-education-project-2025-1998690 “We need less education to avoid demographic collapse” is quite the platform. Fuck me running.

My guy Dana Brown sure does love the word “ultimately”.

I understand where you’re coming from. But if you won’t do what it takes to “take advantage of dumbfucks that don’t understand how anything works”, well, then you have already lost.