Starfleet Command

Lmao. His release point has been trending to more horizontal lately, so he may be hurt, but the stuff is still there. It's not like he's out there throwing 91 or something. He'll be fine when he can correct that mechanical issue.

I don’t know how you could make that work with luxury tax considerations. You’d have to get him and a lot of money to cover what he’s owed for the rest of the season.

He stinks but he's the only other guy on the 40 man they trust to play SS who's not hurt so he's not going anywhere. After him you have De Goti who's probably even worse.

I think juggling the 40 man is definitely the biggest challenge, especially with respect to trades. It would be nice if they could ship out a couple of members of the 40 man and one or two other players in exchange for Bleier and one of Detwiler and Garcia from the Marlins. The Astros just have so many guys on the 40 man that are hurt or are of questionable value moving forward. Are guys like Abreu, Smith, James, Pruitt, and Stanek really going to help this team win games this season? I still like Abreu's long-term outlook but he may not be ready yet. James apparently has totally overhauled his mechanics this year so who knows what he'll do. Smith is old and the stuff doesn't seem there anymore but they owe him money and I doubt someone like James Click wants to eat it and release him. Pruitt - who the fuck knows? Stanek looks great one night and an abomination the next and overall has been pretty shitty. Hartman, Garza, and Jones seem like filler that you can simply release and make it through waivers if need be.

I think he has separated himself from the rest of the OFs in Sugar Land, and I've read that he's also the best fielder of the bunch. He's Rule 5 eligible so they will either need to trade him or add him to the 40 man before the end of the season. I think he could be better than Straw, but with both Straw and Mccormick performing I'm not sure if there are enough PAs to go around to give Meyers an adequate test drive in Houston this season. Seems a trade may be more likely.

Would be nice if they DFA’d him to make room for González who looks like he could be ready to hit MLB pitching.

Straw haters besides themselves.

I like how the A’s and Angels are like inverse teams. Angels have probably the two greatest talents the game has seen in decades but has zero depth, while the A’s have few legit star players but have depth to spare. The success of each team goes to show what is more important in this sport

Norel González with another homer for Corpus. Past time to trade Jones and some others for a lotto ticket or too and to bring Norel up.

Clase just doesn’t have good enough stuff to get a hitter of Myles Straw’s caliber out.

Taylor has the best heater on the team.

He’s shown some power in AAA since they’ve gone to the MLB ball, but I don’t know how much that means. Honestly AA seems like a harder level to hit in compared to AAA now when you look at the pitching stats at each level.

Perfect pitch. Jones ruined the inning.

Stanek makes me pine for Josh James and Bryan Abreu.

He’s had some poor batted ball luck but his underlying numbers are all rock solid. He’s also striking out nearly 30% of the hitters he faces so he’s not just a “dink and dunk guy”.

Stanek up.

He’s been very good all season. Maybe the smartest signing Click has made in his tenure and I hope they resign him.

I think Straw and probably Toro are legit major leaguers. I’m not impressed at all with Jones and McCormick probably isn’t ready but if he can reduce the Ks he could stick in the majors.

Castro is so much better than Maldy.

Tucker is one of the best OF in the game. You can accept this now or next season but you will eventually accept it.

I don’t care so much about this game but I hope Tucker gets and stays healthy soon. He might be the Astros best hitter.

DFA Taylor Jones. Call up Norel Gonzalez.

He also may never hit .300 in a full season again. It's wild how Altuve has so transformed himself from an empty batting average slap-hitter into a guy who walks and slugs home runs. Can't imagine there are many players that like that.

No, my argument is that the players have reason to gripe about MLB mid-season announcing that they will be suspending players caught using substances that have been used nearly universally by pitchers for decades because some players began recently using other substances for a different purpose and which, if adopted more widely throughout the league, could accelerate (if it hadn't already) the decline in offense and BIPs that MLB is concerned about. Now pitchers overnight are having to adjust their grip/mechanics to adjust and which Glasnow claims is responsible for his injury. If they wanted to begin enforcing the rules they should have warned the players that they would begin policing the rule (including issuing suspensions) before spring training when pitchers would have more time to adjust. I think it's also silly to suspend players for using the older, more common substances that MLB doesn't care about and which has nothing to due with the current crackdown. I really don't even fault the players for pushing the boundaries in view of MLB's lack of enforcement. This isn't your kid's little league team - their livelihoods depend on providing value to their organizations and so of course they are going to push the limits when there is no serious enforcement. It's not a surprise at all that as soon as teams/players figured out how meaningful spin is to performance players began enhancing it with foreign substances like Spider Tack.

Getting started early for the 4th.