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2023 Houston Astros Thread

Planet Houston

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henrygandorf
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FartingDreamer
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Am I the only one that can't stand the sight of Altuve, Bregman or Tucker?  Something about each one of them just pisses me off.  

The Dog
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tx 3 putt

tx 3 putt 77444

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Mauricio Dubón’s 20-game hitting streak has captivated his teammates. Jose Altuve is yelling “that’s the second baseman” after each hit. Rafael Montero finished an inning last week and didn’t go in the clubhouse, telling Dubón “I’m staying to watch you hit”


dubon was the early season hero we needed 

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Wulaw Horn

Wulaw Horn 19152

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Just now, kevwun said:

I put $100 on them when we were in Vegas last week to repeat.  Will win $700 if they do it.

7-1?  That seems a little light to me. That would be true odds of the astros winning it all at 14%. I would probably have them at 10 or 12%. That’s somewhere between 10-30% if my odds are correct. Futures bets are a real motherfucker. 
I hope you win your bet!  Good luck dude. 

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Dondrysdale1

Dondrysdale1 370

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8 hours ago, rvm96 said:

They were facing Dylan Cease who shut the Astros down.

Ok. That doesn’t negate the fact that the A’s, both Sox teams the nationals and the tigers have been fairly poor and as a good team should do, has dominated the competition. Did you happen to see the lineup the white Sox have been putting out there of late compared to the healthy one we played against. Cease pitching in a controlled environment of Minute Maid is a tough comparison to the early season elements up north and outdoors.

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Wulaw Horn

Wulaw Horn 19152

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21 minutes ago, Hank Chinaski said:

The Rays are good. Obviously they won’t continue to win 80% of their games, but they’re really good. Their offense should slow down (though should be solidly above average) but the pitching is legit.

That’s my takeaway as well. I don’t know that we want any part of them in the playoffs. I’m not saying doomed or anything, but I’d prefer to play the Yanks, Jays, Twins, Mariners, Rangers and Indians all before I’d like to play them. 

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Seasick Sailor

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Kyle Tucker: From stone-faced RBI machine to Astros' witty 'what-if' pitchman

By Chandler Rome

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By Chandler Rome
Apr 27, 2023

45

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Athletes in Texas aren’t famous until they’re featured in an H-E-B commercial. The supermarket chain with a cult following chooses some of the state’s most recognizable faces to star in its seasonal advertisements, be it J.J. Watt, Tim Duncan or DeAndre Hopkins.

Filming for this summer’s spots started March 29, the day before the Astros opened their World Series defense at Minute Maid Park. The team sent four of its biggest showmen to set. Kyle Tucker tagged along, too, giving the goofy outfielder a golden opportunity to grow his public persona. Teammates once had to pry words out of the wunderkind prospect. Now, four found themselves acting alongside him.

“He crushed it,” said shortstop and fellow H-E-B pitchman Jeremy Peña. “Crushed it. He’s a natural. The thing people don’t know is Tuck is actually a very funny dude.”

Tucker is a what-if wizard. He poses some absurd hypotheticals and asks anyone who will listen which of his two made-up scenarios seems most plausible. Dry does not even begin to describe his sense of humor, so deadpanning is his domain. Tucker caught the final out of the 2022 World Series and stuck the baseball in his back pocket. Asked this winter what he would do with it, Tucker replied, “I don’t know, probably sell it.” A smile crept across his face seconds later.

“He always keeps everybody laughing,” third baseman and acting partner Alex Bregman said. “Never takes anything too serious.”

Baseball is beginning to see him blossom, as he continues to put up numbers that make him impossible to ignore. Tucker doesn’t have a booming voice and will never be accused of braggadocio, but is fine taking his tame personality into the public eye. His on-field celebrations are limited to small bat flips and, when he loses control of his emotions, sticking out his tongue. Yet Tucker is the team’s DJ and produced a plethora of pre- and postgame playlists to satisfy two languages and the mercurial moods of 25 different teammates.

“He’s matured in really every area of his life the last four years, but especially the last two,” said hitting coach Troy Snitker, one of Tucker’s first coaches in the Astros’ system. “The last two, he’s gotten really comfortable with himself as a player and probably as a person. That’s where you guys start seeing it.”

Tucker’s transformation is apparent to anyone around the Astros, who six years ago saw the scrawny 21-year-old say next to nothing upon his arrival in the major-league clubhouse.“And now he’s one of the most talkative guys around, whereas before you couldn’t even get a word out of him,” said starter Lance McCullers Jr. “I remember his first year, (Michael) Brantley and (George) Springer would literally be like ‘Do you smile at all? Do you feel anything?’”

“He’s definitely, I would say, out of his shell.”

For the four years he kept his personality under wraps, Tucker, now 26, turned himself into one of the Astros’ staples despite his stone-faced facade. He is everything the franchise could have envisioned from the No. 5 overall selection in the 2015 draft: a Gold Glove defender with consecutive 30-home run seasons and a sneaky stolen base threat.

Since 2021, only four outfielders have been worth more wins above replacement than Tucker, according to FanGraphs: Aaron Judge, Juan Soto, Mookie Betts and Yordan Alvarez. All four are talked about in ways Tucker never is.

“I think he’s the most criminally underrated player in baseball,” McCullers said. “You put this guy in a different uniform, other places, he would be one of the faces of the game.”

Tucker is, in part, a victim of the Astros’ success. The clubhouse he entered six years ago already had established superstars. Alvarez arrived in 2019 and began hitting baseballs where few in the sport are able. Nothing Tucker does is that eye-popping, nor is his personality one that seeks the spotlight.

“I’m not one to have a bunch of chains on or do all this crazy stuff on the field, but every now and then I might do a little bat flip or get excited,” Tucker said.

“There’s some big names on our team. I kind of just get mixed in with everyone else. Whether I’m a big name or not, it doesn’t really affect me too much. I just go out there and play and put up my numbers.”

Most in the sport share a similar mindset: on-field production is paramount and the team’s success outweighs anything individualistic. Tucker subscribes to both mentalities, but started to see how growing his platform could create opportunities elsewhere.

This winter, Tucker and his representatives asked the Astros for more involvement in public appearances, fan engagement activities and overall visibility. The request took some in the organization by surprise given how reserved Tucker seemed throughout most of his major-league tenure.

“We always told him, if you don’t talk a lot, people will listen when you talk. All these chatty people, after a while, you just shut them out,” Tucker’s mom, Lisa, said. “I think he’s careful about what he says and what he does. He’s always kind of been like that.”

Tucker’s social media activity has almost doubled. He wore a microphone during a few spring training workouts, producing hilarious conversations with fellow outfielder Jake Meyers. Fans submitted questions for him to answer during another spot on the team’s agility field. Tucker told them he’d beat Alvarez, Bregman and Chas McCormick in a beer-chugging contest, gave dating advice to one lonely soul and respectfully declined an invitation to an eighth-grade prom because “I’m taken right now, I’m sorry” (Tucker and his fiancé, Samantha, got engaged this winter).

“He’s always been a little more outgoing than he appears,” Tucker’s father, Mike said.

The Tuckers raised their three children in Tampa, Fla. Kyle is the youngest, so perhaps it’s no surprise he’s somewhat subdued. “When you’re the third one,” his mother said, “you kind of just do what other people do.”

As a child, Kyle practiced with his older sister’s soccer team and played with kids two or three years older. He had a verbal commitment to play at Florida, where his older brother, Preston, starred and set a bevy of school records. The Astros pried him away with a $4 million signing bonus after taking him in the 2015 draft, though Kyle did fulfill a promise to his parents by completing two years of college.

On the day Tucker made his major league debut in 2018, former general manager Jeff Luhnow tweeted a photograph of the Death Star to signal his arrival — contributing to a level of hype Tucker was not seeking.

Baseball can be a hierarchical sport. Those without service time or skins on the wall must prove their worth, regardless of prospect ranking or prestige. The Astros’ clubhouse has evolved into a more accepting environment, but it’s a slow trudge. McCullers, who debuted three years before Tucker, acknowledged “I didn’t really want to go to the field, honestly,” as a rookie.

“I didn’t want to get in anyone’s way,” Tucker said. “There were some guys that had been in the league a couple years, had been on the team for a while and kind of solidified themselves in the game. You kind of just respect that and, if you’re hitting in the cage and one of them walks in, you just get out and come back a little later. If they’re working out, you may want to work out at a different time. That’s just stuff you figure out once you’re here.

“It was kind of a little bit how it was when I came up, just kind of kept my head down, didn’t want to cause any trouble or anything. Just kept my head down, worked and tried to go out and play good baseball,” he continued.

Comfort grew as Tucker continued to compile numbers. Brantley became his biggest mentor, a stoic veteran shepherding someone just as robotic. He took Tucker under his wing, taught him a routine and, soon enough, became a sounding board for some of Tucker’s wacky what-ifs.

 

On the night the Astros won the 2021 American League pennant, a more significant question presented itself. Mike Tucker’s 85-year-old father, Duane, had transitioned to hospice care. Lisa sent lengthy texts to Kyle with his grandfather’s grave prognosis. In the midst of a clubhouse celebration, Kyle seemed in crisis — stay with the club as it prepared for the World Series or go home to Florida for one final goodbye.

According to Lisa, Brantley gave her son the peace of mind to “just go.” Three days before the World Series started, Tucker flew back to Florida and saw his grandfather for the final time. Duane died on Oct. 23, the day after the Astros won the pennant. The World Series started three days later.

During his visit to Florida, Tucker became more aware of hospice facilities and his family explained how important Duane’s end-of-life caregivers were during his final days. Lisa acknowledged the family’s lives “had all been pretty easy for the most part.” A first dose of difficulty prompted Tucker to act. He launched the Kyle Tucker Foundation prior to the 2022 season: a nonprofit aimed at raising funds to support hospice facilities in Tampa and Houston.

“I think it’s led him to be a little more outspoken,” Mike said. “He’s found something that he can be passionate about. I told him don’t do a fundraiser just to do a fundraiser. You have to have something personal about it, where you really have to believe in whatever you’re trying to raise money for. He took it to heart.”

The passion may prompt Tucker to be more forward-facing, but won’t change his personality. He is fine playing third or fourth fiddle in his own clubhouse, content with being mentioned in conversations and not the main focus. He played for Team USA in the World Baseball Classic, but forgive the casual observer if they focused more on Betts, Mike Trout or other established names.

“I think he went there, played with the best guys in the world and saw ‘Hey, I’m in that group. No different than any of those guys and I belong right there with them,’” Snitker said.

The experience eased Tucker into the regular season, where he is authoring the best April of his major-league career. He will enter Friday’s series opener against the Phillies as the team leader in OPS, OPS+, wRC+ and on-base percentage, shattering a narrative that he starts too slow — fitting for someone shedding so many labels.

“It’s fun to see him visibly having fun playing the game,” Snitker said. “He’s playing extremely well. I think he’s as confident as he’s ever been in what he’s capable of doing. I think he’s doing it consistently and I think he’s having a good time playing the game.”

 

Edited by Seasick Sailor
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rvm96

rvm96 1643

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1 hour ago, Wulaw Horn said:

That’s my takeaway as well. I don’t know that we want any part of them in the playoffs. I’m not saying doomed or anything, but I’d prefer to play the Yanks, Jays, Twins, Mariners, Rangers and Indians all before I’d like to play them. 

Honest question, do you accidentally call them the Indians or are you mocking their name change?

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Wulaw Horn

Wulaw Horn 19152

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7 minutes ago, rvm96 said:

Honest question, do you accidentally call them the Indians or are you mocking their name change?

I’m old man. 44 years of knowing them as the Indians and I slipped. It wasn’t intentional.  Guardians. I see Cleveland and think Indians, I see Washington and think Redskins. I think it’s only in the past 10 years that I can think Wizards when I see Washington rather than Bullets. My dad still talks about the St Louis Cardinals in football and they’ve only been in AZ for 35 years or something. Retraining your brain after 44 years of knowing something one way isn’t easy. 

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HtownHorn

HtownHorn 14783

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3 hours ago, Wulaw Horn said:

That’s my takeaway as well. I don’t know that we want any part of them in the playoffs. I’m not saying doomed or anything, but I’d prefer to play the Yanks, Jays, Twins, Mariners, Rangers and Indians all before I’d like to play them. 

Also, until this season their ballpark has been a house of horrors for the Astros, even when they were shitty they would routinely when series against us there.

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Scraps

Scraps 13581

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Someone who can figure it out quicker and easier than me please tell me what our DH stats are excluding when Yordan plays DH

It has to be horrible as fuck. Hensley sucks, Diaz sucks when he plays DH, Julks may have done a few things at DH compared to LF I can't differentiate by memory.

Plz tell me their collective DH ops is higher than Machetes

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Limp Brisket

Limp Brisket 546

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8 hours ago, Wulaw Horn said:

I see Cleveland and think Indians, I see Washington and think Redskins. I think it’s only in the past 10 years that I can think Wizards when I see Washington rather than Bullets. 

Agreed.  Baltimore Colts is also one for me.   Oddly enough (I guess) I’ve never looked at the Texans and thought Oilers.  

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