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2018 Houston Astros Season Thread

Planet Houston

By Planet Houston
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TexArcher
TexArcher

Bregs is going Crawford Boxes right here.

ERhine
ERhine

Prior to the footage being edited by Bender:

wesleywest
wesleywest

Two Diamond Club tickets available for the Sunday night game.  Free.  Need to pick them up from me in 77027. Rules: Poster must be a big contributor to this thread/last years shag thread.  No gue

UTexasFight

UTexasFight 9523

Posted
Posted
So I know everyone is still fuming about the game today, but has anyone started reading Astroball? My copy should be in my mailbox when I get home. Can't wait to read it.

It’s excellent so far
Got through preface / intro Tuesday (premise of the Astros re-build and brief background of the Astros franchise/Hoffheinz) as well as beginning background on Mejdal.

Picking up again tonight as soon as I get the kids down (7pm lights out, kiddos!!)
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Simon Honeybone

Simon Honeybone 113

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Posted

I loved living in Jack London Square I miss the shit out of that place....

Fuck Bud Selig for putting the Stros in the same division as the A's that was a bitchass move.  The NL central was perfect I was never going to live in Chicago, Pittsburgh, St Louis, or Cincinnati so I could never would have the Stros in a division with a team I also wanted to do well.

I am not sure I will ever live in Seattle but it is definitely in the realm of possibilities.

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texifornia

texifornia 57073

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1 hour ago, YChang said:

 


Wish I knew! I’m in the east bay and work in Cupertino.

 

Hah awesome! I was born in Houston but grew up in the North Bay so my teams are all mixed up. I actually like the Astros a fair bit - y'all have had our nunber til this series.

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thetruth

thetruth 149

Posted
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2 minutes ago, UTexasFight said:

Interesting.
Would be a rental.
Would point to not expecting much more from McCann this year, not really surprising.
Seems like his best value would be served in a 2017 Beltran-type roll anyway at this point.

16736f490cb34368f14d4de46ac09fa6.jpg

I'm not saying this isn't a great idea, but Hinch has said he wants to carry 3 catchers in the playoffs. I don't think one of those catchers is going to be Fed. 

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UTexasFight

UTexasFight 9523

Posted
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Kaplan is on a roll.

Apologies if these articles are getting annoying but had to post this one on tucker. Love the family stuff and insight on him growing up as little brother to Preston

 

 

 

Kyle Tucker is a throwback.

The new Astros left fielder doesn’t wear batting gloves or any protective equipment like elbow pads or shin guards. Before every pitch he steps out of the batter’s box, rests his bat against his legs and reaches to pick up dirt to rub between his hands. In an era of celebratory bat flips, he’s just about the least flashy player in the majors.

And most notably, Tucker has that unorthodox, left-handed swing that has drawn comparisons to all-time great Ted Williams since his draft year. When his teammates caught wind of it in spring training, the quiet 21-year-old immediately had a new nickname. “You address him as Ted, not Kyle,” George Springer reminded the media Saturday before Tucker’s major league debut.

Tucker’s perhaps Williams-esque swing is not one often seen anymore, an old-school stroke he found early on and fine-tuned in his three years in the minor leagues. He lays the barrel down earlier than most, and though his swing appears long and loopy, he actually keeps his bat on plane and in the zone longer than most.

The result is a more level bat path that contrasts with the game’s recent emphasis on launch angle and the modern mindset of hitting everything in the air. Tucker has exceptional bat speed and, simply put, a knack for putting the barrel on the ball.

“He’s always had what you might call some ‘funk’ to his swing. We have always liked it,” said Astros assistant GM Mike Elias, who runs the team’s drafts. “Scouts use the word hitter-ish. He has just a lot of hitter-ish mannerisms to him. He’s always had an easy time in the batter’s box. He sees the ball very well. He makes a lot of contact, especially for a guy with so much power.”

If there was a knock on Tucker’s offensive profile when the Astros drafted him fifth overall out of Tampa’s Plant High in June 2015, it was that he expanded the strike zone too frequently. Because he has the ability to cover so many pitches, to tap into his raw power he has had to learn which are the best pitches to drive. He began to unlock his power potential last year.

After hitting only nine home runs in his first full pro season in 2016, Tucker mashed 25 last season between Advanced Class A and Class A and 14 to begin this season in Class AAA. He’s 4-for-18 with a double and a walk through his first five games in the majors, where pitchers have attacked him with breaking balls and defenses have already shifted him.

It will be up to Tucker to adjust back and to prove to Astros’ management that playing him as the everyday left fielder optimizes the Astros chances to repeat as World Series champions. He cruised through the minors quicker than the team could have reasonably anticipated, and when he made his debut he became the youngest active player in the American League.

“I’ve been very impressed with how he has handled the jump here,” Astros manager A.J. Hinch said. “Nothing rattles him. He never panics. He’s completely at ease in his surroundings with this group of players and at this level.”

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“You can hardly speak about Kyle without speaking about Preston,” acknowledged their mother, Lisa.

Preston, of course, is Kyle’s 28-year-old brother, the former Astros corner outfielder/designated hitter who’s now with the Braves’ organization and currently in Class AAA.

Six-and-a-half years separate the boys in age but they are close enough that Preston heard the news of Kyle’s call-up before their parents did. In the offseason they see each other just about every day in their hometown of Tampa. During the season they track each other’s box scores if unable to watch the other’s game.

From a young age, Kyle emulated Preston. Many of his tendencies on the field can be traced to his older brother, who also hits without batting gloves and rubs dirt on his hands between pitches. Their mom even speculates Kyle bats left-handed only because of his brother. Unlike the actually left-handed Preston, Kyle does everything else right-handed.

“When they were little, Kyle always saw Preston stand on that side of the plate,” Lisa said. “So, it’s like, ‘Okay, well that’s where I’m supposed to stand, I guess.’ ”

Attempts to turn a young Kyle around proved unsuccessful.

“He’d take a couple swings and go, ‘Nah, it’s not right,’ and he’d flip back over to batting left,” recalled his father, Mike.

Preston idolized Ken Griffey Jr., so Kyle did, too. “Most of the time I watched players that Preston watched,” Kyle said. “He was always watching baseball on TV, and I would just sit there and watch it, too.” Before he forewent college to sign with the Astros, Kyle was committed to the University of Florida, his brother’s alma mater.

“It’s not so much he really taught me how to play baseball … but the biggest thing was me just going around watching him,” Kyle said. “When I was in elementary school and middle school, he was playing in high school games, so I would always go and watch him play. When he was in college, we would try to go up every weekend to go see him when he was at home.

“It kind of grew my knowledge of playing just by watching him. I kind of took my game to try to play at his level rather than just play at mine. So if I was in Little League, I would try to compare myself to like the high school kids. I kind of was playing up a level mentally just by watching him.”

Preston shed his batting gloves amid a slump in the Cape Cod League ahead of his junior year at Florida, when Kyle was going into eighth grade. Picking up the dirt helped dry out his hands and, at least in his mind, improved his bat control. Kyle picked up on it and took it to another level. He does it before every single pitch.

Their high school coach, Dennis Braun, is an old-school baseball man who encourages all of the hitters at Plant High to hit without batting gloves. “I’m a big believer in you need to feel it in your hands and build calluses,” he said. “I think that’s what makes great hitters.” He also finds it beneficial for hitters to have rituals, like Kyle does.

“When he goes down and he picks up that dirt, you can see he’s just searching for what he wants to do,” Braun said. “I always loved that about him.”

Kyle and Preston differ somewhat in how they swing and especially in their frames. Kyle is a lean 6-foot-4 who’s still filling out while the 6-foot Preston is built like a strong safety or maybe even a linebacker.

GettyImages-953664292.jpg
 
Preston Tucker | Joe Robbins/Getty Images

Off the field, Kyle’s soft-spokenness contrasts starkly with Preston’s more outgoing personality. Back in the summer of 2015, after the Astros drafted Kyle and after Peter Gammons dropped the Ted Williams comp on MLB Network, Preston jokingly complained that on his draft day three years earlier he had been compared to only Jack Cust.

“Especially on the baseball field, I think I’m a little more high-strung, a little more intense than he is,” said Preston, who was traded by the Astros to the Braves in December. “Which for him, I think, is a very good thing, especially being a 21-year-old in the big leagues. I think really having that cool, calm and collected demeanor is going to help him more than hurt him.”

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The Astros may have been a bit higher on Kyle Tucker than most teams in the 2015 draft —they picked him two spots ahead of the Red Sox’ selection of Andrew Benintendi — but he was one of the highest-profile high school players in his class.

Because they had drafted Preston in the seventh round in 2012 and knew the family well, the Astros felt like they had somewhat of an inside track in evaluating Kyle. Preston made his debut with the Astros in May 2015, a month before his brother’s draft. That spring training, Kyle came to the Astros’ complex with his parents to watch his brother play and while there the family visited with general manager Jeff Luhnow.

Tucker’s advanced bat entrenched him in the middle of Plant High’s lineup from the time he stepped on campus as a ninth grader. Despite his unique swing, he hit every time the Astros sent an evaluator to see him his draft year. Scouts Charlie Gonzalez, John Martin and Evan Brannon became very familiar with him.

“If the kid can prove he can hit, [even] if it’s unorthodox, I’m in,” said Martin, who scouted Florida for the Astros from 2012 until last summer and now does the same for the Padres. “It doesn’t only have to be cookie cutter for me. The same with pitching and deliveries. If a guy can get to a good, consistent release point and hit his spots, I’m in no matter how he does it.”

Tucker’s swing has evolved since high school, most notably via a wider, less-upright stance. But the Astros’ player development staff smartly didn’t have him stray from the basics that made him so attractive a prospect in the first place.

“That’s him, and it works for him,” said Class-AAA Fresno hitting coach Darryl Robinson, who also coached Tucker in Class A in 2016. “I learned in scout school if somebody’s doing something that’s out of the ordinary and it’s funky or whatever you want to call it, but they’re making good contact, you leave that alone.

“When we first saw him, it’s kind of like, ‘Ooh, I don’t know.’ But as you watch this kid, everything that happens in that swing is good. … Occasionally he gets his hands away from his body. That happens. But when he really gets into it, he’s keeping everything together. The connection is there. The rotation is there. His hands stay close to his body, and he’s able to drive the ball. That’s just something you don’t mess with.”

After his torrid spring training, Tucker got off to a relatively slow start in the hitter-friendly Pacific Coast League this season. He was rolling over a lot of balls to first or second base. In an effort to just change something up, he even slipped on batting gloves for a series or two. Once he got back to driving balls in the air, he switched back to his usual, old-school look.

“I wouldn’t call him old school,” Class-AAA Fresno manager Rodney Linares quipped, “because he plays a lot of Fortnite.”

His avid video-game playing hobby aside, Tucker hit his way to Houston before long. A mere 152 games in Class AA and Class AAA combined preceded his highly anticipated major league arrival. He finished his Class AAA tenure batting .306/.371/.520 in 371 plate appearances, unorthodox swing and all.

“That’s something I was happy that the Astros didn’t try to change with him,” Preston said. “They kind of let him work out his own kinks and let his power develop, and now it seems like he has that same flat path but he has a little bit more of an uppercut, which is still quick to the ball, but it’s resulting in a lot more home runs.

“As long as that unorthodox, or whatever you want to call it swing is working for him, I think it’s nice that he’s getting that opportunity to hit the way he’s always done.”

 

Edited by UTexasFight
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Guadaloopy

Guadaloopy 11012

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17 hours ago, UTexasFight said:


It’s excellent so far
Got through preface / intro Tuesday (premise of the Astros re-build and brief background of the Astros franchise/Hoffheinz) as well as beginning background on Mejdal.

Picking up again tonight as soon as I get the kids down (7pm lights out, kiddos!!)

Finished it.  Just an incredible read.  Feels like the Astros gave too much access to Reiter.  And anyone who wonders just why Beltrán was on this team needs to to read intently.   

It sure looks like the only mistake this front office made in the last 6 years was releasing JD Martinez.  Even the Aiken situation was handled skillfully after the elbow problems were discovered.  

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UTexasFight

UTexasFight 9523

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Posted
Finished it.  Just an incredible read.  Feels like the Astros gave too much access to Reiter.  And anyone who wonders just why Beltrán was on this team needs to to read intently.   
It sure looks like the only mistake this front office made in the last 6 years was releasing JD Martinez.  Even the Aiken situation was handled skillfully after the elbow problems were discovered.  


excerpt from the book about Beltran that was printed in last week’s SI. Great read: https://www.si.com/mlb/2018/07/09/astroball-houston-astros-book-excerpt

Also, if I got nothing else from the book, I finally know how to pronounce Sig Mejdal
(“Who’s dell? MY-DELL!”)
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Guadaloopy

Guadaloopy 11012

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4 minutes ago, UTexasFight said:

Also, if I got nothing else from the book, I finally know how to pronounce Sig Mejdal
(“Who’s dell? MY-DELL!”)

 

Definitely one of my takeaways as well.  I’m also left with the question, why aren’t the Astros paying a ridiculous sum to Beltrán as a bench coach or special assistant? He brought incredible behind the scenes value. 

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UTexasFight

UTexasFight 9523

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Definitely one of my takeaways as well.  I’m also left with the question, why aren’t the Astros paying a ridiculous sum to Beltrán as a bench coach or special assistant? He brought incredible behind the scenes value. 


My guess is they think they are...$11.5M to Mr. McCann
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