why couldn’t they pay Gurriel for another 2 years or so, he’s 35 so he’s not getting a mega deal or anything, same with Brantley. Bridge the gap for the prospects you have and the ones you find in RD’s 3-10 in the next few drafts
Because finding everyday players in rounds 3-10 is incredibly difficult and rare. The point to trading for players on bad contracts isn’t to have them replace guys like Gurriel and Brantley, it’s to acquire top prospects in the only way available to the Astros (since they don’t have their top picks for the next 2 years).
If this is going to happen, there are only two ways to handle it. 1) ignore it. 2) Break somebody's face if they purposely pitch at you or your teammate. The League ought to put a memorandum out to all teams that it's not going to take any of this crap. Like how they suspended the douche that threw at Jake's head after that stupidity with the Angels last year. However, if you're the Astros and you're going to start a fight, for God's sake, make it worth it. Crack some damn skulls. I can't stand limp-dicked baseball "fights" where both teams just sort of jog out to the mound and mill around. If a player or team is going to purposefully engage in actions that could injure you or your teammates, make it just as dangerous to them. Or don't do anything.
I think Yordan's too much of a gentle giant. Most of me doesn't want to see him end up as some sort of villain. But there is still a part of me that wants to see him effortlessly toss someone clear out of the ballpark if they do push him too far.
https://climbingtalshill.com/2020/02/02/astros-opposing-players-faux-outrage-cause-problems/ The first time an Astros player gets hurt by a pitch this season, the league will have a whole new problem on its hands."
Looks like Mookie Betts will be traded sooner than later. I sure hope he's traded to the Padres instead of the Dodgers. I can't stand the Dodgers, and the Padres are a young up-and-coming team that would be really really interesting if they made the trade for Betts.
Anybody else amused the Dodgers players and their fan base have been constantly yelling "Cheater! Cheater!" but have no issue trading for said cheaters? Same with Yankees signing Cole but still trashing the Astros franchise and their players. Hypocrisy at its finest.
So f***ing brave of an AL pitcher threatening to hit Astros batters before Spring Training even starts. Real f***ing tough.
Good article. I should read those guys more often. Or at least Andrew Gleinser. How the league handles this possibility will be very telling in how it views sign stealing in general. If it wants the Astros to be a public scapegoat, the league may not do much to deter retaliation. But if it truly cares about fairness and about the safety of its players, it will put a stop to people like Clevinger before they have a chance to do real harm to someone. I'd be surprised if the league isn't prepared to do something about this, but short of seeing a leaked (or public) memo about it, specifically, I'm not going to assume they actually will. However, they also have their own precedent to content with: they suspended a pitcher and a manager for throwing at an Astros player over a much more ambiguous situation last year. I mean, the precedent doesn't require that Jake was an Astro, but it certainly lets Astros fans twist the knife when they stab back on this. The league was prepared to respond harshly to retaliation it expected in that case; this is no different. But I definitely stick by my statement that the Astros should be fully prepared to deal with this on their own in one of the ways I mentioned above.
Fangraphs has their Depth Charts projections for the 2020 season. Despite what the national sports media will say about the Astros (I've already seen many analysts predicting the Astros to miss the playoffs), Fangraphs projects the Astros to have the highest total team WAR yet again. Fangraphs WAR Projections 2020 Astros Batting: 34.2 Astros Pitching: 20.7 Astros Total: 54.9 Yankees Batting: 26.8 Yankees Pitching: 24.4 Yankees Total: 51.2 A's Batting: 27.3 A's Pitching: 15.8 A's Total: 43.1 Angels Batting: 30.0 Angels Pitching: 13.0 Angels Total: 43.0 Just find it interesting that despite all the "doom and gloom" narratives being pushed by the media about the Astros, Fangraphs still projects them to have the best lineup in baseball and the 5th best pitching staff.
I don't think anybody believes the Astros won't be awesome, and that's part of the anger. If they expected the Astros to suck there wouldn't be nearly as much vitriol, just snarky comments. They know that we're still gonna be an elite team and could hoist the trophy again, despite all of their whining about us. If we beat the Yankees again, the meltdown will be of historic proportion.
There are some people that think sign stealing made a dramatic impact, and despite findings of the report think Astros did the it last year.
We need more vintage uni nights. They’re often frowned upon, but I like that we’re playing a game in the 01 black alternates. I like the brick red unis from that era. Obviously not everyday...but I wish we would play more games in all of our retros, with an emphasis on the later 90s years.
If so we are going to score a LOT of runs. Free baserunners with this offense is dumb, add in pitcher suspensions and the run totals gonna be nice First time one of those goons throws at someones head should be an all out brawl It's up to the commish to take a stance on this JUST LIKE he took a stance against the Astros. He took his stance and gave us huge penalties, now he better protect our guys lives....you can kill someone throwing at their head
