For a little perspective, his Hrs this Spring have come against an A-ball relief pitcher, a AA relief pitcher, and a guy who pitched in Japan the past 3 years. Just saying.
It's a good point to keep in mind. At least two of the pitchers the Astros faced in today's game against Boston had never pitched above the A+ level, and many of the pitchers they are seeing in ST are AA guys, so essentially at the same level Tucker is currently playing at. Tucker hit .265 at AA last season and if, hypothetically, he were placed on the OD roster, it's quite conceivable he would struggle for at least the first couple months against ML pitching. Why Reed isn't punishing all this low- and mid-minors pitching is another question. He hit those guys well when he played at A+ and AA levels.
Definitely to begin the season, he did well over there and the Cards gave him a decent amount of money.
Outside of a bunch of injuries, I don't see Tucker on this team until the summer at the earliest. The Astros have the built in excuse of Tucker not seeing AAA yet. That will be their reasoning for sending him down so they can delay his arbitration/free agency another year.
If Fisher is hitting for about a .800 OPS in the first half of the season like I expect he will, it's going to be difficult to justify calling up Tucker before September. Marisnick still looks pretty strikeout-prone but he will be given a long leash. Even if he reverts to being 2016 Jake,, it's unlikely the Astros will bench Jake in favor of Tucker. My guess is that Tucker is a September call-up and is invited to travel with the team during the postseason. Just to let him get used to that atmosphere. Then in 2019 he makes the OD roster.
The Astros aren't gonna give up a year of team control to let him "travel with the team" in September. If he hasn't earned a call up on merit to improve the team by sometime in August, he isn't coming up until 2 weeks into 2019.
can't they invite players to travel with the team in the postseason without starting their clock in terms of arbitration? In the 2017 postseason there were several players who traveled with the team but not on the postseason roster. I wasn't suggesting they would actually put Tucker on the postseason roster. In any case he'd have to be called up before September to be eligible for the postseason.
They were all guys who were on the 40 man and played on the team at some point that year. Dont know if there's a rule prohibiting them from allowing him to just hang around, but he won't be in a jersey.
Why can't Reddick be the DH and Tucker play in RF? I say mid june if Gatis isn't doing well as DH we call up Tucker and move Reddick to DH.
Because Reddick is a better OF than Tucker or Fisher. Tucker isn't making the team till at least after super 2... just like Correa and Bregman.
Him traveling with the team in September/October has literally no effect on his arb. clock. That all depends on when they call him up. If they call him up at any point after the middle of July then there’s literally no chance his arbitration/free agency year will come earlier. IIRC, the deadline is kind of thought to be at some point in mid June. I could be wrong on that though.
Tucker will come up in June or later, just like Correa did, if he continues to play well. They aren't going to start his service time clock running until they have to.
That's what I meant -- that he'd be allowed to sit in the dugout wearing a grey jumpsuit or similar. Similar to how Sipp and Fiers and White hung out in the dugout but without being eligible to play. If the rules state that a player must be on the 40-man to hang out like that, then I definitely wouldn't recommend putting Tucker on the 40-man just to give him that experience. But if they feel Tucker is a lock for the 2019 opening day roster, there could be some value in letting him become part of the Astros clubhouse culture from late in the 2018 season.
Tucker hits LHP better than RHP and Reddick hits RHP better than LHP, so at least they have complementary platoon splits.
Sounds about right. I would just love to have him come up and kick ass kind of like Cody Bellinger did for the Dodgers. Except strike out a lot less. It would just be so badass to have another dangerous bat in the lineup. The homerun potential for that lineup would just be something the league has never seen. It would make the old school Oakland A's look like the Bad News Bears, haha.
Right and that point when super 2 is gone is mid june. Its what happened to Correa. So yeah mid june. Also Reddick is not a better OF than Tucker. That is just not true. If Fischer is the DH that is fine too. We don't have an overwhelmingly awesome DH. We could be flexible here.
I think you've got to give Fisher his chance first. He had a good run last year and then hit a wall. Good spring training so far.
