80% chance The guy is mashing...but his defense is questionable. Having said that, when you look at the rotation the Astros have put him in, it looks like they are prepping him for a call up. In his last 7 games, he has played first base twice, LF twice, Dh twice, and a day off. That is exactly how he would be used on the Astros and it doesn't surprise me Luhnow took a visit to see Alvarez....I mean the Round Rock Express. I say 80% chance he gets called up. Tyler White...if he doesn't start producing...days are numbered.
Tyler White seems to be a fairly easily replacable player, and I doubt he has much value as a trade piece at this point. It seems like a ton of prospects have been coming up around MLB the last week or so, so I assume some kind of a deadline passed? If so, I don't see any reason to not call him up now. You don't want to wait until he goes into an inevitable slump or the Astros go into a slump and timing is just not right. This seems like the lowest-pressure situation you could ever call him up in.
Yeah in my mind bringing him up now makes the most sense, he’s seeing the ball well right now let him come up and get some confidence. Also, as you said we’re on a 8 game win streak and we have been mashing. It’s going to be really annoying if we bring him up when we’re struggling to score runs.
Who came up when Altuve went on the DL? I assume it's Martin - if so, they have an extra bullpen guy. If they don't want to release White yet, they can down Valdez and bring up Alvarez for a bit while they figure things out.
Posted this in the minor league thread, but it certainly applies here: The season is 186 days long, the Super 2 cutoff last year was 2 years 134 days of service time. If you take the average the last 10 years of 2.132, you get a cutoff date of 54 days into the season, which would be May 21. This is just the best guestimate. Service time info from here: https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2018/10/super-two-cutoff-mlb-2018-2019.html
Alvarez gets called up and struggles like other rookies do. “Like I said all along, they rushed him.”
Every once in a blue moon things work out perfectly...it's rare, but it happens. What we are potentially looking at is an all time lineup of ridiculously breathtaking hitting. 1. Springer 2. Altuve 3. Bregman 4. Correa 5. Brantly 6. Gurriel 7. Yordan Alverez 8. Reddick 9. Chirinos I mean.... just wow! Obviously Alverez like all rookies will most likely struggle, he might be terrible defensively, injuries happen.... But... if the stars lined up this year. That lineup is sick!
Regardless of any deadlines, the main point of contention is losing White since he is out of options. Fortunately they are good enough to ride White's suckiness for a while. I cannot imagine White clearing waivers like Stassi did last year.
Mine: CF Springer 3B Bregman DH Brantley 2B Altuve 1B Alvarez SS Correa RF Tucker C Chirinos LF Reddick Bench: Gurriel, Diaz, Marisnick, Stassi DFA: White, Kemp
Would you really be shocked if he cleared? He’s 28 years old, has been bad more often than he’s been good and he’s too fat to play a position so pretty much eliminates NL teams unless they want a butcher at 1B with a .300 slugging %.
I'm not sure the endgame here. Even if he hits for a month or two, he's not going to ever be good enough to have significant trade value given his age, inconsistency, and fatness. And he's going to be the odd man out whenever they bring up Alvarez or Tucker. So what's the point in delaying the inevitable? Who cares if another team claims him?
I was shocked by Tyler White weight gain, I thought he wanted to become a great hitter, he was very slim last year. His Big Belly is over his belt, ugh. When he was slim, his bat speed was elite in the AL, his numbers were so similar last year to J.D Martinez. So clutch last year in the 9th inning, hitting a 97 mph home run against the Giants. Extremely disappointed, it looks like something really bad happened in his personal life, it like he quit caring about himself, working out, diet etc.
CF George Springer 2B Jose Altuve 3B Alex Bregman LF Michael Brantley SS Carlos Correa DH Yordan Alvarez 1B Yuli Gurriel RF Josh Reddick C Robinson Chirinos Future All Stars CF George Springer 2B Jose Altuve 3B Alex Bregman LF Michael Brantley SS Carlos Correa DH Yordan Alvarez 1B Seth Beer RF Kyle Tucker C Robinson Chirinos A lot of lefty/righty combination since the 2004 Astros LF Craig Biggio CF Carlos Beltran 1B Jeff Bagwell RF Lance Berkman 2B Jeff Kent 3B Morgan Ensberg C Brad Ausmus SS Adam Everett