Haha confused me for a second. Cody def has more mass on him. Just think it’s weird Tucker’s been in the system this long and doesn’t show any increase in his body size. Correa and Springer increased quickly.
Osunas casual stroll and then his half ass, high throw to Yuli...and then the I don't give a damn face to top it off..I'm still fuming
James may be the 8th inning guy. Hinch likes to use Harris as a fireman. With James's control coming and going, James isn't ideal as a fireman at the moment. Astros have developed a ton of pitchers capable of being cheap, useful relievers, but have traded/let go of Musgrove, Houser, Hader, Velasquez, and Thorton along with keeping James.
He is skinny, indeed, but I don't think that's his problem. He hit plenty of monster shots in RR this year, the fly he hit today was not squared up, you could hear it off the bat. I don't like his swing. Too long, I think he's going to get abused (eta: ala Jason Lane, once pitchers figured him out), but I sure hope I'm wrong.
Agreed about Harris, I was thinking about James's usage in a perfect world...he's a 2 inning guy when you need that. We'll see. As far as the "developed a ton of [relievers]" I'm looking at mediocre starter, ok reliever, great reliever, mediocre constantly injured starter and mediocre starter. Who is the other part of this ton that I'm missing? The ones we've seen in MLB the last 2 years who have been mediocre? Armenteros, Gustave, Perez, Valdez, Urquidy, Abreu, Deetz, Sneed...who am I forgetting? Other than James which of these guys has made a place in the Stros bullpen?
It seems like he’a hit a bunch of those type of fly balls in his limited MLB experience. Always seems to hit it off the end of the bat or gets under it a tad. I’m with you though I just don’t have a great feeling about him but he only needs to hit .250+ if he hits for the power and runs like he did in the minors and he’ll be a valuable player.
When he hit it, he hit the ball pretty hard last year. Most of his hardest hit balls were on the ground though, as I remember, right into the shift.
He has all the requisite tools. The problem I have with him is that he never looks comfortable hitting and he adjusts so slowly.
I just don't know, unless he's guessing, how he hits hard stuff inside. Can't wait to find out, if not this month you know he's the starting RF next OD.
You'll notice all 3 of those were out over the plate and only 1 of them was a (mediocre) fastball. I've seen him a bit more this year in RR, 40 games or so b/t live and the tv, just telling you what I've observed. Hope I'm wrong.
Hmm, yeah, this is bringing back memories of his swing from last year (didn't get to see him bat today). I didn't like it last year. I do need to see what he'll do in the bigs this year before making any snap judgments. That's going to be hard, though; Yordan's pure swing has spoiled me when it comes to rookies and seasoned pros alike. I also hope he doesn't look as uninterested and dead to the world all the time as he did last year.
Both Hinch and Tucker were talking about his lack of a pregame routine. Tucker said he learned from his last stint, that you have to “keep busy” during the pregame portion. So he is not exactly a gamer. He is reminding me of Chris Mihm when he was at UT. Just before he was drafted, it was reported he elected to play video games by himself instead of watching the NBA Finals with his teammates. This made draft pundits question his passion for the game.
If you develop a starter, you've developed guys that can relieve. If Astros didn't like trading for guys like Cole, Astros bullpen would be stocked cheap, capable relievers. On James, he can be a 2-inning guy if Hinch gives him enough rest. The way the Astros end up in a lot of high leverage situations and don't have other 2-inning options, Hinch is likely going to want to use James more often than can be expected from a 2-inning guy.
