Actually their handling of Springer will ultimately hurt them in various ways. The most painful is his stunted major league development. Anywho, it's hard to take Crane and Luhnow seriously nowadays. Drafting Mark Appel 1.1, LMAO!!!!
Its more than two months... its all of the second half of last season. He should have been up here with Villar/Cosart. Its not short-term pressure to promote a 24 year old... its time to get him to the next level after he killed it in the minors. He's also not going to cure his "only" flaws by spending more time against sub-par competition. If he can't hack it in the majors, time to figure it out.
I agree with you completely. Even though spring stats don't translate to the regular season, there are many many situations where a player tears it up in the spring forcing the hand of the organization they play for and they end up on the big club. We will never ever know if that would have happened here or not, we all have our opinions, but unfortunately Springer had a poor spring so it was very easy to start him in AAA
The Astros media rights are actually worth more than the Rockets. Yes, the Rockets are a lot better team right now, but there are several reasons the Astros media rights are worth more 1) These are not "right now" deals, they are long term 2) There are about twice as many baseball games per season as basketball 3) Although the Rockets might draw a higher "rating", baseball hits a much more valuable "target audience" for advertisers. And I don't have any idea how the Nielson ratings work, and don't really care. But it's funny when people say "no one" watched the game, when many actually did
There are also situations where a minor league player goes off, and hits nearly 40 HR's and steals over 40 bases, and forces the hand of the organization... oh wait.
We know how upset you are over this Nick, trust me we know. Most of us would have also preferred to see him last year. We also know that you are convinced there is absolutely nothing Springer could have done this spring to make the team. Maybe you are right, but as I have said, we will never know because he had a poor spring. Lets all just hope that when he gets here he is the real deal, cause there is certainly no guarantee
Ashby (team-paid broadcaster) said he was kept down for $$$ reasons, Eduardo Perez suggested it last night on the espn broadcast (was a bench coach last year), the astros offer him a multi-year deal before any ST or MLB time, and McTaggert's recent astros.com article basically confirmed it (as he went on to explain the nuances of super 2 arbitration deadlines). Its no longer really a conspiracy theory... there's enough tangible evidence out there to show exactly what's going on. I'm not upset... disappointed, for sure and I feel bad for the kid who deserved to have started his MLB career by now... but I've been saying this could/would happen after they didn't call him up with Villar/Cosart last year. When he wasn't a September call-up, it pretty much confirmed that he wouldn't be on the opening day roster. I also don't think anybody knows what he will do in the big leagues... regardless of the minor league numbers. And he'll get called up likely in late June this year, regardless of how well or poorly he's hitting at AAA.
A guy that strikes out over 1/3 of the time will fit right in with this club. Bring up Singleton too, he's even better. There's obviously nothing left for them to prove in the minors.
you're right... a guy who went 37/45 with a .411 OBP won't help this team win a few games.. Only Astros fans..........
I guess most teams offer guys who need to further prove themselves in the minors $23 million dollar MLB deals without playing a single MLB game... You're really starting to go full "apologist" on everybody... and I'm talking LOF apologist-type level denial. I know you're better than that.
As a pure fan, I think he should be up here, now. Singleton too. I also think that they will swing-and-miss at an amazing rate against MLB pitching, which is already the most glaring problem/weakness with the lineup. I have no delusions of grandeur as some folks seem to. They will struggle, suck even, but yeah, I'd rather them suck now and get it over with (or completely fail, which is also a definite possibility, better prospects than him/them have totally flamed out). I do try to understand why the FO is doing what they're doing, though. Learning about their methodology is actually one of the few interesting bright spots as an Astros fan, for me at least. I find it incredibly enlightening. I also have a great deal of respect for the people whose livelihoods depend on making these decisions. Of course they're not infallible, but at the very least they have access to amounts of information and observation that we could only dream of. At the same time you complain about the team not trying to win, or at least be competitive. Throwing those kids up against MLB pitching is in no way a recipe for winning this year, so I'm not sure how you can have it both ways.
So you should at least respect the methodology that led the front office into believing that Springer would be worth 7 years of excess guaranteed money... for somebody who you say will possibly flame-out due to his already over-exaggerated flaws. If you read baseball prospectus for the last few years, you would have already had some of that insight... since Luhnow decided to hire half those guys to work for him. Additionally, I'm not complaining about the losing, per se... its the not fielding of the best possible team for reasons other than baseball performance. They experiment with players who have no business having those jobs... at the expense of not only more deserving ones, but fans who pay MLB prices to presumably see MLB players. Its also quite fool-hardy to believe that any of these guys, regardless of their minor league numbers or the amount of time they spend down there, will come up and succeed right away. I'm not expecting that, hence my reasoning for "getting it over with" as you said. In the end, methodology, analytics, and theory are great to read about... I've always been a fan of it, and hell, I'm pretty sure I got shunned by you (or some of the other "apologists") about not reading too much into these things...but not every player will fit into their formulas, and not every predicted/expected result will translate on the field.
Thanks for the tip, I'll look into that Prospectus thingy you're talking about That contract offer was a great low-risk bet on his future, even if he doesn't live up to expectations. I don't blame him for turning it down, either. Aaaaand I don't blame them for keeping him down for a few weeks for contractual purposes. Don't necessarily like it, but I understand. I have no problem with them playing Grossman and Hoes right now, they both could be very valuable 4/5 OFers in the next few years. I don't think Grossman's as bad at the plate nor Hoes as good as they've shown so far. I am shocked at Grossman's play in the field, though, everything I'd heard was that he was adequate to good at all 3 spots. But yes, I'm trying to agree with you about Springer. I think he'll be a damn good player...if he's Mike Cameron will you be disappointed? I wouldn't be, but I do hold out the hope that he can grow into a star. I'd like to find out soon, but I am a patient boy, I wait I wait I wait I wait.
