Did anybody catch the Starting Pitching changes they mentioned? I got Framber tomorrow and Verlander to Tuesday, but that takes him off his routine to starting day.
https://theathletic.com/3200041/202...l-chance-to-contribute-to-the-astros-in-2022/ Even with Lance McCullers Jr. still rehabbing his flexor tendon injury from October, the Astros are positioned strongly in the starting pitcher department. Justin Verlander headlines their staff. Framber Valdez, despite his struggles last postseason, is an innings-eating No. 2 or 3. Luis Garcia, José Urquidy and Cristian Javier are now proven yet still on the rise. Veteran Jake Odorizzi would profile as a No. 3 or 4 on other teams and looks like Houston’s No. 5 or 6. Starter depth is needed throughout the 162-game grind, and the likes of Brandon Bielak, Peter Solomon and Forrest Whitley might also be needed to start games throughout the season. But at some point this year, another young arm also has a good chance to enter the mix: Hunter Brown. Brown, 23, spent the final two months of last season in Triple A, where he is expected to begin this season in the Sugar Land rotation. He is not on the Astros’ 40-man roster but will need to be added after the season so he’s not exposed to the Rule 5 draft in the offseason. Brown is a hard-throwing 6-foot-2 right-hander with high-quality stuff, and his command and overall level of execution will determine his ceiling. “I hope he forces our hand in that regard,” Astros general manager James Click said of a potential 2022 debut for Brown. “He certainly has all the ingredients to help us out at the big-league level sooner rather than later. He has some things that he needs to work on, and we’ve discussed that with him. Hopefully, he forces our hand and that’s something that we have to make room for sooner rather than later.” Brown is generally regarded as one of the Astros’ three or four best prospects. The Athletic’s Keith Law ranked him third on his preseason Astros list, behind only catcher Korey Lee and shortstop Jeremy Peña, and best among their pitching prospects. Law ranked Whitley, formerly the Astros’ top prospect, at No. 5. Whitley missed last season while recovering from Tommy John surgery he had in March but estimated he could be ready to go in late May or early June. He would likely be back in Triple A, where he last pitched early in 2019, when he struggled mightily. Brown is coming off a season in which he had a 4.04 ERA in 100 1/3 innings between Double A and Triple A. He struck out 11.8 batters per nine but walked 4.5 per nine. He was actually better against left-handed batters (.663 opponent OPS) than he was right-handed batters (.794 opponent OPS), likely because of his curveball. A vast majority of the batters he faced were older than him. The Astros drafted Brown in the fifth round in 2019 out of Division II Wayne State in Detroit, where he wasn’t a full-time starter until his junior season. The Detroit-area native, who grew up idolizing Verlander, broke out in that final collegiate season behind a velocity spike, which he traced to an adjustment he made the previous summer in the Cal Ripken League to shorten his arm swing and be quicker to the plate. He was mostly a fastball-slider pitcher in college. Shortly after he got into the Astros’ system, he added his curveball. He has a changeup, too, but it’s far and away his fourth pitch. Brown’s fastball averaged 95 mph last season and topped out at 99 mph. He’s changed the shape of his slider to more of a power cutter that registers in the low 90s on radar guns, and his curveball has generally ranged from 78-83 mph. The Astros have pushed him relatively aggressively. Due to the lost 2020 minor-league season, last year was his first full season as a professional baseball player. He began it in Double A, where he pitched until he was promoted to Triple A in late July. This season, he has a legitimate opportunity to reach the majors. “I think it’s going to be a challenge, just with the guys who are in the locker room and everything. But if I control what I can control, I think that’s an attainable goal for me and that’s what I’m striving to do,” Brown said while in major-league camp this spring. “But I’ve got to put the work in. I’ve got to get better in a lot of areas, and that’s what I’m going to try to do.”
I thought I saw Matijevic was assigned to Sugar Land. Either I was wrong or the post I thought I saw was wrong.
I'm assuming NOT, but are Options for players on the 40 man roster during Spring Training counted against the new seasonal option limit? https://www.batterypower.com/2022/3/14/22975386/mlb-cba-options-limit-break-down I see this reporter has the same question along with a few others.
