Alvarez was not a no brainer opening day guy. He wasn't a no brainer until he made every pitcher look like little league pitchers in Triple A.
I heard it was actually large targets in the outfield that if hit give you the two points, and each of these targets will have sponsorship tie ins.
I don't think anyone thought Crane was ever going to just hand out huge contracts to the core group from our World Series championship teams. We should judge him on the team's ability to have quality players to step in. Hopefully Pena will be the real deal. It's too early to tell on McCormack / Meyers but I'd say it's doubtful either will be a Springer. Let's just hope we don't wind up going tank-a-thon again.
I think Leon takes CF eventually. He has all the tools and showed flashes last year. Needs to find the consistency in Sugar Land this year.
Houston has consistently weathered losing their homegrown stars in the Crane era. Keuchel, then Springer, now Correa. They will probably not be able to keep both Alvarez and Tucker. They may not be able to extend Bregman. But as long as they are able to replace the production in the aggregate they will still win and be fun to watch which is all that really should matter to most fans. Alvarez and Tucker came in the 2nd wave and it looks like Garcia, Pena, and possibly Lee and Leon and Brown could be a 3rd wave.
This is the stage of the dynasty where you have to trust the process and player evaluation. Can the Astros weather the loss of another All-Star talent up the middle and remain World Series contenders? 2019 was the peak in my opinion, one of the most talented rosters ever assembled. If they miss on Pena, Bregman continues his Sean Berry impression, Verlander is a shell of himself and Brantley/Altuve start their natural declines, then the fall will be swift.
They can because they will have to. The day is likely to come when most of the guys we consider icons and the very definition of the team are gone. We stay relevant if we make good trades, sign the right FO's and draft well. Trying to keep world series teams together is impossible. We better all get use to it.
Just hoping Pena can hit .270 with 10-15 homers this year. I think his AAA run was a bit flukey since he's not a flyball hitter. Really looking for consistency with Leon. He's super tooled up. Last year they did him a disservice moving him to SS in his first year in the minors. Hopefully he can relax and just play his game.
If he is only 85% of Correa's total talent, I will be happy with him making it through an entire season healthy; unlike Correa.
I feel really confident that Jeremy Peña’s 2022 value will fall somewhere between 2021 Paul Dejong (1.6 fwar) and 2021 Willy Adames (4.2 fwar), depending on his luck and how quickly he adjusts to the big leagues. On the plus side his defense and baserunning will be there and he will likely hit for at least some power. On the negative he is pretty unlikely to boast a high walk rate and he is very likely going to post a >20% k rate. It’ll be all about how close to that 20% he can keep it and just how much quality contact he can make.
