Part of me wonders if there is an under the table agreement already with Yuli to sign him later in the season or in September when rosters expand, assuming he doesn't sign elsewhere. I think he might be valuable to have on the roster in the playoffs or as an injury replacement, but he probably doesn't need to be with the team to start the season.
No. The simplest answer is usually the best. He’s washed and the Astros have decided to move on from him.
No one will promise him a starter role. There really isn't a role on the bench for him with the Astros. But you can always make a place in the Front Office. This is the difficult transition for every player ever confronted with the end of their playing career. I'm hoping he returns in a non player role. But he needs to accept it enthusiastically.
Yuli will be picked up when a contender has someone injured at first base or DH after the trade deadline.
This seems the most likely scenario to me. No one needs him now, but with injuries, someone will take a chance on him mid-season.
You started 2 different threads on Yuli, masquerading this one as a Rocket's thread? Come on, bruh. Where are the mods to merge the 2? And actually 3 as the Over the Top thread should be included. As much as you people complain about superfluous threads, I ain't heard a peep about any of this crap. Keep that same energy, as the kids say.
Yep. They still finished the 95 season 47-35 and needed an unprecedented run of success to win it all. In many ways, that's like Yuli's mediocre regular season but catching fire in the playoffs in a nut shell.
For as bad...yes bad as Yuli was. He was light-years better than Maldafaildo. And he actually produced in the playoffs.
I dunno what fountain of youth he found in the playoffs, but Yuli wasn't light years better than Maldonado in the regular season. By fWAR, Maldonado was at least positive at 0.5 on the season. Yuli was at -0.9. And for whatever you may say about his bat last year, pitchers LOVED throwing to Maldy and he gritted through both a broken hand and a sports hernia to catch in the playoffs. (not to mention those injuries affected his bat too).
With the bat. . . But the Astros are happy enough with Maldonado overall that they actively talked him into coming back when he was contemplating retirement ( per Nook). As for Yuli, they were searching for an upgrade not even ever considering bringing him back unless it was as a bench player.
You talk about the 96 Rockets like it was a bad thing. That squad won 57 games, slayed the Seattle Sonic dragon, and was a Karl Malone illegal screen from a possible winner take all Game 7 to get to the matchup with the Bulls the world wanted to see. Cassell didn't win any more rings as a player. Horry hit some big playoff shots on some stacked Lakers and Spurs teams - he got lucky in that regard in that he never played for a poor team, except the Suns and he threw a towel at Danny Ainge's face in order to get out of that situation. Horry never made an All Star team, and he averaged 7 points per game for his career. Barkley, although an aging star, grabbed 33 boards in one of his first games as a Rocket. The 96 Rockets were championship contender level good.
That's false. He won another title in 08 with the Celtics. He also helped the Bucks to the ECF in 01, the TWolves to the WCF in 04, and led the Clippers to their first ever playoff series win in 06. Don't pretend he had a mediocre career. The Barkley trade swapped out a problem with the Sonics for a problem with the Jazz. We owned Utah before the trade and couldn't overcome them afterward.
I forgot about 2008, probably because Sam was a dinosaur at that point and was not a major factor at all on that team, he averaged 3 points per game that Finals. Cassell was a great player, he also played for a crap ton of teams - Rockets, Suns, Mavs, Nets, Wolves, Clippers, Bucks, and the Celtics. He made one AS team his entire career, one All NBA team his entire career. Would he have been a better PG than Matt Maloney, Sedale Threatt, and Brent Price? Absolutely, but let's not make him out to be an all time great or a Hall of Famer.
Unfortunately, the Rockets didn't get the entire career of Sir Charles. That's not the comparison. The question is, were they vindicated in their trade of 12 years of Cassell and 12 years of Horry for 3 years of a rapidly aging and diminished Barkley? I'd say that one WCF run and two first-round exits wasn't what they were hoping for when they made the swap. Not sure how any of this discussion really reflects the Yuli situation except to say that old players, even great ones, sometimes drop off the cliff. True for Barkley at 36, and true for Yuli at 38. Hopefully Abreu at 36 can stave off that drop for a couple more years.
Why would any team give a 39 1B who is coming off of a .684 OPS with negative defensive metrics a major league deal?