Here are the Astros on there... very, very interesting take on Yordan. 15. Yordan Alvarez Season prediction: Alvarez will lead the league in hit by pitches and intentional walks. 38. Kyle Tucker 39. Alex Bregman 42. Framber Valdez 52. Jeremy Peña 67. Jose Altuve 70. Cristian Javier 89. José Abreu https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/35917450/mlb-rank-2023-baseball-top-100-players
Yeah. Any list without Alvarez in the top 5 is bonkers. I’ll be curious if the Yanks can get away with the juiced balls again.
Cristian Javier is a top 5 pitcher in baseball right now. His Game 4 performance saved our World Series and was one of the best pitching performances in history (Phillies' offense was considered unstoppable at home until then). Ranking him at #70 is ludicrous!
One could make an argument of Álvarez not being top five but to have him outside the top ten while guys like freeman and Julio freaking Rodriguez??? Wtf. But kudos to ESPN - this list is doing what it was designed to do - piss people off.
I honestly don’t care how others rank our players and place them with the rest of the league. I just want to keep going/winning the World Series and they can shove their lists.
Exactly. This obsession some people have with rankings, narratives, and perception is just odd. In college it matters because narratives affect actual final rankings and playoff positions. In the pros, they play it out on the field. Who cares what ESPN says? There are two arguments to the contrary, and both are wrong: 1) bad press hurts players feelings and they might play badly. That was true for Altuve in 2020, and for exactly no one (including Aluve) since. 2) free agents may not want to come. Ask Jose Abreu about that one. Stop worrying about it. Stop making threads about it. And stop making podcasts about it.
Don’t talk to me. Talk to the people who create threads about the Astros and podcasts about the rockets asking “can we change the narrative?” Who cares? Win tbe games and win the championships. No media bro has any influence on those outcomes.
We are jumping the gun with Pena, he's not better than Altuve, that's laughable. A couple of years from now, maybe.
Exactly. The sportscasters were seemingly even embarrassed to mention the rankings at time. How do you have a 2nd year player like Wander Franco ahead of both Bregman and Tucker? WTF has that guy done yet? If it's off of potential then Tucker should be top 10
Altuve is going to miss like 30% of the season. That's why he is so low (mentioned in the article if you read it)
