LOL God either really doesn’t want Meyers playing centerfield for the Astros or he REALLY wants Chas McCormick to be the Astros centerfielder.
Mancini opting out. Not sure really works here, but you’d think he’d be a better option than singleton.
He can come back as a token cameo on broadcasts to personally answer the future trivia question… “How did the Astros acquire future HOF Yanier Diaz?” I also see plenty of Click mentions as it was his genius that helped pull off this trade… but never forget, it was Dusty’s stubbornness to continue to play Straw in the leadoff and inflate his overall numbers that got him that trade value.
Wonder if he is there by legitimate choice or because he needs to "work on his defense" for a few weeks.
He is there for at least the first 16 days of the season to give the Astros another year of control. Not saying they will call him up after that. If julks is playing well, they will wait.
It will mean the Astros do not start 2024 with the best possible 26 man roster, but. It gives him every game ABs It allows him to brush up on 1b defense ( no time there this spring, only 14 innings and 516 OF innings in AAA last year) ) It gives him a chance to work on reducing Ks (despite great spring 34% K rate after 33% in AAA last year) It gives the Astros a chance to build up Singleton's trade value It likely allows the Astros to control him for 2030 instead of just 2029. He can still be a positive addition to the roster for the post season. I think this is the right move. It also tells me Meyers and Kessinger won't miss much regular season time.
Doubt this is primarily a service time manipulation. He had a 1/3 of a season at AAA and ran a 32.6% K rate and 79 wRC+. He definitely can use some more seasoning. He's a 40+ value prospect. His expected WAR production over controlled years is still something like 1 WAR total. No real benefit to manipulating service time. That's more for the top prospects who generate 20-30 WAR over their control years (e.g. the Correas, Tuckers and Bregmans).
When Chaz is a free agent after the 26 season get back to me about how there's no benefit to caring about service time for mediocre prospects. Not saying you are wrong about Loperfido though
