The 2nd worst thing in the world would be for the Astros to release Abreu too soon and another team picks him up and gets 1.5 seasons of vintage Abreu while the Astros pay him $30M+. The 1st worst thing would be to keep playing him and let him cost them a trip to the playoffs or a chance at another ring. Those are the 2things they are balancing, both within the context that Houston likely won’t be able to find a good replacement until June or July anyway.
I'm not sure why either of these is terribly confusing. The options at 1B seem to be Abreu and Singleton. I would imagine the team feels that despite performance so far, Abreu has the higher upside and the only way to extract that value is to play him. Maybe (probably?) won't work, but Singleton is a low-ceiling, completely replaceable player - it's not like they have a good alternative. They did the same thing last year and it paid off in the latter part of the season, though Abreu obviously wasn't this awful. Last year, people complained when Dusty wouldn't play "hot" players, for whatever that's worth. Dubon is the hot player right now. And he was the better offensive player last year. If his name was "Chas", everyone would be wondering what the hell Espada has against him if Meyers was playing over him. It's pretty clear the organization thinks highly of Dubon (thanks, Dusty, for giving him a chance!). Putting him on the bench for a pinch hit opportunity here and there is not how you get value out of him. Agree that they probably should sub Meyers late in games for defense, but you'd want to play the better offensive player for the majority of at-bats, I would think. It's funny how "Dusty's stupid moves" don't all seem to be Dusty-driven. People said the front office wanted more influence and Dusty routinely fought with them. Now they have a rookie manager who they can completely control and ... same basic decision making. One thing I would do is explore if Dubon can play 1B competently on a regular basis. If so, you solve multiple issues, improving the offense and improving your CF defense.
Agreed that decisions I put on Dusty and hoped would be done with are still happening. Dusty is an extremely respected baseball man and Espada sat at his side for 4 years "learning how to manage" from him. It will take time for Joe to completely develop his own style and trust his own judgment over "what would Dusty do? What decision was made in my past experience in this situation?" I still have hope Espada gets better. It just feels like while he is giving Abreu the benefit of the doubt and playing him hoping he gets better he is also sitting Meyers expecting him to get worse and trying to avoid that by playing a more consistent but also lesser player instead. If Meyers is going to start less than 50% of the games, they should just trade him and bring up Leon. Soon there will be a glut of OF looking for a chance and the longer you wait, the less chances they will get to show their abilities. At least Leon has more positional versatility and basestealing value.
I'm not sure I understand this logic. We have a good player that plays about 50% of the time (and would play 100% of the time if anyone gets hurt and Dubon is needed to fill whatever spot becomes available or if Dubon regresses offensively) and should trade him so we can bring up a rookie who has positional versatility that we don't need? We have a full time RF and multiple LFers and CFers, plus Dubon can already play everywhere. I'm not sure how that helps the 2024 Astros at all.
Abreu somehow got his hands on photos of new Texans uniforms. They are keeping him in lineup until Tuesday.
