I don't think crushing someone's confidence is a real thing- at least not if they are going to be a stud. If he fails he will learn what he needs to work on and allow him to adjust- I'm just not worried about it. If you want to argue he should be down to keep him for another year I'm fine with Mid April. If he's hitting well in AAA he should absolutely be on call up watch then. If you want to keep him down to late June to avoid Super 2 I'm good with that too- but really not worried about pressure or confidence.
Option Meyers. Go with Smith Dezenzo and McCormick as the everyday OF for 200 pa. If Dezenzo or Smith are struggling at that point they can be optioned. If McCormick is struggling he can be DFA or traded in a salary dump. Meyers and at least one of Whitcomb, Melton, Matthews, Leon, or Corona will be ready to come up by then. A lineup with the big 5 plus a bottom half of Smith, Dezenzo, McCormick, and Pena has 9 potential 3-win players. No mediocrity in there. Bench of Dubon, Gamel, Caratini, and Guillorme provides high floor. Make it so Dana.
Nobody is DFA-ing Chas. He has minor league options left, same as Jake. I do think he's the guy you've got to get a look at early on, can he return to form? 117 career OPS+ before last season. If he's unplayable again by May, he can be demoted. Jake is a known commodity, he is who he is. If he's not needed in the bigs, you can stash him while you test out other options. https://climbingtalshill.com/astros...inor-league-options-on-40-man-roster-for-2025
EDIT; I think I’m wrong and you’re right. Because McCormick was optioned for less than 20 days each time in the past, he retained his option years. So it looks like he can be optioned. So in that case I’d rather Houston option Chas than Meyers, and yes, if Chas isn’t good it’d be better to option him than DFA him.
How do you crush a kids confidence by putting him in the big leagues with less than 50 minor league games. If anything, he will get overconfident.
Overconfident until he has 1 hit in 50 abs to begin his major league career and mentally doesnt know how to recover.
Yeah, sure... but whos to say this kid has the same mental makeup? Im sure the poster you were replying to, was giving an example of what could happen. Its not like high draft picks can always succumb to bad starts. Thats happened throughout the entire history of baseball. Also, Bregs and Tucker had a lot more abs in the minors as well. And thats with Bregs being one of the most ready players in the draft to transition to the bigs.
If the kid doesn’t have the mental makeup to survive that he was never going to be a star or even above average. Or even average. Baseball is a game of failure. If you can’t get over a rough start as a 22 year old it was never going to happen.
No one can say for sure but that also doesn't necessarily change if he makes the Opening Day roster or is called up 2 months from now.
I can agree to that. Look, Im all for him being on opening day roster but truly Id like him to get more abs in AAA. Just to play devils advocate- youre saying a confidence cant be crushed. Why is it that people cant solve the problem of the yips? Grown men with strong mental fortitude have failed to it. Throwing a baseball in a straight line isnt hard, but it happens. I think confidence can absolutely be crushed.
They should put Cam at 3B, Parades at 2B, Dezenzo in RF. Wonder if they would consider Dezenzo at 3B or even 2B?
Altuve Paredes Alvarez Diaz Walker Smith Dezenzo Meyers MVPeña Something like that could be pretty exciting...
this is my preference as well, but they haven’t player Parades anywhere besides third base this spring
Paredes has played 2nd plenty in his career, at pretty much every level so it's not foreign. Still it is a little weird that he's been so heavily featured at 3rd thus far in camp, he didn't play second at all last season and very little in 23. Maybe part of it is getting as many AB's a possible for Rodgers and Guillorme. I really don't know with Smith, if he's still having great AB's at the end of camp once the minor leaguers have mostly moved out it would be hard for me to not have him on the roster.
