I have seen Phish twice one even opening up for Dead and Company at my son's request. Crowd smelled very similar to metro in Paris. Been to 17 Rush shows. All I smelled there was some good Buda.
Braves blockbuster since their season is tanking and their ace just heard his elbow pop: Astros get: 2B Ozzie Albies SP Chris Sale Braves get: OF Zach Dezenzo SP Miguel Ullola 2B Brice Matthews P AJ Blubaugh P Forrest Whitley Astros get a good switch hitting 2B (although he hasn’t been that good outside of 2023) and a ToR SP. Braves get 4 of Houston’s top 10 prospects and a high ceiling controllable RP. Houston’s playoff roster: SS Pena 3B Paredes DH Alvarez LF Altuve 1B Walker 2B Albies RF Smith CF Meyers C Diaz Bench: Dubon, Caratini, McCormick, Salazar SP: Valdez, Brown, Sale, McCullers RP: Hader, Abreu, King, Okert, Sousa, Dubin, Javier, Gusto, Arrighetti
2B that has not fared well with the shift ban. 6 letters. Starts with an A. His home fanbase loves him. Seems familiar.
How would you all feel about this deadline: Out: SP Framber Valdez, RP Bryan Abreu, C Victor Caratini, OF/IF Shay Whitcomb, OF Zach Dezenzo, P Trey Dombroski In: SP Andrew Heaney, C Joey Bart, IF Kevin McGonigle (MLB #26), DET #2), SP Ty Madden (DET #12), P Owen Hall (DET #9), C Alirio Ferrebus (PHI #26) That would dramatically improve the farm while keeping the 2025 roster competitive. If Yordan is out thru July this team is cooked this season.
I agree that it all hinges on how long Yordan is out. With 6 playoff spots, at this point it is still very likely that the Astros make it. Then, as long as Yordan is healthy by mid-September you can't trade Framber or Abreu. If he is out or this team spirals in the next 8 weeks then trade all the rentals. The more I look the more I am convinced that Dezenzo and Whitcomb are the same player. Only room for 1 of them and no sweat if both are moved as long as its a reasonable return. While researching Melton I came up with some interesting comps. Chisholm Marsh Will Venable Carroll Bellinger Probably Ks too much for Carroll Probably too valuable in CF to play 1b like Bellinger ( and more SB but likely fewer HR)
I’m fine with all those trades. I think it’s preposterous to say “if Yordan is out until blah blah blah then that means blah blah blah.” None of that **** matters. We are basically in first place and we gained ground this month with him not playing the entire month. I strongly suspect that someday Arrighetti would come back. LMJ can keep throwing yakkers until his arm breaks. We’ve got Spahn and Spain and pray for rain with brown and Framber, a good bullpen, and I think pretty soon Gordon will be down and Ullola will be up. like- we are fine. We are making the playoffs, when we get there we need to be healthy and dialed in and from that time on it’s the same coinflip scramble it’s always been.
I have thought Marsh was a good comp for Melton but I am hopeful Melton will hit more HR and be a little more valuable.
Here’s my hot take. I’ve seen enough of Dana browns talent evaluation to think he’s as good or better than lunwho. Offer up Alvarez, Valdez, Arrighetti, Caratini,and Walker for the best pick packages and let brown restock the farm completely. Move paredes to first. Put smith at third and bring up Matthew’s to play second. let altuve dh and play spot duty for the balance of his career.
Trade: Walker, Dubon, McCormick, Meyers, Alvarez, Caratini, Framber, Hader, Abreu, Okert, Ort, Whitley Extend: Pena and Paredes 2026 roster: C Diaz 1B Dezenzo 2B Matthews SS Pena 3B Paredes RF Smith CF Melton LF Whitcomb DH Altuve SP Brown, McCullers, Javier, Arrighetti, Ullola Re-stock the bench and bullpen from the farm and cheap free agents. That pool of traded players should result in the best farm in baseball.
Marsh has actually been much better than most people realize. Even with a -0.6 bWAR this year he has averaged 2.2 bWAR per 500 PAs. He is awful vs LHP and Melton has also been very weak in that part of the game in the minors. That's not much of an issue for the 2025 Astros because they have Meyers, not to mention only about 30% of pitchers are LH. Pair that with the fact that he is actually a very good defender in CF. Then, of course consider that being good overall offensively but terrible vs LHP means you are quite good vs RHP which should be a huge help to this Astros team if it does play out that way. I agree that Marsh is likely a disappointing outcome, but not disastrous.
Because the most important thing for a MLB contending franchise is to "improve the farm" this year I don't see how that team stays competitive. I guess if we really wanted to we could go dick around with the A's and Rangers
while we are competitive this season, our injuries have limited the ceiling to where we’d be a scrappy playoff team. I don’t see any trades we’d make putting that ceiling in jeopardy. But I do see a talent infusion strategy as a way to significantly improve our outlook and financial flexibility.
Meh. I like following some aspects of the minors very much (obviously). I rarely watch minor league games in their entirety. I watch 100+ Astros games each season. But mostly I understand that without a good minor league system, it’s only a matter of time before the major league team is not fun to watch anymore.