2024 Season Astros General Discussion Thread

Sousa out for the year. Shame, he showed some potential last season.

 

Bullpen closer to Top 20 than dead last !!
.

 

So what happens when our 3-5 starters go to the bullpen when Urquidy, Garcia, and Verlander return? (We will bury Lance in the H to ward off the home field curse)

 

Coleman has upside - which is something that a lot of these candidates lack. When his mechanics are good, he can be dominant.

As for Whitley - when someone shows they are a lion, they are a lion.
Whitley has showed us who he is as a competitor. At this point I don’t even know if he is talented. He has missed so much development - he has screwed up his mechanics and changed them without input so many times that the last time I saw him pitch, his fastball was as flat as a board and there was zero deception.

 

Last I saw him, he was working for his hometown Reds. He is still good friends with Bill Brown….. Brownie won’t admit it, but he loved that Big Red Machine.

 

When you look back at 2022 when Coleman was good he was sitting 97-98 with his fastball. It was down to 94.4 in his appearance on Wednesday. He's not going to get away with the mistakes like he could in 2022 with his velocity down, and his control is so bad I don't trust him at all.

 

What exactly happened to Whitley this year?
Was it blister issue?
I haven’t heard anything about him since the injury.
Is he on weiland island?

 

Might want to rename that Whitley Island.

 

Now that is a callback!

 

Same, I saw him pitch in the 9th the other day and wasn't particularly impressed. I thought his velo would have been more. Guess not.

 

I don't think there are confirmed spots for any of them other than Verlander. Blanco and France could easily cement their spot by the time these guys are healthy, especially Garcia since it won't be for another 2 months.

 

Cool story bro...
I met Kyle Weiland last summer. He is a super super super decent human being and his mom and dad are awesome. He gave me a signed gamer from his time with the Astros as a thank you present for professional stuff. He also agreed to come on my podcast at some point in time- we just need to figure out when to have him on...
Also- he knows all about Weiland Island and laughs about it (though I'm sure it's painful for him).

 

I used to be a lurker lol

 

Yeah it’s gotta suck.
I remember really liking him and wanting him to succeed.
My daughter’s teacher a couple years ago is married to a dude who made it all the way to triple a and flamed out.
to get so close to your dream…..

 

That has to be brutal. But I think more AAA guys flame than make it. He has a lot of company.

 

We were talking about this on our prospect pod. If it was me and I was a GM I'd have a soft spot in my heart for all those guys that made it to AAA and were good citizens and human beings and I'd run them through 3-5 days at a time before I parted ways with them. I just wouldn't let a dude's career die at AAA if he did things the right way.

 

I may be wrong but I felt like Luhnow did that. I don’t necessarily think it was selfless; if you get 3-4 more guys that you drafted to have a cup of coffee in the bigs, it’s a feather in your cap as a GM to be able to say you had more guys reach the majors than other GMs.

 

Agreed. I'd do it for the emotion of it but yeah- what you said doesn't hurt and can motivate other prospects, development guys etc.

 

Who’s this?

 

Which of the 3 nobodies are you referring to?