There is a floor to fastball velocity. No matter how well you locate, or how nasty your other pitches are, your fastball still has to be highly 80s at a bare minimum, unless you get rid of it all together. If you started at 91 and fall to 88 at age 35, then by 37 you have to use more effort losing command/ control just trying to keep it from falling below 88. I wish him the best.
I'm a huge Loperfido fan, and I don't care about that. Slightly more meaningful is the struggles of Wagner & Bloss. Wilyer Abreu is the only former prospect I really wish we had, and even he is a platoon player (just an extremely good platoon that would fit great in LF)
Between JD Martinez, Teoscar Hernandez, and Wilyer Abreu, the Astros have given away a hall of fame career’s worth of value in corner outfielders.
He lost it well before his fastball dropped below 90. He was not very good even in his last season here.
What was the offer. He's made 65 million since leaving us. Edit: I just looked it up. We offered him 90 million for 5 years, so he lost out. He bet on himself and lost 25 million overall. His career probably would have been better since our coaches would have probably extended his career.
Traded Teo in '17 and won WS, traded Wilyer in '22 and won WS....only logical thing to do now is trade a young OF for MLB-level help
Yeah I was just joking since Buck was saying we needed to sacrifice a young OF to win the WS again. That said, I doubt Dana trades Brice before Melton...Brice was his draft pick and we have a need at 2B
Brice is already being featured on the Astros in-house promo show ('bases loaded?') that Julia Morales hosts for SCN.... and they're harping on him being from Houston and was an Astros fan growing up, etc. IOW... the marketing train is already rolling with him... and he's keeping up his end by having success in AAA despite still being very young.
Kikuchi Kuchi Koo killing it in LA Woulda been a cost effective replacement for Framber Now we're on the verge of losing another premium talent with no replacement That's what happens when the front office doesn't have big picture ability