If the kid is really this good and he can sustain it, they'll have to find away to play him. Maybe House will get some looks at first base this year when Berkman is ready to return to left field.
Sounds like a DH to me. Maybe we audition him in September call-ups and trade him to an AL team in the off-season (or Spring Training).
Not to be pedantic, but I'm not sure if "kid" is really appropriate given that he'll turn 27 at season's end. He can hit, but he's not necessarily a prospect as such.
If Berkman returns to left field you may as well etch his name on the DL because that's where he'll be most of the time. The more he stays at first, the more he stays in the lineup. Apparently, his groin doesn't like to play left.
But he hurt his groin running the bases, and then tweaked it in RF. That said, if Luke Scott keeps hitting, he'll be our everyday left fielder, I'd imagine. So if Berkman were to play the OF, it would be in right.
Don't think so. On Thursday, Berkman aggravated the left groin strain that kept him out of commission for one game earlier in the week...Berkman tweaked the groin strain running to first in his final at-bat on Thursday and was replaced by a pinch-runner. http://houston.astros.mlb.com/NASAp...t_id=1580210&vkey=news_hou&fext=.jsp&c_id=hou IIRC, he's hurt himself everywhere else - basepath, batter's box, playing 1st - but not in the OF. Not that that's predicative of anything, but he's just as likely to aggravate it hitting & running or making a quick move on a batted ball playing 1B. He strained his knee earlier this year stretching for a ball at 1st, btw, then re-aggravated it swinging the bat. If there comes a point where moving him to RF - on a regular or part-time basis - helps Gar fill out the best lineup card he can, and if his groin's 100%, there's no reason he can't play RF.
Well, if his elbow problems affect his throws from home to 2nd, I doubt that playing 3rd is going to be any better. He's not very mobile either. Dude just hits...that is all. He's "down" to .455 as of yesterday's game and only slugging .712. Still pretty remarkable considering he's never played at this level and took a year off.
I don't care if he can throw the ball to 2nd base....if he can hit....look at Piazza. I swear, some people here have no understanding of "thinking outside the box". Just keep going with the flow RM, and we can watch the other teams compete for that championship this year. DD
Brad Lidge should be a starter. Yeah, comparing J.R. House, someone who's just now sniffing AAA, to the best power hitting catcher of all-time is way outside the box. Congrats.
Ugh....not making a parallel, just saying that there are catchers that are not good throwers succeeding on the major league level. AND....I SAID BACKUP catcher..... I would not mind seeing Lidge as a starter, but he needs more than 2 pitches. DD
So....he CAN catch !!! UcTYWYWZV&urcm=y]Article in Austin American Statesman House glad to be back home Express player relishing second shot at pro baseball. Friday, August 18, 2006 ROUND ROCK — J.R. House has always appreciated life a little more the second time around. That's held true for every stop the 26-year-old Triple-A ballplayer has made during a challenging, injury-clouded journey from the football fields in rural West Virginia to minor-league diamonds in the bushes to big-time college football and back again to pro baseball. J.R. House has been a bright spot since joining the Express, so don't expect the Astros to keep him in Round Rock for long. For a player who has been given another crack at professional baseball, the big leagues would be a nice move. 'J.R. does bring a football mentality to home plate. Every at-bat, every pitch. But he's always under control. He's just a guy on a mission.' - Harry Spilman, Express hitting coach Any more second times around, and he's going to collide headfirst with himself. But this budding Astros star received a crash course in life-building at an early age. Like in preschool. As the Round Rock Express catcher and first baseman said, "I redshirted in kindergarten." He means it. He went to kindergarten in Daytona Beach, Fla., twice, and not because he flunked sandbox. His father, Roger, hoped the extra year would provide him with some maturity. Some 20 years later, James Rodger House has had all the maturity he can stand. If five surgeries and a failed first chance at pro baseball in the Pittsburgh Pirates system didn't crack him, nothing could. Through all his travails, this Mike Piazza wannabe — House even shares the same agent with his idol — has worn out Triple-A pitching since his promotion three weeks ago from Double-A Corpus Christi. Even if his average has dropped to .434. "He was hitting .580 for a while," Express manager Jackie Moore said of House, who doubled and homered Thursday night. "I've been around a lot of dedicated players, and he fits into the top of that category. He's never idle." He's likely to be on the move again soon. Don't be surprised to see House advance to the Astros in September, when major-league rosters expand, even though he's not on Houston's 40-man roster. All he needs is a position. And a chance. "We probably couldn't say he could come to the big leagues and catch every day. He's not at that point yet," Astros General Manager Tim Purpura said. "But he could in time. And calling him up this year is a definite possibility. It's not been ruled out." House knows better than to count on anything. Of course, he began developing a thick skin with the company he kept during that first go-around in kindergarten. "Me and 10 girls," he remembered. "That first day of school, they told me I ate like a pig. I came home crying." His eating habits haven't changed, he said, but his stocky, 6-foot, 210-pound exterior befits a rugged catcher who has been toughened by a tumultuous baseball career. Roger House chose to let his son play as a hot-shot quarterback in Nitro, W. Va., outside Charleston, in the fall and in a highly advanced, recreational baseball league in Florida in the spring. Because his car-dealing father had two residences, House ended up with "two diplomas, two sets of friends and two lives." Two careers, too. His legendary high school football career, which included more than 14,000 yards passing, scared off major-league teams until Pittsburgh drafted him in the fifth round in 1999. House signed for a modest, $300,000 bonus, quickly rose through the ranks and was called up by the Pirates for the last eight days of the 2003 season. Two years later, a series of crippling injuries brought him his release. Over a six-month period in 2003, House underwent three operations and took five cortisone shots. He had Tommy John surgery on his elbow in 2002, but his shoulder was weakened in the process, and he eventually needed surgical repairs to a torn labrum and an injured rotator cuff before the start of 2005 spring training. The Pirates waived him two weeks later. And the can't-miss prospect did. That summer, he received a call with an offer of a second chance. At football. West Virginia football coach Rich Rodriguez hadn't forgotten the strong-armed quarterback who led tiny Nitro to a 14-0 record in 1998. That season, Nitro won the highest-level 3A state championship as House threw for 10 touchdowns against mega-school Morgantown in the title game. That's right, a national-record 10. It might have been twice that, had Nitro not pulled in the reins after leading 48-6 at the half, only to hold on for a 69-52 victory. Self-described as "a short Peyton Manning," House threw for 14,457 yards in his career, another national record, but he spurned football for baseball. However, Rodriguez never lost track of the statewide legend and re-recruited him to West Virginia. House enrolled last fall as a freshman and got into two games as the third-string quarterback, completing a pair of passes for the Sugar Bowl-bound Mountaineers. His new teammates were astounded when they showed up at a general studies class about West Virginia history and saw an ESPN clip of the state's 50 Greatest Athletes. There was House, right alongside Jerry West and Randy Moss. He's closer to fulfilling that promise. Gradually, House began regaining arm strength, and before long a half-dozen major-league teams inquired if he were ready to renew his baseball career. The Astros were fortunate because their minor-league field coordinator, Tom Wiedenbauer, was House's next-door neighbor in Daytona Beach, Fla. He signed with Houston, and the natural-born hitter had a .325 average with 10 homers for Corpus Christi before moving up the ladder. "J.R. does bring a football mentality to home plate," Express hitting coach Harry Spilman said. "Every at-bat, every pitch. But he's always under control. He's just a guy on a mission." A second mission if you will. COME on...bring him up NOW !!!! DD
