He's more a RF than a CF. If he and Tucker in the game, it is a coin toss of who's in CF. I'm guessing it would be Souza as teams generally don't move good bats for a debatable difference in defense. Edit: Sorry Castor, I didn't see the Morosi tweet originally and only checked in the Offseason thread back to the time of Tags tweet.
He was decent player coming off a very good year in 2017, was slumping early in 2018, when he shattered his knee stepping awkwardly while scoring. Guessing he's the 4th OF unless someone steps up or Astros sign an OF to a major league deal. He's probably behind Straw unless he reverts back to being able to hit and run like before his injury.
He was slightly slower than Tucker last season, but still about 1.5 ft/sec slower than he was before shattering knee.
It's hard to have any real negative feelings on a minor league deal. If he looks good he could be a backup OF, if not he'll be cut. Could be a candidate to be sent to Sugarland at this point in his career.
I wish him well but I'm not a fan of this signing. Surely we have a minor league dude who has two good legs that can hit .230 with some pop.
The Astros might not want to make another 40 man roster move to add an MLB contract so they could wait until spring training starts when they can move Verlander to the 60 day IL.
This is good depth too have available at AAA. The kind of signing you want on a minor league deal. I like it.
He likely signed a deal contingent on him being called up. He will likely either make team out of camp or be allowed to make another team.
There's a rule that requires teams to pay vererans players that finished the season in the majors (or IL) something like $100k bonus if they don't make a major league roster, so teams release most of the players that fit the criteria. I'm not entirely sure if that applies to him, though. As a RH COF, he's a pretty good fit as a bench bat if he's healthy. If he's a shell of himself, he's probably not really worth keeping around.
The health of him is pretty much it. If he's healthy, he's fighting Straw for PAs. If he's healthy enough to get back to making routine contact, he's likely a backup. If he can't hit the ball, he's cut.
This offseason is starting to feel like one of those Uncle Drayton offseasons. Just 1 or 2 moves away from feeling really good about the team, but they don't happen.
