2014 Astros Thread

[Drew Corleone]

Break up the Astros!

Springer for MVP! Keuchel for Cy Young!

[Bucharest]

Guy is going to be a complete stud........if he already isn't. It could just be a "hot streak"......or maybe it just took him a month to "settle in" to MLB pitching, but he's looking REAL comfy at the plate already.

Now if they can just go out and throw $200M at Giancarlo Stanton in the off-season, then they'll be well on their way up while the Rangers are on their way.......................well, let's keep this an Astros thread.

JUST KIDDING EVERYONE, but Springer does look great, and they properly f'ed him over to the point where he won't be a free agent until he's 30....WELL DONE LUHNOW!!!!

On that note, not sure what they're waiting for with Singleton, unless of course he's going to f him over and not get him a season of service time, but there's no way he doesn't get called up at all this year, so not really sure what they're waiting for?

[Drew Corleone]

The company line is that he hasn't consistently performed at the AAA level. I think his being a knucklehead and getting suspended last year did him in. He'll be up soon enough.

Would like to see Appel at least get to AAA this season.

[Drew Corleone]

So, seriously... Springer for MVP!!!

[Drew Corleone]

So, seriously... Springer for MVP!!!

[AtlLonghorn]

Brilliant move by the Astros to draft a player from UCONN because we were in a meeting the other night and with a full slate of MLB games the producer of the 11pm Sportscenter said that the Astros were one of the three games that was on their radar that night because of Springer. I'm so cynical working here I'm fully convinced we wouldn't care about a rookie tearing it up on a last place team unless he went to UCONN.

(Clarification: We damn sure should be paying attention and giving it coverage, I'm saying I'm fairly convinced it's only happened because he went to UCONN)

[mucho hornfan]

So it looks like the Stros have only two positions covered for the foreseeable future.
Altuve and Springer.
Looks like Castro , Villar, and Dominquez may not be the guys we were hoping for.

Sooo.. looking down the road 2 yrs.
1B- Singleton (crossing my fingers and toes)
2B Altuve
SS Correa or Gonzalez
3B- who knows -Ruiz?
LF- D. Fowler/Deshields /Hernandez
CF-Deshields or Springer
RF- D. Santana/Springer/Tucker?
C- Stassi

Starters/relief-
Cosart
Keuchel
Appel
Mchugh
Peacock
Wojciechowski
Oberholtzer
Foltynewicz
.....
Closer- who knows

The strength is a bunch of quality arms in the minors. Likely future position weaknesses are: C/3B/corner OF/ Clloser
Some of these prospects other than Springer have got to start stepping up.
If 3 of the group of Singleton/Correa/Santana/Stassi/Tucker/Deshields end up being above average, then they could fill the 3 glaring holes via trade or FA for a Closer , 3B, and corner OF- if Crane opens the wallet. He should have some money to spend as he'll have lots of young low cost pitching, where many teams end up spending a fortune on FA.
Lots of ifs, but I see some potential for them to contend for the playoffs by 2016.

[Drew Corleone]

I think Castro and Matty D have floors as average MLB players, with above average potential. Not sold on Villar. My guess is McCullers is a future closer candidate. 3B is an organizational weakness, but one that can probably be addressed via FA.

Singleton should be up by end of Summer. Santana is a likely call up early next season, and Correa may not make it until 2016. Would love to see Folty debut by EOY, too. Not sure if Appel's lingering appendicitis issues push his debut to next year. And then there is Rodon (assuming). I think he gets three 3-inning starts at Greenville and they shut him down until February.

[Bucharest]

And on that note, the Astros call up Singleton.......with a 5 year-$10 mil contract that could max out at 8 years-$35 mil, so he won't be a free agent until he's 30, which means he and Springer are locked up through 2019 for next to nothing....pretty awesome Luhnow, well done.

[Bucharest]

Nice start.

[Drew Corleone]

Outstanding to see... and Correa is tearing it up at High A. He should be in Corpus soon enough, I would think. Possible OD SS? He's still really young.

[Drew Corleone]

Jon Singleton can mash the fucking ball, btw.

And apparently so can Chris Carter when he makes contact (he of the .199 average and team-leading 69 Ks). Though Carter does have a decent .756 OPS, and his BAbip is only .226 so you figure once that reverts to the mean, then he is... well, an American League DH.

31-37 with 7 of their next 9 against the Rays. I don't want to get greedy after a little smattering of success the past 5-6 weeks, but...I would really like to see them take care of business in this next 9 before reality returns with series against Detroit, Atlanta, Seattle and LAA.

[12ozLongneck]

He also did a good job directing Boyz n the Hood.

[Drew Corleone]

ba-dum CHING.

[Bucharest]

[beam,coke,&horns]

Astros need to win 4 games out of the 23 left for the people that bought furniture from Gallery back before the season started to win and get it free. Wonder if the firing is going to screw that up? My neighbor has been counting down the days. He bought 9k in furniture for this promo...

[Drew Corleone]

Wulaw Horn (Gabe) from LFZ, who comes sometimes with Ben, did the same.

Porter getting the axe won't affect it at all. They'll probably finish somewhere around 65-67 wins.

[txlonghorn47]

Did you see some College Station furniture store did this for the A&M SC game too? A&M had to win by 10.