Astros 2016: Bring back the nicknames

The recent passing of Walt “No Neck” Williams harkened back to a time when nicknames were fun and often descriptive of the players. Whether it was the “Toy Cannon” Jimmy Wynn or the “Red Rooster” Doug Rader or “Le Grand Orange” Rusty Staub, nicknames were plentiful and known by all.

In this more corporate baseball world perhaps nicknames no longer have their place. Or perhaps baseball is just a reflection of the outer world where kids no longer hand out nicknames in the sandlot before playing a pick-up game, because kids never leave their computers, TVs or phones to go outside anymore.

Just for the fun of it – here are proposed nicknames for some of the key Astros heading into 2016.

Collin McHugh – Cool Hand Mac

Colby Rasmus – The Mullet Masher

Jose Altuve – Mr. 200

Carlos Correa – The Captain

George Springer – The Connecticut Flash

Dallas Keuchel – The Beard

Pat Neshek – Whiplash

Jon Singleton – Cheech or Chong

Lance McCullers Jr. – Bulldog

Will Harris – Big Country

Jason Castro – Ice Man

Luke Gregerson – The Park Ridge Rifle

Luis Valbuena – Uppercut

Scott Feldman – Long Tall

Mike Fiers – No-No

Now your assignment is to critique the nicknames above and throw in your own thoughts on alternate nicknames.

In addition, please take a look at the following three players. Some would call these their nicknames in this modern J-Lo world. Yes, these are abbreviated versions of their full names, but in the old fashioned sense these are not nicknames as they do not give a sense of who these players are. Knowing these players, what would you suggest as nicknames for them.

Carlos Gomez – CarGo

Marwin Gonzalez – MarGo

Tony Sipp – T-Sipp

And finally, is there anyone else in the Astros’ world you would like to hand a sobriquet to?

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33 responses to “Astros 2016: Bring back the nicknames”

  2. Because he is the Tony Manero of the Astros, I call Springer “Fever”
    Because he is an official unit of measurement it’s “One Altuve”
    Because he never gets enough credit, it’s Doctor McWho”.
    “Colby Jack”
    Luke “The Force” Gregerson
    Pat “Down Under” Neshek
    Mrs 1oldpro and I have called Castro “Rally Killer” for the last year, so I’ll stick with that.
    Because he came out of nowhere I call LMJ “Flash” It also fits his 91 mph changeup.
    Because of his hitting and his California demeanor, I affectionately call Singleton “Fresno”
    Kendall “Call Me” Giles.

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  4. Altuve = “The Maracay Miracle Man” or “Old 200”
    Springer = “The One Hit Wonder” – in honor of DMc/Wade draft misses.
    Correa = “The MVP of MMP”
    White = “John Fogerty” singing “Oh, Lord, stuck in Fresno again.”
    Rasmus = “The Seale Deal”
    Marisnick = Hard to beat “JFSF” maybe “The Big Tent” because he covers so much ground.
    Gomez = “Yellowstone”. He may erupt at any time.
    Castro = “Jason and the Astronauts” “Or “Jason the Astros Naught”
    Keukel = “The County Fair Mirror” because he makes one look bad.
    Sipp = “Happy Hour” because it is time for a drink (Sipp).
    Gattis = “Evan the Terrible”
    Valbuena = “Dyson” because he plays 3rd like a vacuum.
    Margo = “Paladin” – Have Glove, Will Play
    Singleton – “Who” – because he is on first.
    Stassi = “The Backup Backup”
    McCullers = “Mc and Cheese.”
    McHugh = If he had a fastball, he could be “Mc and Cheese II.”
    Feldman = “500”. His pitching record and batting record in 2015 was .500.
    Fields = Josh “Flanders” Fields – where the pop ups grow.
    Gregerson = Luke “Don’t Pull Me” Gregerson.
    Ken Giles = “Turn Out the Lights”

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  6. How about:

    – Colin “McWaiverwire’ McHugh
    – Dallas ‘Dirtball’ Keuchel [because all most batters can do is hit the ball into the infield dirt]
    – Jose ‘Catch Me If You Can’ Altuve
    – Carlos ‘El Hombre loco’ Gomez
    – Scott ‘I Smell the DL’ Feldman
    – Jon ‘Smoke Gets In Your Eyes’ Singleton
    – Jason ‘Not Long for this Clubhouse’ Castro
    – Colby ‘Ray-Ban’ Rasmus
    – Preston ‘Pebbles’ Tucker [Bam-bam without a bat in his hands?]

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  9. how about “Colin McWho” since most didnt know who he was before the waiver wire pickup. Coby “erasmus” since thats what spellcheck changes it to everytime i type it.

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  10. Altuve — The Magician (because of his hand-eye coordination)
    Keuchel — The Oklahoman
    Giles — 100 Giles per hour
    Rasmus — Colby jack
    Correa — Captain Kid
    Gattis — Triple
    Springer — George “Windup” Springer
    McCullers — Lance “Lightning” McCullers
    McHugh — Collin “Doctor” McHugh
    Fiers — Mike Fiers “A No-No”

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    • Yeah I saw that this morning on trade rumors ….
      Since all salaries are referred to by all parties – even $250k might cost the team’s millions if 20 other players are compensated based on that. And then cumulatively – year after year player after player – it makes sense to go to arbitration when your side feels justified.

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    • I think my take on arbitration is a little different (especially this story). I can not imagine the CEO of Ford saying he needs to protect the salaries at GM, Dodge and Toyota. That is bunk. It is a singular occurrence between a player and a team. (And it is happening within a monopoly with a Union agreement in place)

      I think it was Marvin Miller that said only for a brief period of time does a business overpay their workers, because they will not stay in business if they do.

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      • So, which one is lying? Is it the anonymous GM who was quoted, or the journalist who wrote it?
        Is the entire article put there to deceive the fans of baseball teams?
        Is this an attempt to reveal some colusion between teams to stick to their guns for the sake of lower salaries.
        Is it an attempt to enrage players who are already grossly overpaid to get out there and buck the system?
        Or is it just one guy telling the truth?
        What makes some sense to me is that it is an explanation of what some GMs think about arbitration and them not wanting to capitulate to players, knowing that it would be considered a weakness and bite them in the butt much more deeply next year when arbitration rolls around again.

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  15. Maybe this needs a musical bent.

    Altuve = “Born to Run”
    Springer = “Loving Arm”
    Correa = “Army of One”
    White = “Stuck on the Outside”
    Rasmus = “Thank God I’m a Country Boy”
    Marisnick = “Runaway”
    Gomez = “Stuck in the Middle”
    Castro = “Catch the Wind”
    Keukel = Anything by The Beards ??
    Harris & Sipp = “Pancho and Lefty”
    Neshek: “I did it my way”
    Gattis = “The Big Bopper”
    Valbuena = “3rd Rate Romance”
    Margo = “No Place to Hide:
    Singleton – “Better Than I Used to Be”
    Stassi = “Sitting on the Dock of the Bay”
    McCullers = “Young At Heart”
    McHugh = “Throwing Stones”
    Feldman = “Old Man”
    Fields = “The Flame”
    Gregerson = “Eight Days a Week”
    Ken Giles = “Nine to Five”
    Hinch: “Leader if the Band”
    Those left in the Minors: “Heartbreak Hotel”

    And one last cheap shot.
    Appel: George Jones – pick one. “He stopped loving me today” or “They think I still care.”

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  16. My wife was flipping around the channels this morning and came upon the Australian Baseball League championship on mlb channel. This piqued her interest with our son Peter living down under.
    Well the big hero for the champion Brisbane team? Former Astro Travis Blackley who pitched 6 innings of one run ball in the rain. I think I caught a glimpse of Astro farm hand Mark Wik too for losing side Adelaide.
    Kind of fun.

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      • Well I guess it makes some sense since Australia is a Western country where they speak English and where they also have summer when we have winter. The stadium they were in looked like somewhere between high school and college. Still it looked like fun.

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  17. A Couple of things I would like to point out about this upcoming season Is that when the Astros were trying to get Kimbrel from San Diego, they weren’t willing to part company with Joseph Musgrove. When it came time to get Giles from Philly, they were willing to part with Appel, even though they had a 1.1/$6mil investment in him.
    So what does that tell you about how much they like Musgrove? It tells me we could be close to seeing him in an Astros uniform, maybe by mid summer or September.
    If Carlos Correa were to be MVP candidate material this year, he would have to post a WAR of 8.0 or above(Donalson had accumulated 8.8 WAR and Harper had 9.9 this past year). If we need four more wins to get to 90 wins, there are those four wins, because Correa’s war in 2015 was only 3.9. Getting to 90 wins means that our guys need to post more WAR. If that were to come from an MVP type year from Correa, we could easily see how adding an MVP type season from our SS could turn the tide in the AL West. So far, none of the projections have him performing that high. We shall see.

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  18. I am not where I can send a link but if you google “Kimbrel Musgrove trade rumor” you will find it from back in October.

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