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Astros 2024: YIE morphs Into INSE

As Sarge, a friend of the blog, pointed out, the Astros are now past the 20% pole and continuing to scuffle after dropping the last two games of the Mariner series.

Today, the season has moved from YIE (Yes It’s Early) to INSE (It’s Not So Early).

The Astros continue to suffer many of the same failures that keep them from putting together a winning streak or making a real run at .500.

  • They have way too many games, like Saturday’s 5-0 loss, where the offense just can’t get rolling.
  • Or games like their 5-4 loss on Sunday where two of their supposed “closers” (Bryan Abreu and Josh Hader) gave up two late runs to urp up a lead. This rarely happened in the last few seasons.
  • They still struggle with a poor .226 BA/ .312 OBP/ .648 OPS with two outs and runners in scoring position.
  • Even with a couple better efforts lately, the starting trio of J.P.France, Spencer Arrighetti and Hunter Brown have combined to put up an 0-10 record with a 8.22 ERA. (Yes, I know France is not with the big club right now).
  • Even with Jose Abreu finally put aside for a bit, the Astros still have a large black hole in the middle of the lineup named Alex Bregman. That .200 BA/ .285 OBP/ .554 OPS slash should not be allowed anywhere near the cleanup spot. But it has been.
  • That Chas McCormick (now on the IL) combination with Jake Meyers in the outfield has been extremely mediocre.
  • And Joe Espada has not been great. Would they be better with A.J. Hinch or Dusty Baker? Well, maybe a little, though let’s face it – won-loss records are more on the backs of the players.

The point is that it’s not that early anymore.  The Astros are currently 12-22. Let’s say they need to finish 90-72 to make the playoffs. That means they need to go 78-50 the rest of the way. Could it happen? Maybe, but man, it feels like they are a million miles away from that.

It’s not so early, and it is getting later by the minute.

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64 responses to “Astros 2024: YIE morphs Into INSE”

  1. Good morning. It’s Labour Day here on little Nevis. So far, I’m only hearing the roosters, intent on waking the village.

    Yesterday pained me. In spite of our continuing afflictions, two big homers put us within 6 outs of a third straight series win. Instead, the best momentum building contest of the year was given away. That was a balk. That was a leadoff walk. That was a grooved 0-2 pitch that had to be thrown anywhere else. 

    As I said yesterday, the back end of the bullpen has controlled our destiny even more so than Abreu and Bregman, Brown and France and Valdez and Chas and others. We’re pretty much a .500 team today with a solid back end of the bullpen. 

    Whether Crane or Bagwell or Dana Brown is responsible for Hader, it does not matter at this point. Knowing that would only be good for finger pointing.

    Abreu, Pressly, Hader. They have to suck it up and come around. They have to do it now. They have to work together. Create an us against the world mentality if that’s what it takes.

    This team will hit. and for the most part, we will pitch well especially as guys get healthy. But we can’t give away games. And we can’t get new guys in place of the guys we’re all in with. It’s got to happen now.  

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  2. Let’s face it – a lot of what is happening has to be demoralizing, but to me there is nothing more demoralizing than blowing leads. I think it is the most likely failure to lead to a team hangover. Players start expecting something bad to happen.

    I don’t think the three bullpen guys are pulling for each other – but that is just pulling something out of my posterior.

    Jon Singleton – Mr. Clutch? He’s certainly doing a ton more than Abreu was.

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  3. Teams rise and teams decline.

    Royals won a WS and disappeared.

    Red Sox won a WS and disintegrated.

    Washington won a WS and fell apart.

    Astros won two and are now in decline.

    I could continue with the same in the NFL and the NBA. It is inevitable.

    A team rises to the top and eventually falls.

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  4. It always has been and always will be about the starting rotation. The Mariners offense is as lethargic or maybe worse than ours. You can scratch out wins when you have quality starts. You can’t have 3 starters combine to make 16 starts and can’t find a win, matter of fact, the are 0-10 and have lost a lot of games in the first or second inning. Imagine if they were just .500 pitchers. If Brown was as advertised this team could be 14-20 or 15-19 and not have this abysmal feeling.

    Hunter Brown should be moved to the pen. His arm is to dynamic to send to AAA and hope he starts finding some command in 5-6 AAA starts. Put him in so-so leverage, have him hone in on 2 pitches, his fastball and probably that split-change thing he throws, and work on those two pitches exclusively. Limiting him to 20-25 pitches in an outing takes the pace out, and lets him lock in at 98. Right now, he is a powderkeg. He will have one good at bat, followed by an at bat where 3 pitches miss by 8 inches, and major league hitters aren’t fooled by that mess. You can’t just work from behind against big leaguers all the time.

    This team will be fine. 12-22 is as disappointing as it can get. Lets hope the next 10 is 7-3 or 6-4. If you can get this thing back to say 19-25 you might be able to see .500 by the 60 game mark, and if you can do that, you will be back in the hunt.

    Hader and Bryan Abreu are going to be better. Pressly is spinning it well, his curve is moving, but I don’t know if there is enough pepper left on his fastball to be dominating. He is what you got though. He probably should have been the one in the 8th last night, right now, BAbreu seems a little lost on his fastball.

    And if 2024 doesn’t go our way, this team will still open with a rotation that can win next year. It can be a soft reset, move Bregman at the deadline if he has heated up, maybe even Pressly if he is dealing a little, and focus on getting Garcia and (gulp) McCullers finally pitching, and 2025 will be a good season. Are they the 2019 or 2022 Astros? Naw. Can they still contend, sure. We are just with the rest of the pack instead of ahead of them. It’s going to take more than 32 games and Hunter Brown to kill my mojo. It’s not time to write this franchises run over, yet.

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    • I would not only move Bregman from the middle of the order, but have Dubon or Kessenger try the hot corner for a bit. This might be Bregman’s worst start in his career. So much for the contract year. On the bright side, we’ll finally have a higher draft choice if this snakebite season continues.

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  6. “…have Dubon or Kessenger try the hot corner for a bit.”

    I, too, have been thinking that way for about a week now.

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  7. Well, we’re 7 games back of the Rangers in the division and 8 games back from the last WC spot right now. Given the blogs/articles/sportstalk vultures have shifted from talking about how our bullpen was going to end every game early to speculating what return we’ll get trading Bregman/Verlander/Tucker before the deadline those are important numbers. I’ve struggled to post any meaningful comment on this, but they have roughly 10 losses in games we blew a save, lost in extras, or had a tight game that turned into an L because of the bullpen. We have 8 games I noted as blowouts where our team never showed up. As Steven referenced, a big cause for both of those problems has been starting pitchers not competing. We can’t really sit around waiting for the rotation to get healthy. We’ve got Verlander and Framber back – hoping that’s a good thing – and the team just needs to play winning baseball and chip away until we get some more head to heads with the Rangers and Mariners. 

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  8. Dubon or Kessinger for Bregman? We’ve already discarded the guy costing 19.5 million, which we all agree was a good move, because Abreu looked flat out old and done.

    But sitting Bregman and his 30 million really does not make sense because neither Frenchie nor Kessinger are going to add a whole lot of offense to the third base position and neither guy is an upgrade defensively. And Bregman has historically gotten over his terrible annual starts at some point. So unfortunately, we’ve got to wait Bregman out and hope someone has the stomach to move him down in the line up. Clean up is killing innings. I don’t know if Joe is allowed to mess with Alex though.

    What has happened to Hunter? 13.8 hits per nine innings? 5.9 walks compared to 3.2 walks per nine last year, even as he struggled through the second half of 2023? If we were not moving towards a six man rotation for the immediate future, I’d get him down to Sugar Land to start his spring all over. Did someone screw him up, or is this all of his own doing? Maldy could not help him last year in the second half. And he’s gone from bad to worse. Yainer does not call for balls a foot out of the zone. So what is it? Steven, I’d be afraid to use him out of the pen. He needs an intervention.

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    • “I don’t know if Joe is allowed to mess with Alex though.”

      I suspect that’s probably the closest to the truth as anything else.

      This front office is dysfunctional. The org chart must look like a bowl of spaghetti……

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  9. I get where you are coming from on the bullpen. I would not go with high leverage. He would be my 6th inning we are down by 3 or up by 3 guy, kinda like Montero. It might force an upgrade for Montero but Espada has already been forced to use him in game deciding moments a little this year.

    To me, if you can take a guy that has command issues (which is how most guys end up in the bullpen) and say, ok, don’t focus on throwing a FB, and a slider, and a cutter, and a split-curve, just a FB and your best secondary pitch, and work on those 2, and by the way, don’t pace yourself, its just 20-25 pitches, so chase velocity – it might be something he can figure out. It may not be, and he may go out there 3 times and turn 3 run deficits into 6 run deficits, and that would certainly land him in AAA. He might also rev up in that role, start throwing more strikes (the harder to hit strikes, not the on a tee kind), and give you a guy that could be a high leverage, 1 inning go to guy by August.

    As for what has caused this, I don’t know. It’s possible he and France both were guys that no one had a book on, not a lot of detail and film in the minors, they both caught hitters by surprise. Now hitters know what to look for out of his hand to where the pitch is going, and his inability to hit corners either just in the zone or just out of the zone is caught up to him. I just know, you can’t miss like that no matter how good your arm is. 3 pitches a foot off the plate means the 4th pitch is going to be in the zone where the hitter wants, and repeating that over and over and over, turns out, that is bad for your ERA. Funny game this is.

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  10. Bregman batting cleanup again. Absolutely no expectations of picking up a series win in NY. Not even with JV.

    But at least I’m happy.

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  11. I’m beginning to think that Espada is not the right guy for the job. He keeps putting Bregman in the # 4 spot and since we gave Dusty hell for always playing Maldonado and Abreu in the #4 spot it makes me wonder. When Abreu “balked ” the other night the umpire told him don’t come out and he didn’t. There have been some terrible calls at the plate and he does nothing. How about a little emotion there Mr Espada?

    Tight now I wouldn’t be surprised to see this team lose 100 games. Talk about a BIG disappointment! I know he can’t hit, pitch, run bases, etc., but this is ridiculous. maybe I’ll watch some of the game tonight but then again, maybe not.

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  12. Yup, that’s our cleanup guy walking back to the dugout to fetch his glove after killing another rally deader than a fence post. Thanks, Alex. For nothing.

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  14. Having the MLB package affords me the convenience of watching other gms. Sad to say but I agonize and am growing weary of seeing our offense fill up the box scores with so many goose eggs much to often. I know, this will change someday. Patience is truly a virtue. Guess that’s why I keep flipping back.

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  16. The Sunday afternoon breakdown by the pen and subsequent loss seems to have taken more out of the club than it did me. It’s getting harder to envision a way out of this mess that will put the team back into contention in 2024. What this group needs pretty soon is that 8 or 10 game winning streak Dana Brown keeps talking about, but everywhere one looks, there are issues. I don’t see a winning streak on the horizon. It’s not a very well built team and it’s a team that is underperforming at all levels. All levels. The secretive front office, run by whatever individual or group of individuals, has really failed the organization. I’m starting to think that in order to minimize a rebuilding and keep it a retooling would take a new set of eyes, given to autonomy to actually make personnel decisions. And I think there is no chance that will happen. I’m not sure how enticing the Houston GM job for anyone in the business would be right now.   

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  17. I have no problem – well, not TOO MUCH of a problem – with writing this year off as ‘not our year’. This team might have the talent, but it clearly does not have either the chutzpah or the leadership necessary to fight its way back to respectability this season.

    But one thing is clear: at the top, a lot of heads need to roll. New eyes, new ideas, new personnel. New GM. New field Manager. New pitching coach – with a whole new approach, because whatever they are doing now is NOT WORKING. New batting instructor and approach. New bench coach. Whatever is not working – which is everything – needs to go. Out with the old, in with the new – or we have learned nothing from this complete and utter collapse - and next year we’ll just be older and more frustrated.

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  18. Last night was tragic. It’s time for a shakeup.

    I’ll give you the Steve version.

    DFA Henley. He likely isn’t getting picked up, he can stay at AAA. DFA Abreu, we know he isn’t getting touched. Leave him in Florida and tell him keep working. Put Leon and Whitcomb on the 40 man, call up Shey, demote Meyers.

    I like Meyers to fill a role, but with Loperfido there now and Dubon on the roster, Meyers is going to see less and less time. If you can pair him with, say, Corona, for a middle reliever and free up 1 more 40 man spot, go for it.

    I would move Bielak into the rotation, and Dubin (on a very short leash, maybe 1 or 2 starts as an audition). Move Brown to the pen, demote Arrighetti, call up Whitley. You just can’t keep throwing guys out there because of potential when you are a scuffling supposed contender. I don’t think you have a choice but to leave Montero in that 4 spot leverage wise, he makes me sad every time they show the BP and he is warming up, its just an utter sense of doom, but who then? Dylan Coleman? They got nothing left.

    I would put Yordan in LF semi-permanent, and put Diaz at DH and play Caratini more. What you are doing in essence is taking Meyers/Chas at bats from earlier and shifting them to Caratini, another lefty. Move Singleton to the 2 hole – a guy that sees pitches, draws walks, move Bregman down to 6th. Loperfido becomes my everyday CFer and Dubon spells him against TOUGH lefties, not all lefties, just the best ones, if he is my future in CF he needs to adjust to big league lefties now.

    It’s all just moving deck chairs on the titanic around, but maybe you can buy a spark. You can put Whitcomb at 3B once or twice a week and see if you can get some offense from him. Yordan can’t have another 28 day stretch of hitting .171, Diaz has got to get back to producing runs, Bregman just needs to focus on doing something positive – just advance a runner, find a hit, something offensively that gets him out of his own black hole that is his head. He says he puts pressure on himself everyday simply as a professional and not because of a contract, but when you know you are watching tens of millions, maybe a hundred million dollars, just evaporate, I can’t imagine.

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  19. I like the “deck chairs on the Titanic” line. I agree with some of your moves, I’d probably do a few things differently.

    But one thing I noticed last night. Cabbage and Tucker feared a collision with the freight train that was Jake out in center. Same thing with Dubon in left and Tucker over the weekend. The CF has to be the guy in charge out there. And although Jake has produced a reasonable OPS in a limited sample size and gets to places quickly, he does not bring much else. How does Jake have 11 career stolen bases? I’d give Loperfido that chance. Why not? 

    And I’m not sure why both Cabbage and Loperfido are here at the same time, because they both do pretty much the same thing.  I’d rather see a third catcher brought up so that when Diaz does DH, there is a back up plan. 

    I’m having a hard time typing this, but I’d give Hunter Brown one more start. I sure worry about Arrighetti tonight. 

    I like Chas, because I think he’s been an overachiever. But with Leon finally knocking on the door, I’d listen to someone that needs a guy that can play all three outfield positions well. 

    And for goodness sakes, move Bregman down. It might even help. On his career, Pena has posted his best stats in the 8th slot, followed by the 2nd slot. Move him up. 

    Something has to get done to shake things up. If that fails, then pretty soon we’ll be looking to how we recover in 2025. And that’s not a terrible thing. We’ve had a hell of a run going back to the surprise team of 2015.

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    • My fear of giving Brown one more start isn’t one more loss. It’s that he goes out and finds his way through 6 or 7 strong innings. Because that makes everyone exhale, and buys him time. In that time he might blow 4 more games before someone finally does something.

      I have to scratch something off the news I just saw this morning – Javier will be starting on Saturday or Sunday. So I could belay that Whitley order, leave him at AAA, demote Brown to the pen and give Bielak a few starts to see if he can give a QS or two in a month. At least he throws strikes.

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    • One correction – just heard the news about Javier, so Bielak to the rotation and Arrighetti to AAA, Brown to the pen.

      My take on Brown, I fear one more start. What happens if Brown finds his way through 6 good innings? A bunch of people exhale, and he gets more rope to lose 4 more games before someone finally takes action. I’ve seen enough. If anyone can show me an example of a guy throwing the ball all over the place all of a sudden in the middle of it all just started throwing darts, I’ll change my mind.

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      • I’m a big fan of the sunk cost fallacy, but want to see him throw again before we cut ties. It’s not like we have better options at Sugarland at this point.

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      • Agree Devin. Not even sure its sunken cost yet. Jose Abreu, you know he is cooked. I would hate to see Whitley become a rotation piece of a bullpen for the Mariners in 2026 after we are the ones who spent all the money on surgeries, rehabs, and signing bonuses.

        Do I think he is ever going to be that? Nah. I expect him to be out of baseball by 2027 after never having any success. But when you can hit 98 there is always some distant possibility that you can put things together enough to go 20 pitches every 3 days and be effective. And at this point, he isn’t costing you anything. Abreu was actually hurting your team.

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  21. Dave, ‘underperforming on all levels, All!’ Absolutely. Steven, ‘a shakeup’, Absolutely! Would I be wrong to surmise there are many on this blog who believe a cabal of figureheads run this team? If true, when the stuff hits the fan, and it will if this charade continues, who will take responsibility for the mess? I do not believe GM Brown is in charge. No respectable GM in their right mind would hire on if they have to answer to a group of Larry Legends. I wouldn’t.

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    • And if Brown/Espada have to fall on the sword, who gets the call to replace them (choke) Brad Ausmus? OMG! If this committee thingy is true, unless the carpet is swept from the top, then what happens at the bottom might not matter. Just MHO.

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  22. Well, Dave got his wish. Pena batting second. Bregman sixth. That’s more like it, Joe! We’ll find out in a couple hours whether it makes any difference at all……

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    • I’ve never been a fan of believing batting order matters that much. Heck they day moved Abreu down to 8th, that very night, he left 5 on base and the team left 10. You can’t hide anyone anywhere. That said, it was move that probably needed to be done.

      None of it will matter if Arrighetti gets got by this Yankee offense. I’m thinking that is going to happen.

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    • Oops. I was completely wrong about Pena batting 2nd. Don’t know what I was thinking. Brain fart.

      But with Tucker smashing it the way he is, him cleaning up and Pena #2 would make more sense to me. Not that I think it would solve everything……

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  23. “You can’t hide anyone anywhere.”

    It’s not so much about trying to hide the guy. Though if I could, I certainly would at this point. Is there a AA team in Hoboken where he could bat cleanup? But I digress.

    It’s about putting the least productive guy on the team (a distinction he inherited when Heinz Abreu left town) in a spot where he’s unlikely to come to bat with bases juiced and less than 2 out. And fail miserably. Twice.

    Of course it’s impossibe to know which spot that may be any given day. If I could do that, I’d own the Astros and Bregman would be gone like a cool breeze.

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  24. So Robbie Grossman is going to be the solution to the Rangers problems with lefties…..? I’ll file that under “not the strangest idea I ever heard” for now.

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  25. At the risk of sounding like an Astros starting pitcher, I don’t think I can go much further today, y’all.

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  26. At .333 this ship looks rudderless. More and more I grow tired of Espada just like Baker. It didn’t take Nostradamus to look ahead a week and say to yourself “playing the Yankees in NY is a little over the head of Spencer Arrighetti at this point.” A week ago they could have made a move that would have prepped a Bielak start/bullpen game for that spot.

    One day there maybe production to be had from Arrighetti and Brown and France. Right now, this team doesn’t have the time to keep bringing the kids along. It has a .333 winning percentage and they are doing nothing as a front office or a manager to make any kind of move at all. I know there is danger in shaking things up, and you can go back 2 years ago and look at posts were multiple people started sounding alarms about organizational depth – and here we are. They spent big money on pieces and did nothing to have depth. Now, when the inevitable happens, injury and fall off, they look to “shake things up” and stare squarely in the face of people no one has ever heard of.

    If I see Hunter Brown or Spencer Arrighetti or JP France make another start this year, I will be on the verge of turning off the Astros for good for 2024. Because trotting them out there is the very definition of insanity. 17 starts, 0-11 record, 1 QS. Whose idea was Blair Henley? Was it give a fan a chance to pitch day? Out of the 15000 people present they could have asked a fan to throw on a uniform and take the mound and got the same thing.

    Does watching bullpen guys blow games or the sheer number of 3 up 3 down innings or the Tucker solo shots frustrate me? Of course. But if this was the 2022 Astro rotation dealing QS after QS even with all of those frustrations we would be .500. The issue is continuing to throw guys out there that give up 5 or 6 runs, frustrate everyone else on the roster, the fans, and my sanity. If you take those 18 starts made by those 4 pitchers named above, we are basically a .500 team. We can look at .500 and know that isn’t going to win a division but it gives a time to get guys back.

    And this love the franchise is giving Pena. Batting him cleanup? I don’t care if he is hitting .315, glad someone on this franchise is, but he has pretty useless at bats. He is singling the other team to death? Well, not really. Fangraphs tracks a stat called win probability added (WPA) – and he is in the bottom 10 in all of baseball. The Astros have 3 of the worst 10, and you won’t be surprised to find Abreu and Bregman there. I went to fangraphs looking at Pena because I felt there was just something missing, and right there, big article, very fangraphy in its nerd way, but answered my question. Think about this – how many times have you seen Pena do something that give them a lead? Or won a game? He should be batting 8th, thats it, and not moving.

    Just mismanagement from the get go.

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    • I misread your post and initially believed you were saying we were 1/3 of the way through the season when in fact it’s just over 1/5 of the way. Regardless, that means Tucker is on pace for a 50 HR season and Bregman is on pace for 5. 

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      • Yea, I always tell people I’m a Texan, I speak Texan, English isn’t my first language. But here, I am talking to other Texans. I have to even re-read my own stuff slowly sometimes lol. Angry typing usually leads to unclear writing.

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  27. Things are tough. Spencer really looked like an AAA pitcher playing in the wrong league. And the real Dubin has stood up. I don’t know why Jeremy Peña hit 4th, but it worked last night. I was thinking second. Alvarez continues his career worst slump. Bregman continues his career worst slump. Heck, keep playing the freight train in center as long as he’s hitting. We might get a pitcher for him. Keep Frenchie in the line up until he goes 0 for 12.. And rather than letting the guy rust, send Loperfido back down. I know Dana Brown considers him a “nice utility piece” but sitting him is not going to help his development. I’m staying on record, the guy is a ML player. A good one. A full time one. He’s played too much minor league ball at first not to get a chance there. Singleton is not is not going to become a new guy. It would be a great story and we really need one right now, but he won’t be the answer. Gosh this post reads negative today. But I keep reminding myself that our Astros have given us a whole lot of happiness over the past decade. I’m really grateful. But my only real concern is that I don’t think the present organization knows how to fix things.   

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    • I feel like Espada has stuck to the lefty/righty thing pretty tight with Loperfido, but his intent is to play him regularly, not as a utility piece. He wasn’t in the lineup last night because of Rodon, and I wouldn’t play him against Rodon either. That’s one tough lefty when he is on. But I wouldn’t have pinch hit for him the other night with Dubon against some non-descript I can’t even remember the name of lefty reliever against the Mariners the other night. Those are the guys he needs ABs against to get better at handling major league lefties if he is going to be a regular.

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  29. Someone much wiser than myself once said ”If we want things to stay as they are, something is going to have to change”. This got too bad, too quick, not to think there is a serious void in leadership.

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      • “….Old Players committee…”

        Not sure about that moniker, Dave. The only one of those guys older than me is R Jackson. The killer B’s are just kids to me, buddy….

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  33. I’m just looking at two teams and thinking there might be something there. Baltimore needs a closer. Pressly needs to close.

    It’s been awhile since we played fantasy baseball GM version. I would propose a trade to Baltimore today where we take Kimbrel and his 12M off their hands for Pressly and his 15M with an option that he is likely vesting at another 15M. I would ask they put OF Dylan Beavers in the deal.

    It’s not like Kimbrel can cost us our 2024 season. If he continues to just stink, release him, Beavers is the real target here, as well as being free of that 15M for 2025 for an aging Pressly. Baltimore gets their closer for this season and can deal with 2025 in 2025, right now they are in a dogfight.

    Baltimore may balk, Beavers hasn’t had the power they thought he would but he has proven he can hit so far. Won’t know if you don’t make the call.

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    • Steven, with Zach Dezenzo unable to play and falling behind in his development, I’d be looking for third base prospect almost ready to go. That’s a tough ask, but at this point we need to start our post Bregman planning. I’d include a Chas or a Jake too. 

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      • I thought about that too – I had an idea for a super trade involving Tucker. I just don’t know if I would have the heart to trade Tucker if I think I can contend in 2025.

        But just for arguments sake – Tucker to the Tigers for Keith Colt, Kevin McGonigle, and Jaden Hamm.

        Colt immediately goes to third base, and McGonigle is a SS that can switch to 2B or 3B and future big leaguer. Hamm is the wildcard, live arm, throws strikes, but might be a few years away.

        You could ask for Jung instead of Colt, but they might balk at that. Probably worth being a start point though.

        Then you are free to move Bregman for whatever prospect anyone is willing to offer.

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    • That would be a huge win for Pressly except that he’ll have to face the Yankees more often. I’m ready to see Brown make his mark. I’m really tired of people making remarks about Crane not retaining Click. I don’t want to sound like I’m defending Crane, but Click wasn’t good except for getting Maton and Diaz from the Indians.

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      • Devin, you’ve got to admit that when the Astros won a 106 regular season games and the World Series in 2022 and Click was offered just a one year deal to return, it was rather unprecedented. And you’ll remember that Crane had already announced Dusty Baker would return in 2023 without consulting with Click. Clearly, there were dynamics involved that we’ll likely never hear about. We’ll have to see what Clicks picks do going forward. But my own take is that when James Click left we lost a certain level of stability along with him. Abreu, Montero, I don’t think he would have done those deals. And today, I’m not sure if we’ve got a traditional GM in place.

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  34. The Astros minor leaguers had a clean sweep yesterday as all five teams playing lost their games.

    The highlight was Sugarland’s 22-3 loss at home.

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  36. It’s pretty clear at this point that Framber has decided on his preferred catcher. I’d like to see him take ownership of his game and start pitching to expectations.

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