This week marked the second anniversary of the firings of Astros’ manager A.J. Hinch and general manager Jeff Luhnow for their acts of commission and/or omission related to “IT”. To those new to the blog “IT” is our shorthand for the cheating scandal that tainted the 2017 championship and hacked off the long-suffering Astro fans to no end.
In the last post, we compiled a list of the Top 10 Astros developed internally during their recent Renaissance.
Today’s post emerged from a bit of exercise your loyal writer assigned himself. In this new era of Astros’ baseball — let’s say since the beginning of the deep, dark bottom in 2011 — who are the best players that the team developed itself?
Normally, when one thinks about teams debuting prospects at the major league level, the thought is that having a lot of debuts is a sign of a rebuild or low performing team. Now truthfully, the Astros did struggle in 2020 due primarily to injuries. Still, the bottom line is the last couple of seasons have featured a boatload of prospects making their debuts for a team that made it to the ALCS and the World Series consecutively.
The Astros, like every other team, is on hold from doing business with major leaguers at this time. They can sign players who are not on a 40 man roster to minor league contracts. They can make moves in their front office, management and coaching spots. They can even wave bye-bye as former or recent players head off to Asia to sign up for leagues that sound like boxing or martial arts titles.
Today we revisit a Chipalatta post from the past and how accurate it was in predicting the Astros’ 2021 season….
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It happens every year. Fans, teams, players enter the season, picturing the status quo with modifications. “Our infield is the best hitting group in the majors. We just have to tweak that outfield” “Our rotation is set. We just need another big arm in the bullpen”. And then reality occurs along with injuries, regression and hopefully progression. It takes no skill to say that some Astros will improve in 2022 from 2021, and some will fall back. So, who do we think will progress, and who will regress?
First of all, I wish each of you a wonderful Christmas leading to a terrific New Year. And leading into this – what are my top 10 Astro related wishes for 2022?
CHIPALATTA 