Today’s post springs from curiosity on this writer’s part after noting that the Astros had multiple players and their manager receiving votes for the four major league awards in 2021, Rookie of the Year, Manager of the Year, Cy Young and MVP. I was wondering about whether the team had done this before in the recent past (they have multiple times) and then it became a bit of a fun research project, that I decided to take all the way back to the year after their first World Series appearance, 2006.

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Of course, the focus today is on Justin Verlander and his decision to forego the rest of the baseball world and return to the Houston Astros for the 2022 and possibly the 2023 seasons. But the person who draws this writer’s interest is the Astros’ owner, Jim Crane.

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This whole Carlos Correa situation makes me fall back on one of my favorite baseball philosophy movies “Moneyball”. Here’s a short scene with Brad Pitt playing the Oakland A’s GM, Billy Beane and Jonah Hill playing the super nerd, Peter Brand, he brings in to help him work through the loss of Johnny Damon, Jason Isringhausen and Jason Giambi.

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Maybe all that needs to be said about Carlos Correa was said here.

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As I wrote in the comments the other day (which seems like a week ago at this point), the plan was to write a World Series wrap-up and then move on to discuss the Astros’ free agents with the deadline for making a qualifying offer only a few days away.

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The Astros were shut out in Game 3 of the World Series by the Atlanta Braves and wanted to win the next two games to grab the advantage back in the series, but needed at least one win to make the Braves fly to Houston.

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The goal of teams hosting the first couple of games of the World Series is pretty simple. Win those two games and hold serve on home-field advantage. But when the home team fumbles the first game as the Astros did in the opener on Tuesday night, the goal morphs into an almost must win in the second game.

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The Astros have quite a history with their 2021 World Series opponents, the Atlanta Braves, and so does this writer.

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