This is the ultimate YIE (Yes, It’s Early) post. The Astros have played 4 whole games and have not even gone through the rotation once. If this were a 26.2-mile marathon, the team would be just past the half-mile marker. But after many months of speculative writing, it is undoubtedly fun to finally write about the results of real games. So what did we glean from the first series as the Astros beat the Angels three out of four?
A month and a half ago, Opening Day seemed like it might not occur until May…June…..pick a month. But somehow, money or the potential loss drove the MLB and MPBPA to agree that allowed the Spring Training to start late but somehow supported an entire season in 2022. Imagine money doing that.
The long shadow of the Carlos Correa free agency and his eventual abandonment of the Astros (or their abandonment of him) has almost entirely eclipsed the other big loss of the 2021 Astros. Zack Greinke. There are a number of reasons for that at least on the surface.
Heading into Spring Training, there were several questions for the Astros to resolve before starting the 2022 season. These included the resolution of the SS situation with Carlos Correa‘s free agency, the manning of the centerfield position with Jake Meyers out, the makeup of the starting rotation with Lance McCullers injured and Justin Verlander coming off his injury, and the makeup of the bullpen with a 28 man roster to start the season.
Normally teams report to Spring training around the third week of February so that by the time teams are two weeks in, they still have 3 to 4 weeks left in Florida or Arizona. But after the lockout, teams reported right before the Ides of March, and so two weeks in means they only have about ten more days to go before the season starts.
It has been quite a while since the last WTSWTM, but a recent article on the Astros’ MLB website by one of the few journalists left in baseball, Brian McTaggart, inspired this post. As you may or may not recall, this is to contrast what the person said vs. what they meant and today, that person will be Astros’ General Manager James Click.
Two long-awaited actions hung over Houston sports fandom throughout this offseason. One was the eventual dumping of scandal-plagued Texans’ QB Deshaun Watson and the other was the eventual landing spot of Astros’ shortstop Carlos Correa. In retrospect, the scandal attached to Correa’s name is a molehill compared to the mountain looming over Watson for the last year-plus.
One of the most prominent question marks heading into 2022 for the Astros is the potential makeup of their starting rotation. It is a conglomeration of what we know and what we don’t know.
CHIPALATTA 