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2018-2019 Astros Offseason Thread


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trying to temper my level of excitement...but stuff like this makes it difficult...

Matt
2:17
Convince me Forrest Whitley isn't the rare #1 pitching prospect? He has 4-5 plus pitches with a plus-plus being able to be thrown on the two most important(fastball/changeup). I mean how many starters have better stuff in the majors? You could count on one hand.
 
Eric A Longenhagen
2:17
No.
 
 
Just read the report on the 100, we clearly agree with you
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23 hours ago, Mez2 said:

Toro, toro, toro:

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WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — Each morning from 9 to 9:30, the 61 players in Astros major league spring training gather around their spacious home clubhouse for a team meeting.

Manager A.J. Hinch likes to keep these gatherings light, as demonstrated by top prospect Forrest Whitley emerging from Tuesday’s with a jersey that read “DADDY” on the back. For players like Whitley, who are in their first big league camp, Hinch has them stand up in the middle of the room and educate everyone on their background.

When he eventually gets to Abraham Toro, the topics to touch on will be obvious. Toro, a 22-year-old switch-hitting third baseman prospect, has the unique distinction of being both French Canadian and Venezuelan and speaks three languages fluently: French, Spanish and English.

Whether Toro identifies himself as French Canadian or Venezuelan varies based on who’s asking. He likes to switch it up.

“It depends,” he said, smiling. “When Americans ask me, I’ll say Venezuelan. When Venezuelan or Latino guys (ask me), I’ll say French.”

Toro was born and raised in Canada. He grew up just outside of Montreal in Longueuil, a city in Quebec, a predominantly French-speaking region. But his parents, Douglas and Natalie, are Venezuelan. They moved from Venezuela to Quebec a year before Toro was born in search of a better life.

English was Toro’s third language. He learned it in school and was fluent by 15. He grew up speaking both Spanish and French. When he calls his parents, they converse in Spanish. With his friends back home, he speaks French.

“It’s crazy because he’ll be on the phone sometimes and I’m like, ‘What is he speaking?,'” said outfielder Ronnie Dawson, who roomed with Toro in the Arizona Fall League last year.

Toro’s father was always a baseball fan and imparted his love for the game on his sons; Toro has an older brother, Douglas, who played at Division II Lynn University in Boca Raton, Fla., and in an independent league in Quebec. One of Toro’s favorite players to watch with his dad growing up was Omar Vizquel. While his friends played hockey, Toro focused on baseball, soccer and volleyball.

Toro played baseball at Polyvalente Édouard-Montpetit High, the alma mater of former Dodgers closer Eric Gagne and current Dodgers catcher Russell Martin. After a year at Vanier College in Quebec, he was connected through a former coach to longtime Seminole State College coach Lloyd Simmons, who offered a full scholarship to the Oklahoma junior college.

Seminole State has produced more than 50 professional baseball players, including major leaguers like Gagne and Adam LaRoche. Toro has in recent years become friendly with Gagne, the 2003 NL Cy Young Award winner. He swings a bat from B45, the Quebec-based company of which Gagne is part owner.

It was in his one year at Seminole when Toro put himself on the Astros’ radar for the 2016 draft. Their area scout, Jim Stevenson, scours the JUCO ranks in Oklahoma annually for toolsy amateurs who have been overlooked. He’s responsible for finding Josh James, Ramon Laureano and Dean Deetz. In Toro, Stevenson was drawn to the amount of hard contact he produced from both sides of the plate.

The Astros might’ve been able to get Toro later in the draft but knew of at least one other team that really liked him. They popped him in the fifth round, a risk but one that scouting director Mike Elias was willing to take because of his trust in Stevenson. The Astros signed Toro for a below-slot $250,000 bonus.

“It’s getting old now to say this but Jim Stevenson zoned on this guy,” said Elias, now the general manager of the Orioles. “He was a little more well-known than some of the other finds that Jim has had. I think most of the scouts in the area had at least seen him. But Jim was very high on him.”

Count Toro among those not expecting the fifth-round selection.

“Going there (to Seminole State), I wanted to get drafted,” he said. “But that was a big surprise for me going that high.”

In parts of three seasons since, Toro has flashed everyday player potential in the eyes of some. He’s undoubtedly a bat-first player and has shown legitimate power, plate discipline and a general feel to hit. He hits for more power left-handed, where he gets most of his at-bats, but makes more contact right-handed, his natural side. He’s been switch-hitting full time since he was 16.

“I tell everybody I love watching that guy hit,” said pitcher Brandon Bielak, a teammate at two levels last season. “Just the way he attacks the ball and the way the ball comes off his bat, it’s something special. It’s fun to watch.”

Defensively, Toro can hold his own at third base but has a lot of room for improvement. The Astros explored the possibility of turning him into a catcher earlier in his pro career but have all but scrapped that experiment. The coaches will expose him to some first base during spring training in the hopes of increasing his versatility. He didn’t play anywhere but third base in 124 games last season across High A and Double A.

“I think I’ve improved a lot since my first year in pro ball,” Toro said of his defense. “I think mostly it’s just overall my range. I think I can cover more ground.”

Toro opened a lot of eyes with his performance in the Arizona Fall League, where a small adjustment to simplify his swing paid dividends. After working to get lower in his stance and tamp down his leg kick, he posted a .348/.463/.561 line in 80 plate appearances.

The Astros might send Toro back to Corpus Christi this season, as he hit only .230/.317/.371 in 202 plate appearances in Double A after batting .257/.361/.473 in 349 plate appearances in High A to start the year. The January trade of J.D. Davis to the Mets cleared a path for Toro to become the organization’s best upper-level depth option at third base.

“He’s made himself into a very intriguing prospect,” Hinch said.

Toro should see plenty of Grapefruit League action in his first big league camp, particularly with star third baseman Alex Bregman coming off January surgery to remove two bone chips from his right elbow. “I think he’ll play a lot, especially early,” Hinch said of Toro. The more comfortable Toro can become at both corner infield spots, the better the odds of him contributing at some point in Houston.

“He is like the most underrated prospect in our system,” said Whitley, the top prospect and Toro’s teammate in Double A and the AFL. “There are a few guys who don’t get as much attention as they deserve and I feel like he’s the main one.”

Toro appears to be some sort of Bizzaro World Quebecois-Venezuelan Springer:

43280244781_883e347269_z.jpg

"Georges Spinguerro"

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Some boner inducing quotes from the 2019 Prospect Digest.

“ Houston’s player development engine-quite simply-could be the best in the history of the game”

“there were 510 minor league pitchers to throw 100 or more innings in 2018, at any level. Christian Javier, Brandon Bailey and Peter Solomon, who didn’t even crack the top 20 list, ranked #1, #2, and #3 in swinging strike percentage.”

“The farm’s deep-so deep in fact, that many prospects that didn’t crack the top 20 would likely fall in the majority of top 10s across the league”

On Bryan Aubreu, (whom he had as the Astros #10 prospect.) “The curveball may be the best in the minor leagues. Period.”

“In terms of peak, Alvarez (his #5) should settle somewhere around .280/.350/.540.”

Tucker(#2)-“Since 2006, here’s the list of 21 year old hitters to post at least a 140 wRC+ mark in the PCL (min 350 PA)-listed in descending order: Kyle Tucker, Anthony Rizzo, and Adam Jones.”

Whitley (#1)-“In the conversation as one of the best pitching prospects in recent memory”


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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40 minutes ago, UTexasFight said:


Find a friend with directv or Uverse.
Buy them a case of beer in exchange for online login
That’ll at least get you access to stream wherever you want

Do you have to have uverse in the southwest? I'm not in Texas and tried to log in and got a message that said it wasn't available on my uverse system. 

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2 hours ago, mycox said:

Are the popups as bad on MLB Reddit as NBA? NBA is also a pain in the ass to find a good stream.

i've never streamed nba, but for mlb/nfl there are 3 popups in a row when you first start - then zero for the rest of the game.  there are several options to stream, both home and away, and i typically clicked the same one for every game and they tell you how many popups there are.

it's been months, so i can't remember what the stream is called, but i'll know it when i see it.  when the games start, i'll post it on here for sure.

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Do you have to have uverse in the southwest? I'm not in Texas and tried to log in and got a message that said it wasn't available on my uverse system. 

Yeah, I would imagine.
I don’t know that anyone in Texas with ATT Southwest is getting mariner or pirate games from the other regional ATT networks

If you’re not in Texas (or Astros blackout market) just spring for the MLB.TV subscription. Well worth it. (And even if you are do unlocator/VPN to get around it).

Cant wait for the season. watching the Astros until ~10pm then switching over to west coast games to winddown.
Only slight anxiety is g/f moved in during the offseason. Not sure how she’s going to like that routine... but with our duplicate furniture, I at least managed to finish furnishing the man cave aka dome:
67588594a98a0075957d2c8441368ccf.jpg
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12 minutes ago, UTexasFight said:


Yeah, I would imagine.
I don’t know that anyone in Texas with ATT Southwest is getting mariner or pirate games from the other regional ATT networks

If you’re not in Texas (or Astros blackout market) just spring for the MLB.TV subscription. Well worth it. (And even if you are do unlocator/VPN to get around it).

Cant wait for the season. watching the Astros until ~10pm then switching over to west coast games to winddown.
Only slight anxiety is g/f moved in during the offseason. Not sure how she’s going to like that routine... but with our duplicate furniture, I at least managed to finish furnishing the man cave aka dome:
67588594a98a0075957d2c8441368ccf.jpg

Well, you can view it as a good indicator of whether it will work out with her. 

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29 minutes ago, TonyTexas said:

Marwin gets 2/$21mm. Probably less than he was looking for.

Probably? He was thinking Ben Zobrist money, something like 50+ million.  good signing for the twins, not sure if that park is ideal for marwin. 

Thanks for the memories, hit the most important homerun in Astros history v

 

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1 hour ago, MAROON said:

I wonder if Houston offered him something higher earlier in the process?  

you would like to think so - we offered DK a $90 million extension and he turned it down, so you have to think we offered something to marwin. just looked it up, we acquired diaz back on 11/17, which is very early in the offseason process. we likely made an offer to marwin and he didnt like it, so we opted for another option. 

Boras is marwin's agent, too. 

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15 minutes ago, Scraps said:

Who got that Rosenthal article on Bregman today?

got u fam.

 

 

Rosenthal: Forget his social media persona. Alex Bregman ‘eats, sleeps and breathes’ baseball — and isn’t letting up

Ken Rosenthal 7h agocomment-icon.png 23 save-icon.png

Do not be fooled. Not by the attention he gives his Instagram account, which has 484,000 followers, or his YouTube channel, which has 71,480. Not by his Instagram trolling of the Red Sox’s Nathan Eovaldi during last year’s American League Championship Series, or his trash talk on Twitter with the Indians’ Trevor Bauer this past offseason.

Astros third baseman Alex Bregman, who turns 25 on March 30,  is not some goofy millennial or wanna-be celebrity. He is a ballplayer, and he is damn serious about it. And, he says, “99.9 percent of the time” — adding about 10 more nines for emphasis — “the only thing on my mind is going out there and getting better at the game of baseball, winning and playing the best I can.”

The “Breg and the Boys” videos on YouTube, starring Bregman and some of his friends? The pranking by the group of an unsuspecting youth baseball team with poor umpiring? Tipping of $500 to a down-on-her-luck waitress? Dropping of $1,200 on some drive-thru workers? Well, Bregman is adamant about putting his platform as a major leaguer to good use, but not at the expense of his professional goals.

“All that other stuff,” he says, “is just when I’m bored.”

The truth is, he is plenty busy. Busy trying to figure out how to bat .300 with 30 to 40 homers and a 1.000 OPS. Busy trying to become an elite defender at third base. Busy, at the moment, recovering from arthroscopic surgery on Jan. 11 to remove floating chips from his right elbow, and preparing for a better offensive start than he had in his first two full seasons.

Bregman isn’t satisfied with his accomplishments of 2018, in which he finished fifth in the AL MVP voting and joined Albert Pujols, Alex Rodriguez and Lou Gehrig as the only major leaguers to produce a season of at least 50 doubles and 30 homers before turning 25.

“He doesn’t just want to be great. He wants to be the greatest,” says his teammate, Astros shortstop Carlos Correa. “He wants to be one of the best to ever play this game.”

Some players talk that way. Some players think that way. Bregman lives that way, an approach that sets him apart even in the Astros’ hyper-competitive clubhouse, which includes Correa, the 2015 AL Rookie of the Year; second baseman José Altuve, the 2017 AL MVP; and right-hander Justin Verlander, the 2011 AL Cy Young Award winner and MVP.

“He lives it 24-7,” says Braves catcher Brian McCann, who spent the past two seasons with the Astros. “When he’s not at the field, he’s thinking about baseball. When we’re all playing golf and doing whatever in our spare time, it’s baseball non-stop for him. He doesn’t put it down.

“I don’t know that I’ve ever been around someone who eats, breathes, sleeps it like he does.”


Over the winter, Bregman read Kobe Bryant’s book, “The Mamba Mentality.” Bregman is a fan of Bryant’s and of his Mamba philosophy, which Bryant once described as, “a constant quest to try to be better today than you were yesterday.”

That is essentially Bregman’s credo, on and off the field.

He is always looking for a competitive edge offensively, in his setup, his swing, his video analysis of pitcher tendencies. He attacks his defense the same way, telling bench coach and infield instructor Joe Espada, “Let’s work on my first-step quickness. Let’s work on my backhand. I want to be more efficient on slow rollers.” Same with his baserunning. Bregman, who stole 17 bases in 2017 and 10 in ’18, will say to Espada, “I can steal a few more, make adjustments on my leads.”

“There’s nothing he doesn’t think he can’t accomplish. But he’s willing to put in the work, and he’s willing to start from scratch,” McCann says. “He does not cut any corners. He does not put anything off.

“A lot of guys want to be great but then when you’ve got to put the work in, day and day out, and find out how hard that is, they aren’t able to do it. He is.”

This past offseason, Bregman extended his quest for improvement to his off-field preparation, hiring a personal chef, physical therapist and massage therapist. No longer will he eat a cheeseburger or pepperoni pizza and “drink like eight cokes” after games, the way he did last season. These days, he’s eating chicken, fish and vegetables, drinking green juice every morning. At the advice of Verlander, he’s sleeping more, too.

Until June of last season, Bregman said he probably was getting six to eight of sleep hours a night. Verlander told him he needed 10 to 12 hours, explaining, “We’re athletes. You need the extra sleep to recover. You’re tearing your body down every single day.” Bregman listened, and his body started feeling better. Lesson learned.

Verlander sees himself in Bregman, similar drive, similar fire. Manager A.J. Hinch describes Bregman as a classic first-to-arrive, last-to-leave type who loves nothing more than being at the field. But with Bregman, unlike with many stars, there is also an effervescence, an affability that enables him to connect with every corner of the clubhouse.

Bregman interacts with pitchers, banters with outfielders as well as infielders, uses his Spanish to speak with Latin players — he and first baseman Yuli Gurriel are like “separated-at-birth” brothers, Hinch says. The brash yet endearing personality Bregman shows the public is the same personality his teammates see every day. Even his opponents can only shake their heads at him and smile.

The Red Sox took virtually no public offense to Bregman’s Instagram post before Eovaldi’s start in Game 3 of last year’s ALCS — a post featuring the caption, “lil pregame work,” while showing the Astros hitting back-to-back-to-back homers off Eovaldi, then with the Rays, during the regular season.

“How did you talk s— about someone on Instagram during the playoffs and get away with it?” Hinch says, laughing. “Bregman pulls it off.”

The baseball culture traditionally frowns upon players who invite attention, and has been slow to change even in an age of increased expression through social media. But no one around the Astros questions Bregman’s authenticity or focus.

“The most impressive thing about him is his work,” Hinch says. “He garners respect because he works hard.”

Or, as Bregman puts it, “I want to get so much better, man.”


The 10-year ZIPs projection for Bregman, from a system created by Dan Szymborski and available on FanGraphs, shows Bregman peaking with an .869 OPS in 2020 and sustaining that approximate level through ’24.

Pretty good. But not what Bregman has in mind.

First off, the projection assumes Bregman will never again hit as well as he did in 2018, when he ranked fifth in the AL with a .926 OPS. Bregman says with a better start this season, he could reach his goal of 1.000. His OPS after June 1 last season was .996.

Will Bregman hit for more power? Well, he was sixth in the AL in slugging last season. Become more of an on-base machine? Eh, he was fourth in OBP.

Yet, Bregman believes improvement is quite possible.

“In June, I learned a lot about myself, learned how to drive the ball for the first time really in the big leagues,” Bregman says. “I had 19 (homers) my first year, which is not a lot. I should have been a lot better. But I’m continuing to learn and get better offensively, continuing to learn to hit balls hard in the air to the pull side and to right field. I know I’m a guy who can’t really leave the yard too often to center field.”

Bregman perhaps is being too modest — Dave Hudgens, the Astros’ hitting coach from 2015 to ’18, says his former pupil already “can put the ball in the air with the best of them.” Hudgens, now the Blue Jays’ bench coach, explains Bregman made an adjustment last June, moving closer to the plate. The adjustment enabled him to pull a pitch that is middle or even a little away, or shoot the pitch to the opposite field.

“It’s really difficult to crowd him, so he isn’t worried about the ball in,” Hudgens says. “He’s fearless.”

He also is quite disciplined. Bregman swung at the fifth-lowest percentage of balls outside the strike zone last season, trailing only Joey Votto, Andrew McCutchen, Brandon Nimmo and Mookie Betts. His overall swing percentage also was the fifth lowest, behind only Joe Mauer, Betts, Brett Gardner and Matt Carpenter.

“He has a game plan every time he steps into the box, and he’s only going to get better once he sees these (pitchers) more times,” McCann says. “He knows his swing, knows what he’s trying to accomplish. He’s just ahead of the game when it comes to that.”

Batting average no longer is in vogue, at least among the analytically inclined, but Bregman, after batting .284 and .286 the past two seasons, says hitting .300 is another of his objectives.

Recalling his 31 homers and 51 doubles last season, he says he wants “to go 40-60 every year.” Hit for average, get on base, hit for power — why not do it all?

“I think he can be about anything he wants to be,” Hinch says. “The ceiling remains to be seen.”


Defensive metrics do not always convey an accurate portrayal of a player’s fielding ability. Bregman stands as a vivid example.

Last season, he ranked 30th among third basemen in defensive runs saved. But the Astros’ internal metrics had him rated higher, and those who watch him every day regard him as an excellent defender, even a potential Gold Glover.

“He does not want to be known just as an offensive threat,” says Espada, who was the Yankees’ infield and third-base coach from 2013 to ’15 before joining the Astros. “He wants to be known as a defensive player. He wants his defense to get recognized.”

The Astros drafted Bregman as a shortstop out of LSU in 2015 on the day Correa made his major-league debut. So much for Bregman playing short; he moved to third full-time once he reached the majors. But he made 23 starts at short last season, most while Correa was out from June 29 to Aug. 10 with lower back soreness.

“He could easily play short,” McCann says.

“He would be a very, very good shortstop, probably an All-Star caliber shortstop,” Hinch adds.

Bregman believes his best defensive position actually is second base, where he has appeared nine times in the majors, including two starts. Second comes naturally to him, according to Espada. The footwork around the bag. The quicker, more compact movements. The shorter throws.

Third base, though, is where Bregman figures to remain for at least the next three seasons, with Correa under club control through 2021 and Altuve through ’24. Bregman says he will continue to train as if he is a middle infielder, but professes no burning desire to move, saying, “I don’t care where I play.”

His only concern at the moment is becoming an elite defensive third baseman, and the removal of bone chips from his elbow should help. Fourteen of his 16 errors last season came on throws, according to STATS LLC, and Bregman already is planning to take advantage of his surgically repaired arm.

“I’m going to move back and play deeper,” he says. “Matt Chapman plays the deepest third base in the big leagues. I’m going to do the same thing. Treat it like shortstop.”

Bregman and Chapman became friends in the summer of 2013, when they spent a month as roommates while members of the U.S. collegiate national team (Bregman played short, Chapman third and Trea Turner second; Kyle Schwarber was the catcher).

When they see each other now, as rival AL West third basemen, Chapman picks Bregman’s brain on his offensive approach, and Bregman picks Chapman’s brain on his defense. “Nothing crazy,” Chapman says. “Just whatever we can do to help each other out.”

Bregman might project swagger, but he is intensely curious when it comes to his own betterment. He has had three infield coaches in three seasons — Rich Dauer, Alex Cora and Espada. Not once, according to Hinch, has Bregman said, “This is my program. This is what I do.” He just absorbed the expertise each coach had to offer.

Ask Bregman to name the player he considers his model, and his answer is telling. He does not mention any of his more experienced teammates, or even an opposing star such as Betts or Mike Trout.

In fact, he does not choose a baseball player at all.

“LeBron James,” Bregman says. “I just think he puts himself in the best possible position to succeed on the court. He works his ass off. He’s conscious of his body. He wants to play for a very long time.

“He has won at the highest level possible. He’s an unbelievable human being. He has helped so many people out. And he’s a leader, man. People watch him and they follow him. And they see, LeBron’s doing this? I want to do this.

Bregman says he also emulates Bryant and Irish mixed martial artist Conor McGregor, viewing them as not just great athletes, but also as students of the game. The kind of student Bregman is — no matter what you see from him on Instagram, YouTube or Twitter.

“Those guys, they’ve got something figured out,” he says. “They’re working on the little things that are going to help them perform at the highest level for a long time.” 

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20 hours ago, Fudge Nuggets said:

As long as you don’t mind getting the computer aids.

Yeah, they are definitely sketchy.  Like some others here, I watched most every game on Reddit last year.  I watched on an iPad, though.  There were two streams that were very good, one with no popups and one with two quick ones at the start then zero for the remainder of the game.

I’ll stop way short of declaring Reddit as a great platform but it did deliver the games to me at home and at work all year.  

 

 

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I’ve watched three spring training games after Marwin signed with the Twins.  Every broadcaster has mentioned how he’s such a great base runner. 

I’m sure one of you advanced analytics dorks can show this is true but based on what I saw with my eyes he was terrible on the bases. 

Don’t get me wrong, dude is a great all-around player and I will l miss him.  But what makes people think he is a great base runner so I can learn something new. 

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2 minutes ago, Fudge Nuggets said:

I’ve watched three spring training games after Marwin signed with the Twins.  Every broadcaster has mentioned how he’s such a great base runner. 

I’m sure one of you advanced analytics dorks can show this is true but based on what I saw with my eyes he was terrible on the bases. 

Don’t get me wrong, dude is a great all-around player and I will l miss him.  But what makes people think he is a great base runner so I can learn something new. 

Fangraphs has him as a below-average base runner. 

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