Asinine for me to post it or asinine that it's the truth?

I was just going by Tag's latest update:

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No, Forrest Whitley won't be on the Astros' 30-man roster to start the year. Whitley, who is on the 56-man player pool and is ranked the club's top prospect, has been working out at the alternate site at the University of Houston and isn't on the 40-man roster, which makes it harder to put him on the active roster. He has pitched twice in instrasquad games at Minute Maid Park, and pitching coach Brent Strom said Tuesday he thinks Whitley will be a star. But some other prospects are closer to the Majors than he is, including Abreu and Javier. Plus, Whitley didn't pitch well last year.

Whitley went a combined 3-7 with a 7.99 ERA with 44 walks and 86 strikeouts in four levels last year. He began the year at Triple-A Round Rock and had a 12.21 ERA in eight games (five starts) before being placed on the injured list with shoulder fatigue. The Astros sent him back to the Gulf Coast League in July and he moved up to Class A Advanced Fayetteville before finishing the year with Double-A Corpus Christi. He finished the year strong with a second consecutive strong performance at the Arizona Fall League (2.88 ERA) and will need to build on that.

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cpsencik04 said:

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Deluxe said:

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Interesting to think about what our initial pitching staff might look like this year. We could be carrying 16 pitchers and assume that the following guys won't be ready:

Urquidy - has not yet reported to camp for undisclosed reasons
Peacock - shoulder issues (could be ready for opening day but uncertain)
Pruitt - elbow issues (likely to start year on IL)
Smith - restricted list for personal reasons, maybe back later in the season

Locks: Verlander, Greinke, McCullers, James, Valdez, Pressly, Osuna, Devenski

Likely: Biagini, Sneed, Abreu

That's 11, meaning five of these guys could be on our opening day 30 man roster:

Javier (pretty likely at this point)
Armenteros
Deetz
Perez
Paredes
B Taylor
Emanuel

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I'm sorry but it's just asinine to say those guy should be on the team before Forrest

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The main thing standing in his way is his implosion the past few years in the minors. Hard to promote a guy with a 12.00 ERA last year when every game is so critical in the short season.

Games will be on MLB.tv

dumb fro the 7/20 game to be on tape delay.

Yea. I agree that it's asinine from the standpoint that he "should" be ready by now, but it's practical from the standpoint that he hasn't proven he's ready for the show yet and he's not on the 40 right now anyway.

Someone on Twitter said it best...Yeah it's a short season but they're still trying to win and he had a 12.00 ERA last year so...

Deluxe said:

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Yea. I agree that it's asinine from the standpoint that he "should" be ready by now, but it's practical from the standpoint that he hasn't proven he's ready for the show yet and he's not on the 40 right now anyway.

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I think there might be a loophole where, if they absolutely had to, they could use him this year without putting him on the 40 man or having to accrue service time for him.

Yea you might be right. I suppose the performance issue is a bigger determinant here than his roster-ability.

That the organization would go that route.

While I agree with a season that starts with a 30 man Roster let him work as a 6th starter for those first two weeks. If he does ok then keep him on the 28 man, if he still does well keep him on the final 26 with options in your 6man travel group to demote him if he falters

Two weeks is 25% of the season.

Can't afford to run a guy out there who's unproven even at the Minor League level.

While Whitley is a great prospect the truth is he hasn't had much success recently.

cpsencik04 said:

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While I agree with a season that starts with a 30 man Roster let him work as a 6th starter for those first two weeks. If he does ok then keep him on the 28 man, if he still does well keep him on the final 26 with options in your 6man travel group to demote him if he falters

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Who do you drop from the 40 man to put Whitley on it?

I cannot see any way we roll with 6 starters when we only have 3 true established starters and it being such a short season.

McTag seems pretty sure there is no way Whitley makes this roster.

Javier is a very interesting prospect. He probably makes more sense than Whitley now. He's dominated at every level. He worked well for 40-60 innings when he was 18-20 in low levels then finally got a shot at a higher level. With almost 100 innings in AA/AAA last year his ERA was around 2. Compare that to Whitley in AAA.

From Baseball Savant

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2020
Javier entered pro ball with little fanfare, signing for $10,000 out of the Domincan Republic in March 2015, 20 months after he first became eligible. But he has dominated everywhere he has gone, posting a 2.22 ERA with 512 strikeouts in 377 innings during his first five seasons. He took his performance to another level in 2019, leading the Minors in ERA (1.74), strikeout rate (13.5 per nine innings) and opponent average (.130) while advancing from Class A Advanced to Triple-A.

Javier usually pitches with unremarkable velocity on his fastball but hitters rarely barrel it. He hides his heater well and it seems to come out of his chest while he adds and subtracts from 88-96 mph and creates outstanding spin rate and shape. He also misses bats with a pair of solid breaking pitches, a downer curveball and a sweeping slider, and he made some progress with his sinking changeup in 2019.

The biggest question with Javier is his ability to provide consistent strikes after he averaged 4.7 walks per nine innings last season. Whether his approach will work as well against more discerning hitters in the big leagues remains to be seen, but his deception and creativity could make him a No. 4 starter. He also could become an intriguing multi-inning relief weapon.

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I want to see him too, but with his setbacks the last 2 years, its going to be delayed before he hits the bigs. However, he looks to be on track as the top prospect again.

With the injury issues, it seems like Abreu and Javier will not only make the roster, but we'll have to lean on them for some key outs early in the season. Would be huge if one (or both) of them stepped up though.

Agreed. Abreu was in the postseason roster some last year too. They believe in that kid. Just like James was a last-minute postseason add in 18(?). If we want success in a big way we're going to need Abreu, James, Javier, and the young arms to come through. We can't just replay on our 3 starters and Osuna/Pressly.

Yep. I think we know what we've got with Devo and Biagini, so would be nice to give some meaningful 6/7th innings to the new guys and see what they're made of. And hopefully Peacock/Pruitt issues don't linger so they can help bridge too.

Don't linger for that and because they might be called on to start or open or whatever else Click has in mind.

Socially distant Astros tailgates with the game projected on a big screen? Can we make this happen?

"The biggest question with Javier is his ability to provide consistent strikes after he averaged 4.7 walks per nine innings last season. Whether his approach will work as well against more discerning hitters in the big leagues remains to be seen, but his deception and creativity could make him a No. 4 starter. He also could become an intriguing multi-inning relief weapon."


That's a BIG question to just throw out there and hope for the best. Low velocity and just good placement doesn't always last in the majors

While I get that 2 weeks can be critical in a short season I very blatantly said you play it by results. Let Whitley get a start, if it goes well he gets another. So on and so forth. The two weeks was more of a reference to the period of time we have larger rosters.
I'd have the same mindset of every young guy I'm considering for #5

In that regard I don't necessarily mean run 6 starters in a row. You want JV and ZG running out every 5 days, but the other three spots can be a mix of McC, James Whitley etc etc. McC hasn't pitched in two years it isn't a bad thing to be able to slow roll him.

60 games is not much. We're talking 12 starts each pitcher. Maybe 70 innings unless you're going deep like JV. Not sure there is a need to go slow unless you're just watching PC in a particular game. 2 weeks in this season about on par with a month and a week.

Biggio gunna take it today.

Man its nice to see Greinke out there

Greinke looked good in the 1st. That breaking ball he got Brantley with on strike 2 was dirty

News flash... Straw is fast... just stole 2nd

bearkatag15 said:

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I'd say Greinke is ready for the season to start...

bearkatag15 said:

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News flash... Straw is fast... just stole 2nd

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Man, that was a beautiful throw too. He fast

the strategy is going to be very interesting with Straw starting on 2nd base.

if the 'stros are the home team and the visitor doesn't score in the top of the 10th --- go ahead and have Straw first pitch steal 3rd.

intentional walks will be interesting too. How many visiting teams will just start the bottom of the 10th by setting up the double play. One run wins the game anyway for the home team

Yep

That leadoff walk is gonna happen near 100% of the time I think in bottom of 10th

Those kids were probably like, ".... wut?"

Marvin said:

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Those kids were probably like, ".... wut?"

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I'd question how "great" the meal was if that was the end result.