***Official Houston Astros 2022-23 Offseason Thread***

1,067,878 Views | 12340 Replies | Last: 1 yr ago by Beat40
tjack16
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They should make a WBC mode in MLB the show
agproducer
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tjack16 said:

They should make a WBC mode in MLB the show


I think they are making the teams playable. They are supposedly making a WBC program. Uniforms will also be available.
OKCAg2002
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That Mexico v. PR game was great.
tjack16
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agproducer said:

tjack16 said:

They should make a WBC mode in MLB the show


I think they are making the teams playable. They are supposedly making a WBC program. Uniforms will also be available.


That would be fun. FIFA made a lot of money by adding the World Cup mode, and it's really fun. WBC would be a blast
Lonestar_Ag09
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In this years game?
AgSportsFan89
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Lonestar_Ag09 said:

In this years game?


Yep. From the games website, they announced there will be a bunch of WBC content for diamond dynasty.

https://theshow.com/news/rep-your-nation-in-mlb-the-show-23-with-world-baseball-classic-star-players/

wangus12
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My phone hates loading instagram pics in the thread
tjack16
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Anybody going to be at MMP for opening weekend? I'll be there for the Sunday game
Lonestar_Ag09
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I wonder if it will be open for regular ole exhibition games. My son loves playing as random other teams.
n_touch
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AgSportsFan89 said:

Lonestar_Ag09 said:

In this years game?


Yep. From the games website, they announced there will be a bunch of WBC content for diamond dynasty.

https://theshow.com/news/rep-your-nation-in-mlb-the-show-23-with-world-baseball-classic-star-players/


I have thought about getting it this year, but man the work needed for it all is just a grind I dont feel like getting into this year.
AgSportsFan89
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I pre-ordered it. The last few times I got it was at the end of the season when it was on deep discount. I would like to play throughout the season for once. But you are right, it is one hell of a grind
agproducer
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n_touch said:

AgSportsFan89 said:

Lonestar_Ag09 said:

In this years game?


Yep. From the games website, they announced there will be a bunch of WBC content for diamond dynasty.

https://theshow.com/news/rep-your-nation-in-mlb-the-show-23-with-world-baseball-classic-star-players/


I have thought about getting it this year, but man the work needed for it all is just a grind I dont feel like getting into this year.


They are making several 99s available right at the beginning this year, and they've made some adaptions to try to keep DD fresh.

The best way to grind imo is to play Ranked Seasons. Instead of win totals the last few years, they changed it to innings. You can get premium cards, win or lose, by getting to 250 innings, or fewer than 30 games.
EastCoastAgNc
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The Porkchop Express
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TWELVE days until Opening Day gets us to #12 on the all-time countdown, worn by a lot of glue guys over the years.



Doug Rader aka the Red Rooster, wore #12 from 1967 to 1975 and hit one of the 4 regular-season home runs into the upper deck of the Astrodome. He had bright red hair and was originally a first baseman, but moved to third in 1968 and he wound up winning 5 straight Gold Gloves there from 1970-1975. He had three seasons with at least 20 HR and at least 87 RBI, including 1970 when he hit 25 HR and drove in 87 and 1972, when he hit 22 and drove in 90. After retirement, he managed the Rangers and the Angels, including winning 91 games for the Angles in 1989.





A few years after Rader left, the Astros acquired shortstop Craig Reynolds from the Mariners, and the slender middle infielder wore #12 from 1979 to 1989, playing on all three NL West champions in the 1980s. Reynolds was a native Houstonian and went to Reagan High School, back when you could go there and not feel like you were going to get stabbed. He was a first-round pick of the Pirates.

He never hit for much average, but went double-digits in triples twice, including a league-leading 12 in 1981 in just 87 games of the strike season. That same 1981 season he tied the all-time record for triples in a game with 3. Here's the box score of that game if you want to check it out. He hit one in the bottom of the first and got stranded, singled in the third (which included a Nolan Ryan single) and got caught in a double play, tripled in the 5th to score Terry Puhl and Nolan Ryan, who had walked that time, and tripled in the 8th to score Puhl again. In hindsight, I'm not sure if that was more amazing or Nolan going 1 for 2, scoring a run, and drawing a walk.

He looked like he had lost his starting job when Dickie Thon emerged in 1982. Reynolds played just 119 games in 82-83, but after Thon's horrific accident, he retook the position. He was a good fielder on turf and anchored the Astro infield for many years.

He is a devout Christian and in 1979 he won the Danny Thompson Memorial Award for exemplifying Christian spirit in the MLB. After he retired he went into wealth management with longtime teammate Terry Puhl and is now a pastor at Second Baptist Church.



The 1990s saw the Astros demolish what was left of the 1986 team and start over, with a young centerfielder named Steve Finley coming over from the Orioles and wearing #12 from 1991-1994. Unfortunately, like teammates Luis Gonzalez and Ken Caminiti, and future Astros JD Martinez, Finley did not start taking steroids until after he left Houston and thus while a good player, we never got his freak show later-career home run performance.

Finley hit .285 with 10 triples, 34 steals, and a .285 batting average in 1991 and the next year led the league with 162 games played, hitting ..292 with 13 triples, 44 steals, and a .292 average. His average dropped off in 93/94, but he led the league in triples in 1993. At the end of 1994, he was traded along with 60 other guys to the Padres for Derek Bell, Doug Brocail, Ricky Gutierrez, Pedro Martinez (unfortunately, not the right one), Phil Plantier and Craig Shipley. I don't have to tell you that most of those guys sucked, because I'm sure you lived a lot of it. For a while, Finley lived on the same street as my grandmother in West U, and she would often tell me on the phone, "Well Porkchop, the lights were on at the Finley house tonight" and I would respond, "Well, that makes sense, there are human beings living there."

Meanwhile, Finley suddenly remembered that he liked hitting home runs and gave it a go, hitting 30 in 1996, 28 in 1997, 34 in 1999, and 35 in 2000. IN 2004 he hit 36 home runs at age 39, which is a totally normal thing to do when you were hitting 5 when you were 27. He hit 32 HR for the Astros in 557 games, 82 for the Padres in 602 games, and 153 for the Diamondbacks in 849 games. Totally normal.



Ricky Gutierrez took the mantle of 12 from 1995 to 1999, starting 141 games at shortstop in 1998, hitting .261 and scoring the game-winning run in Game 2 of the NLDS that year vs. San Diego.



In 2003, the Astros did something crazy - signed a controversial player who was also a really good player. And controversially telling their all-star catcher turned second baseman - hey go play center for a while. Thus began the Jeff Kent era in Houston. Thankfully Kent had lied about an injury the season before and he and Barry Bonds hated each other so much that tensions were brewing heavy at the end of 2002 despite winning the MVP in 2000, mutiple Silver Sluggers, and hitting 3 home runs in their 7-game loss to the Angles in the World Series in 2002. In the ongoing 6 Degrees of Dusty Baker - Kent said the last straw for him leaving SF was Baker leaving to manage the Cubs after the WS loss.

Kent, by all appreciable measurements, was a huge D*bag, but you know when the D*bag plays for you, suddenly he doesn't seem so bad for some reason . Kent hit 22 HR and drove in 93 runs while missing 30 games in 2003, then was a force in 2004, 27 HR, 107 RBI, .289 batting average, named to the All-Star tteam, and hit the best home run I've seen in person, the 3-run bomb in the bottom of the 9th to beat St Louis in Game 5 of the NLCS.



Kent jumped ship to the Dodgers after that and played 4 more years. Despite being the all-time leader in home runs by a second baseman, winning an MVP, being an All-Star 5 times and winning 4 Silver Sluggers, he never got more than 46.5% of the Hall of Fame vote. He did pop up on Survivor one year, hurting his knee in the first episode, and also pretending not to be a baseball player, which one of the girls on his tribe figured out literally 12 seconds into the game.

Max Stassi wore #12 from 2014-2019, doing very little other than letting me riff off the old Phil Hartman joke and name my Fantasy Baseball Team "Did Someone Say Stassi?"


Life is better with a beagle
linkdude
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Blanco's start will be on normal starters rest, no? Seems like he'll be our 6th/7th starter (with LMJ back). I would think they like his stuff more than Bielak's, who seems more like a spot starter.
EastCoastAgNc
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EastCoastAgNc
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The Porkchop Express
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EastCoastAgNc said:


Dusty should fill out this card for opening day, solely for the TexAgs reactions.
Life is better with a beagle
KTAG05
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Which means no Mets in the line up and King Tuck in the 5 hole

EastCoastAgNc
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McInnis
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Quote:

Doug Rader aka the Red Rooster, wore #12 from 1967 to 1975 and hit one of the 4 regular-season home runs into the upper deck of the Astrodome.
He became the Astro's starting third baseman the same year I became the starting baseman of the Lake Jackson Little League's Hawks. I had red hair back then so no surprise he was my favorite player. My first sports crush.

He was the best defensive third baseman the Astros have ever had. I don't think his arm was as strong as Caminiti's but he had great range diving to his left and right turning singles and doubles into outs. He probably would have gotten more credit for that but he played during the same time as Brooks Robinson.

He didn't put up great career offensive numbers but he played during a time when the NL was overstocked with future HOF starting pitchers. Every once in a while he would hit a home run about as far as anyone as the picture above shows. I think the red rooster was only two seats down from the toy canon.

We didn't know as much about players before the internet as we do now. Most of what I knew of him came from reading Jim Bouton's "Ball Four" which was quite an eye opener for me as a teenager (who knew Mickey Mantle liked to hunt beavers?). Rader was a funny guy who never took himself too seriously and was liked by everyone in the club house. I remember a game against the Braves where there was some kind of dust-up, a beaning I guess. The benches emptied and Hank Aaron, who was well on his way to becoming a national treasure, was on the field. Rader grabbed him in a bear hug from behind to keep him out of the fracas, probably telling him jokes while order was being restored.

When the Astros traded him to make way for Enos Cabell that was the maddest I've ever been at the them. I think it took me at least a year to care again. You said Cabell is on your mom's s*** list Porkchop. I'll bet he was on mine first. For me it was worse than not resigning Nolan Ryan. At least by then I was an adult and had lots of other things to be mad about.

Thanks for the memories Doug.

EastCoastAgNc
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turfman80
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Watching Fox Top Ten 2022 Playoff Highlights, and Yordans walk off against Seattle is #6 while Harpers HR in game 3 to give them a 2-0 lead is #5... the bias against Houston is pathetic
Yeah, well, sometimes nothing is a real cool hand
Lonestar_Ag09
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https://instagr.am/p/Cp7wxNgLGl1
f1ghtintexasaggie
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turfman80 said:

Watching Fox Top Ten 2022 Playoff Highlights, and Yordans walk off against Seattle is #6 while Harpers HR in game 3 to give them a 2-0 lead is #5... the bias against Houston is pathetic


Won 2nd WS, DGAF
EastCoastAgNc
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Altuve just tagged out Kyle Tucker. A sentence I hope I never have to say again
All I do is Nguyen
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Yeah this team USA pitching staff leaves much to be desired
No matter what!
Epstein didn't do, you know, the thing...
I'm the rare Astros/Cowboys/Spurs fan. We do exist
Farmer1906
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Garcia looking filthy vs Goldy.
Farmer1906
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A little Astro on Astro crime as TED rips a double on LuACE.
Ag_07
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Tuck has looked great from what I've seen from this WBC.

He's ready to go!

On that same line of thinking I like our position players players playing but pitchers playing make me nervous. Glad Framber is staying home.
Lonestar_Ag09
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Really weird seeing him in left
Mathguy64
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Lonestar_Ag09 said:

Really weird seeing him in left


Short porch at home. It hides his lollygagging.
RVAg02
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Montero still giving up hard hit balls.
Farmer1906
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RVAg02 said:

Montero still giving up hard hit balls.


He was one of the best in baseball at not giving up hard hit balls.
Ag_07
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Ag_07 said:

Tuck has looked great from what I've seen from this WBC.

He's ready to go!


Bump after he takes Luis yard
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