Wednesday Morning Hot Links

Oh so we're back to having to do these every day again, huh?

*The Astros have signed reliever Steve Cishek to a minor-league deal with an invitation to Spring Training, completing the Old Testament Bullpen Trifecta of Cishek (2021), Neshek (2015-16), and Abad (2010-12). Truly amazing. A blessing, really.

Cishek can make up to $2.25m in 2021 if he makes the club. Cishek will be 35 in June and has a career 2.78 ERA / 1.16 WHIP (2.52 ERA / 1.05 WHIP from 2016-2019). He ended 2021 with a 5.40 ERA / 1.50 WHIP which, sure, isn't great. But his first seven appearances of 2021 resulted in an 11.12 ERA / 2.29 WHIP, and a 3.14 ERA / 1.19 WHIP over his last 15 appearances. He and Joe Smith are going to both hit you with the side-arm.

Chandler Rome: Cishek will provide some competition for the Astros in Spring Training.

*Spring Training, by the way, for better or for worse, begins on February 18 with the first full-squad workout on February 22. 

*MLB.com: The Astros' biggest offseason upgrade just might be Yordan Alvarez.

*Baseball Prospectus released their first PECOTA standings projection of 2021, and it has the 93-69 Astros winning the AL West by six games, the 2nd-best projection in the AL.

*Minor-leaguers Anibal Sierra and Stephen Wrenn were released by the Astros on Tuesday. Sierra, 26, hit .210/.282/.293 between Round Rock and Corpus in 2019. Wrenn, the Astros' 6th Round pick in 2016, spent 2019 mostly in Corpus and hit .247/.336/.411.

*MLB and the MLBPA agreed to various health and safety protocols for 2021. 

*SI: Did MLB use juiced baseballs in 2020?

*ESPN: 2020's lost MLB giveaways could be a treasure trove for fans.

*Outside: My Path to Becoming Semi-Rad.

*On Beethoven, and the Gifts of Silence.

*This Unusual Japanese Train Station In the Middle of Nowhere Has No Entrance or Exit.

*I'm very excited to read this book, which came out on Tuesday.

*A Musical Selection:

Friday Morning Hot Links

*Off-day yesterday (of course) so it was all about Teh Rumorz!

*Brian McTaggart's Mailbag suggests the Astros go after Zach Britton and maybe not so much after a starter. He also says Verlander would cost too much (in terms of actual dollars).

*The Astros are interested in Verlander, but involvement in talks is apparently "minimal."

*Buster Olney tweeted that the Astros "may well be" the most motivated to trade for Britton. Britton has been dealing with a forearm strain for most of the season, leading him to throw just 16IP this season. He has walked seven batters in those 16IP. But he won't be a free agent until 2019.

*Britton gave up 2H/2ER, 0K:1BB in Baltimore's win over North Corsicana last night.

*Jon Heyman tweeted that he's not hearing anything serious going on between Oakland and Houston on Sonny Gray, despite Jon Morosi's report to the contrary.

*Heyman also tweeted that the Astros don't love Justin Verlander's contract.

*The Rangers have started gathering intel on what they could get in return for Yu Darvish, according to Jeff Passan. Passan:
[The Astros'] market is almost assuredly Darvish, Gray, or bust.

The Rangers are not playing well. They just got swept by Baltimore (whom the Astros play this weekend) and have lost five straight. They're 18 games back of Houston and 4.5 back of the 2nd Wild Card spot with five teams between them and getting to be the road team in the Wild Card game. FanGraphs gives them an 11.2% change of making the postseason. It would make sense to get something for Darvish before he hits free agency this offseason (and potentially re-sign him in five months, though Jon Heyman says that's unlikely given Darvish will shoot for Strasburg's $175m contract). Would it be delicious to win the race for the World Series with the Rangers' best pitcher? YES. Would it suck to watch the package of prospects it would require to get him help prop the Rangers back up? ALSO YES.

*Six years ago yesterday Jose Altuve made his MLB debut. In those six years, Altuve has the most hits in baseball. Top Five:
Altuve: 1173
Robinson Cano: 1121
Miguel Cabrera: 1096
Andrew McCutchen: 1018
Adam Jones: 1015

*Fresno beat Las Vegas 18-5, hitting five home runs. Jon Kemmer (2HR), Derek Fisher, and Preston Tucker (5RBI) each had three hits. A.J. Reed added two home runs and 5RBI. Fresno scored 61 runs in the four-game series at Las Vegas. Their 149 home runs leads all of minor-league baseball by 18 HR.

*Dexture McCall and Jason Martin went back-to-back in a 5-3 Corpus win at Midland. McCall has homered in four straight games for Corpus.

*Buies Creek scored the last eight runs of the game in an 8-3 win over Carolina. Anibal Sierra was a double shy of the cycle, finishing 3x4 with 5RBI. Myles Straw, Jake Rogers, and Tyler Wolfe had two hits each. Kevin Hill threw the final 3.2IP, allowing 1H/0ER, 5K:0BB.

*In this podcast Forrest Whitley talks about his first full pro season.

*How do you not know how to spell Keuchel by now? Matijevic? I get that. Bukauskas? Sure. They're minor-leaguers, just drafted. But Keuchel? Come on...

*Jeff Passan: The loudest voices for change in a collapsing Venezuela are coming from MLB.

*Here's a story from Minnesota on autograph culture (this is a hobby that I simply do not understand, but whatever, to each their own.)

*

.@EVR551 for the #AstrosTwitter win today. pic.twitter.com/3G80uGFdPj

— Brain ⚾️ (@CranesBrain) July 20, 2017

Saturday Morning Hot Links

*The Masked Marvel has the recap of last night's 2-1 win over the Angels. The Astros' nine-game winning streak over Anaheim is a franchise record against an AL team, and the longest winning streak over a single team since the 2004-2005 seasons.

pic.twitter.com/LWXDTdA5Ox

— Gurriel's Intellect⚾ (@big_john819) July 23, 2016

*The Royals beat the Rangers, The Mariners beat the Blue Jays. The A's beat the Rays.

*So the Astros are 2.5 back of Southeast Denton, three up on the Grand Marniers. The Red Sox and Blue Jays both lost, so the Astros are 3.0 GB of Boston for WC1 and 1.5 GB of Toronto for WC2.

*The County Mountie has your potential Astros trade targets.

*FanGraphs gives the Astros a 51.2% chance of winning the AL West, with West Terrell at 38.0%.

*FiveThirtyEight throws the thing down, flips it and reverses it with the Rangers at 52% and the Astros at 38%.

*Baseball Prospectus has it 51.4% for West Terrell and 32.1%

*Lance McCullers apparently became the first right-handed pitcher to strike out Mike Trout in three straight plate appearances. Trout:
He threw me curveballs all night, and I just wasn't picking them up.

*Defense was the key to the Astros win, writes Jordan Ray.

*Alden Gonzalez writes about Angels pitcher Matt Shoemaker's unlucky 12 game stretch...

*Preston Tucker tripled and scored in his first game back in the Majors. Tucker:
Once I got in a rhythm and started getting consistent at-bats down there, kind of getting in a groove, things took off. It took about a month for it to click, but the last month felt pretty good.

*Evan Grant writes about the Rangers' trade plans.

*Quad Cities pitcher Elieser Hernandez struck out 14 batters in 6.1IP last night.

*The Astros are about to finalize a $1.5m deal with 22-year old Cuban infielder Anibal Sierra.

*A judge ruled that minor-leaguers who want to sue for better pay have to do it individually, not as a class-action lawsuit. Finally baseball owners catch a break...

Wednesday Morning Hot Links

*The Astros beat the Diamondbacks for their fourth straight win and their seventh win in the last eight games. Of course, for the 2nd straight day, every other team in the AL West won, so no ground was gained.

*Lance McCullers:
We're playing with more confidence. It's as simple as that. You see guys taking really confident ABs, guys pitching with a lot of confidence. We're just starting to hit on all points of the game when we need to.

*Springer is hitting .457 and the Astros are 7-1 since he moved to the leadoff spot. Hinch:
His job to be a leadoff hitter is to be a good hitter first. What comes with that is a better hitter than when he tries to do too much and get too big. Whether it's mental or physical, I don't really care. I like the look of it, and I think he's made a conscious adjustment to try to set the table for Altuve, Correa, etc. 

*Carlos Gomez's playing time is TBD, but you'll see him a lot over the next few days. Hinch:
It will be dictated over time. These next 10 days (including Tuesday) we face a lot of left-handed pitching, so he'll naturally be in there. We'd certainly like to see him contribute. He's an everyday player in the big leagues. But we're going to make sure we keep our other guys engaged who have stepped up during his absence

*Altuve is currently the vote leader for the AL All-Star team at 2B. Correa is 4th among shortstops, and Rasmus is 13th in outfielders.

*It's behind a paywall, but Ben Badler says that the Astros are expected to exceed their spending limits in the July 2 international free agent signing - mostly on Cuban shortstop Anibal Sierra. The Astros apparently agreed to a deal with Sierra back in April, but will have to wait until July 2 to announce it. At $3.5m, the Astros will essentially spend $7m on Sierra due to the overage tax.

*Here's FanGraphs on the weapon that has become Michael Feliz.

*FanGraphs scouted Brady Aiken's first professional appearance.

*New Jersey's Giuseppe Rossi wishes he wasn't an idiot, should have played for the USMNT.

Monday Morning Hot Links

*Masked Marvel wrote up the recap to the G6 loss at Milwaukee

*PreStros Morning Report for April 10.

*Lima Time Time: Episode 2.

*Dallas Keuchel walked a career-high six batters, and he recognized his lack of command. Keuchel:

I think we'd like to play in a little bit warmer weather, but at the same time we've got to come out and have some intensity. It was really sloppy today. It started with me. I've got to get my act straight because everybody else is looking toward me. It was just really sloppy.

*Hinch promised that the baselining errors and sloppy play will get tightened up.

*The Astros are picking their spots to bunt against the shift. Hinch:

If you're going to shift us and the game calls for a baserunner being more important than anything else, then we're going to factor that in. I'm proud of the guys for embracing that as a counter punch to the shift.

*Evan Gattis is likely to return to Houston during the Kansas City series, where he will see some playing time at catcher.

*Lance McCullers will start today for Corpus.

*Corpus is MiLB.com's 2nd-most talented team in the minors.

*Mike Fiers says the Astros trade has worked out well for him:
(The trade) was a great move for me personally. I had a lot of fun here and some great moments. Playoffs were a big deal as well. Great experience for me. 

*Danny Reynolds - DFA'd to make room for Chris Devenski - was claimed by the Angels.

*Brian T. Smith would like to remind the Astros that the games count now, a column complete with a reminder about ALDS G4. (Alt Link)

*Baseball America doesn't really get the Astros' signing of Cuban player Anibal Sierra. 

*Shin-Soo Choo is out for 4-6 weeks; Robinson Chirinos is out 10-12 weeks. The Rangers promoted top prospect Nomar Mazara. 

*Read Jose de Jesus Ortiz's first column for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

*Vice Sports: How not paying college athletes is racist.

*Before You Go:

And Hinch said "New phone. Who dis?" https://t.co/SZ03kRzb7C

— DeAnna (@ItsAllAboutDe) April 10, 2016

Friday Morning Hot Links

*Holy crap the Not-Keuchel/Gregerson pitchers were terrible against New York. In 16IP on Wednesday and Thursday, the Astros "pitching staff" allowed 29H/23ER, 13K:8BB.

*Ken Giles knows he has a job, and he also knows that he has not successfully done that job.

*But: Yay! Tyler White! McTaggart - or some nameless intern - did a deep dive and found that White is the first Astros player to have 4RBI in his first three career games since George Bjorkman in 1983.

*Puerto Ricans in NYC absolutely love Carlos Correa (alt link) A Bronx barber, upon hearing that Correa hit two home runs on Wednesday:
Arocho excitedly caterwauled a rally cry in Spanish and then translated it. "Rice and beans and pastels all day," he said, referring to traditional Christmas Day dishes that, Arocho assured, every Puerto Rican knows.

Folks if we can't make #RiceAndBeansAndPastelesAllDay a thing after every Correa home run then we have let a golden opportunity slip through our fingers.

*Typical NY media: NJ.com noted that Correa said he loves playing in New York and are already dreaming of seeing Correa in pinstripes.

*The Astros open a series this evening at 7:10pm Central to against the Milwaukee Fightin' Stearns, where the Brewers GM is remaking the club in his mentor's image.

*Lance McCullers will begin a rehab assignment in Corpus on Monday.

*Jeff Luhnow didn't want 2015 #2 overall pick Alex Bregman picking up the "bad habits" that come with playing in such an extreme hitters park in Lancaster. That, and the Spring Bregman had, led him to Corpus to open 2016.

*A day after throwing 107 fairly ineffective pitches in relief of a completely useless Collin McHugh, Michael Feliz was sent to Fresno. Chris Devenski - the PTBNL in the Brett Myers trade with the White Sox - was called up. Danny Reynolds was DFA'd to make room for Devenski.

*The Astros signed 22-year old Cuban infielder Anibal Sierra to a $3.5m minor-league contract. The deal will be finalized after July 2 so that it can go under the 2017 budget.

*The rising trend of young MLB stars switching agencies.

*The larger than life legend of Baltimore's Fancy Clancy.

*An 89-year old Holocaust survivor will sing the national anthem for the Tigers in May.

*How did "You'll Never Walk Alone" become such an enduring anthem?