Fresno has awesome giveaway, cancels it

The Astros' new Triple-A franchise, the Fresno Grizzlies, had a cool idea: Play up this whole Sports Illustrated 2017 World Series Champs thing and give away 2017 World Series Champs rings...on August 15, 2015 to fans attending the game.

Yahoo - perhaps not realizing that maybe the promotion was a little tongue-in-cheek - called it the "boldest giveaway ever." The promotion was announced at a press conference yesterday as part of what would have been billed Back to the Future night, complete with a flux capacitor. The DeLorean-themed jerseys will be auctioned off with the proceeds going to Michael J. Fox's foundation for Parkinson's research.

I was very excited, considering - for the first time in my life - even going to Fresno.

But then the ring giveaway was cancelled. Grizzlies GM Derek Franks:
We met internally and have decided to replace the 2017 Houston Astros World Championship Ring with a more Fresno-centric giveaway, which more aligns with our marketing plans for 2015 and beyond. We do not want a Fresno Grizzlies giveaway to be perceived as a jinx for our Major League affiliate.

Yep, that's the reason the Astros won't win the World Series in 2017: A giveaway in 2015.

But wait. There's more. Fresno's CBS-affiliate Sports Director had this:

@_KO_11_ I was told on camera this morning by GM Derek Franks they had permission. Not really sure what changed in a few hours
— Andrew Marden (@andrewmarden) March 24, 2015

Soooo....the Grizzlies had permission from the Astros, hold a press conference INVOLVING A DELOREAN, then news hits, then the "internal meeting" decides to cancel the ring giveaway after it makes its way to Yahoo and ESPN. I don't believe that for one second.

Evan Drellich sums it up nicely:

It's one thing if the Grizzlies didn't ask for permission. To have asked and received permission and then had it retracted borders on absurd

— Evan Drellich (@EvanDrellich) March 25, 2015

Cool job, Astros.

Oh You Have To Be Kidding Me, or, The Day A Bullpen Session Got The Chronicle All Whipped Up Into A Tizzy

I slept on it. I wanted to see if my perspective had changed with six hours of sleep. (Any more than that and I lose my #edge which hurts my #brand). It didn't.

So let's start with What We Know.

*We know Mark Appel has struggled this season.
*We know that on July 24, Mark Appel threw 6IP, 5H/2ER, 7K:0BB at Stockton in the longest start of his career and the best start of his season.
*We know that, following that July 24 start, Mark Appel was promoted to Double-A Corpus.
*We know that, on his way to Corpus, the Astros had Mark Appel come to Minute Maid for a bullpen session yesterday (Sunday) morning to throw for Houston pitching coach Brent Strom, before the players arrived for the third game of a series with the Marlins.

This is where the plot begins to wobble, because I interpreted yesterday morning's events (and I don't feel as though I was alone) as such: Seeing as how Houston is kind of on the way from Lancaster to Corpus, it made sense for the Astros to bring him in to pitch for possible future pitching coach Brent Strom, you know, to looks at his mechanics, offer some advice, you know, generally take a little bit of extra time with your 2013 1-1 pick in light of this month's events with the 2014 1-1 pick. It made perfect sense to me, a guy who has never pitched on any level beyond BP to his 7-year old nephew.

The Astros, however, did not like the fact that Appel threw a bullpen at Minute Maid Park, just hours before the Marlins finished off a sweep in which the Astros scored five runs.

It then turned into A Thing. "It's (expletive) unbelievable," said one anonymous Astro. Another Astro voiced his concern to Jose de Jesus Ortiz, and dropped even more expletives.

The Chronicle, smelling blood in the water and yet another chance to rip the front office, went full-on Hard Nipples on the Apparatus:

I don't think the Astros' brass was shocked about the anger over Appel. They tried to sneak him in & out of MMP without anybody noticing.
— Jose de Jesus Ortiz (@OrtizKicks) July 27, 2014

Some folks are missing the reason for the Astros' anger. It's more than Appel. It's a year's worth of frustration over FO commitment to win.
— Jose de Jesus Ortiz (@OrtizKicks) July 27, 2014

Many of the Astros feel the front office doesn't care about winning now. That's a huge burden that Jeff Luhnow must overcome. Huge burden.
— Jose de Jesus Ortiz (@OrtizKicks) July 27, 2014

Players & coaches need to believe Luhnow cares more about winning than experimenting with their careers. That's where the disconnect is.
— Jose de Jesus Ortiz (@OrtizKicks) July 27, 2014

And hey here comes Texans beat writer Brian Smith!

For the last two years, players and coaches have believed the front office doesn't care about the current MLB team. Appel's bullpen was ...
— Brian T. Smith (@ChronBrianSmith) July 27, 2014

... yet more proof. It also gives the middle finger to every unwritten rule that isn't supposed to be broken in #MLB.
— Brian T. Smith (@ChronBrianSmith) July 27, 2014

To baseball players, making and staying in the majors in life. Simply getting in the clubhouse is a dream. Appel doesn't belong at MMP yet.
— Brian T. Smith (@ChronBrianSmith) July 27, 2014

And there it is. By getting last year's 1-1 pick in for a bullpen session with a pitching coach before the players arrived for the game, before said pick's final leg of his promotion to Double-A, the Astros have violated an unwritten rule.

Randy Harvey piggy-backed on the hoopla to write a column (which is apparently on the FRONT PAGE OF THE HOUSTON CHRONICLE TODAY):
The players don't believe Appel should have been working out in the Astros' home park until he has earned the right to call it home...the Appel incident makes it appear as if management is either tone deaf when it comes to players' feelings or, even worse, doesn't care.

This is absolutely preposterous. Do the Astros value Mark Appel more than, say, Josh Hader, who had his own thoughts in a since-deleted tweet. Of course they do. They spent $6.35m on Mark Appel, and traded Bud Norris for Josh Hader. That doesn't take anything away from Hader, he's a good young pitcher having an excellent season in a challenging environment. Mark Appel is an older pitcher struggling in the same environment, and the Astros wanted to get him out of there as quickly as possible to see if a change of scenery improves his career. You can swing and miss on trades. You don't swing and miss on your 1-1 pick.

You could say the Astros were trying to sneak Appel in, or you could say that there are only two non-stop flights from Houston to Corpus on Sunday mornings, and they really wanted him to make it to Whataburger Field in time for the Hooks' game vs. Midland.

You could even say that the two anonymous Astros players need to focus more on not getting swept by the Marlins. You could say that the two anonymous players should be more concerned with their own jobs than with what Mark Appel is doing before their game.

And let's be clear: this was a manufactured story. Ortiz tweeted two anonymous players who had problems.  Brian Smith felt as though it was his job to spend a significant amount of time commenting on an unwritten rule of which no one has ever heard. Randy Harvey wrote a column about it. The Chronicle went ESPN on this story, manufacturing outrage (I fell victim) and perpetuating it all day. 

Perhaps you remember a few years ago when the Houston Press wrote about how the Chronicle killed a story examining PEDs and Roger Clemens, among others (http://blogs.houstonpress.com/hairballs/2011/01/craig_biggio_steriod_user.php). It feels as though the Chronicle's pendulum is now swinging the other way, where there has been an editorial directive to be the Tough Voice On The Astros, consistency and logic be damned.

It's not as though the Astros don't deserve criticism. From CSN Houston to Brady Aiken there have been plenty of well-founded opportunities to emote a shrug of the shoulders in print. But this is different. I saw literally zero people taking the players, or the Chronicle's, side on this. "Don't let a minor-leaguer use your bullpen before a game" is not an unwritten rule, it's a nitpicky way to act like a tough guy, to whip the dead horse of the Front Office's perceived indifference to basic human emotion and social skills. 

But if the Astros players don't feel as though the front office shows a commitment to winning, what does that say about them? "The front office doesn't want to win - and I'm Exhibit A in this, because if they cared, I would be on some other team's Triple-A roster!" That's ridiculous.

It's a farce, and I'm mad at myself for having wasted this much time on it. A lot of growing up needs to happen - the Astros players themselves, and the people who cover them for a living.

Some dips**t vendor took a tray of snow cones into the bathroom stall with him

This was first brought to our attention by Hardball Talk (click for video. Or don't.) On Monday - Reid Ryan's first day on the job - some numbut Aramark vendor thought he'd drop a deuce with his tray of snow cones on the floor of the bathroom while he did his dirty deeds.

Reid Ryan - and Aramark - had to release a statement about the gastro-intestinally challenged employee, which you can read here. Idiot.

I'm glad that none of these people follow Astros County

As far as I can tell, none of these people are among Astros County's followers on Twitter (hopefully you are, though, cos it's fun.) But when Public Shaming took to posting screencaps of the Twitter abuse of Yu Darvish last night/this morning, it made me sick.

Click the link, and prepare to be angry at/sad for ignorant people.

Philip Hersh is why I hate the BBWAA

This man, who covers the Olympics - yes, you read that right - is a voting member of the BBWAA, and will pass judgment on the Hall of Fame.

It started with this:
Oh, the joy I will have snubbing Sosa, Bonds and Clemens (plus McGwire and Palmeiro, natch) on my HoF ballot.

Presumably asked why the hell he would take such a gleeful stance when, after all, he was tweeting about Lindsey Vonn's stomach illness six minutes earlier, he replied:
I have a ballot because I covered baseball for nearly 20 years. And I'm keeping it just to vote against the druggies.

He'll vote for Biggio, but not Bagwell. Why? Because screw you, that's why:
Haven't voted for Bagwell. Am likely to say no again.

Hooray, BBWAA. You can kindly go to hell.

(For other, more erudite posts on Olympic Reporter/Hall of Fame Voter Philip Hersh you can read this and this.)

Oh hey. Hersh may change his mind...
To tell the truth, I am conflicted on Bagwell and may change my mind, as I have done in the past with other players when PEDs weren't in ?

Astros apologize for inviting you to have lunch with a deceased baseball player

Hey - so the Astros have apologized for inviting you to lunch with Joe Niekro, who passed away in 2006.

Monday Morning Link Dump

Here's your link dump from the weekend:

*Tony DeFrancesco doesn't respect Ryan Howard, this is Charlie Manuel's complete lack of surprise.

*Fernando Martinez is dealing with right knee inflammation.

*The Astros invited Facebook fans to lunch with Joe Niekro, who died in 2006.

*Marwin Gonzalez just might return from his ankle injury this season.

*Joe Maddon thinks Dave Martinez is a worthy candidate for the Astros.

*Here are the Chronicle's Top 50 Astros of all time.

Jose Altuve, All-Star

Just one year removed from the Futures' Game, 2B Jose Altuve is the lone Astro to be named to the National League All-Star Team.

Whining about the All-Star Team isn't terribly productive, much less "cool," but Jed Lowrie's omission from the NL All-Star Team is a downright travesty. Rafael Furcal got the start, with Starlin Castro and Ian Desmond as the reserve shortstops. Let's take a look at this, shall we? (Stats valid before Sunday's games):

Lowrie: .259/.345/.482, .827 OPS, 14HR/33RBI, .362 wOBA, 2.6 WAR
Furcal: .281/.346/.376, .722 OPS; 5HR/31RBI, .321 wOBA, 1.5 WAR
Castro: .297/.318/.430, .748 OPS; 6HR/40RBI, .319 wOBA, 2.1 WAR
Desmond: .276/.308/.484, .792 OPS, 13H/43RBI, .338 wOBA, 2.6 WAR

Like I said, complaining that a 5th place team in the NL Central didn't get another player on the All-Star roster seems silly, but Lowrie deserves a spot.

Did Hank Schulman say the Astros couldn't afford Beltran in 2004?

Yes:

Carlos Beltran had been traded twice by long-term employers, the Royals and Mets, and knew the relatively low-budget Astros could not afford him after he nearly carried them to a National League pennant in 2004.

Yes, Beltran signed a 7-year, $119m deal with the Mets in 2005. The Astros opened with a 5-year, $75m deal with an option for a 6th year (which would indicate that it was at least a $90m offer), and ultimately offered six years and $102m before the Mets came in with the same math and an extra year.

So no, the "low-budget" Astros "could not afford" Carlos Beltran. But not for a lack of trying.

One Paragraph on Jim Crane

Baseball Prospectus posted 30 paragraphs on 30 MLB teams today at Deadspin. Go ahead, the whole Astros paragraph is on Jim Crane's legal troubles.

This is a joke, yes?

First: I have read this Charleston Post & Courier column six times trying to determine any sly wink-wink undertones that establishes the writer's tongue is planted firmly in the aforementioned's cheek. I don't believe it's sarcasm:

America's children are our future.

Too bad they're menaced by insidious images from our sporting past -- and present.

At least they will no longer be subjected to the jarring specter of a gun on the "throwback" jerseys occasionally worn by the Houston Astros.

The National League expansion team was known as the Houston Colt .45s from 1962-64, sporting uniforms with the word "Colts" above a drawing of the fearsome firearm that helped tame the West. Way back then, grown-up folks lacked this era's enlightened sensitivities about the dangers of exposing young folks to such violent visuals.

And so on. He goes on to explain that not all Irish want to fight, and laments the trivialization of cock-fighting in reference to the South Carolina Gamecocks, and a number of other sports-teams logos and nicknames that could send the message that Clemson and their "zany antics trivialize the plight of an awesome species apparently bound toward extinction due to mankind's species-centric disregard for nature's wonders."

(I was half-waiting to see if the "Astros" name is offensive because it hearkens back to a day when we engaged those dirty pig Commies in a race to leave the perfectly good atmosphere God had created just for us to live and breathe in). Just to keep my eyes from liquefying, I'm going to assume it's sarcasm. Because if it's not tongue-in-cheek, the "subliminal signals your kids receive when they watch sports" are much less of a threat than being subjected to this level of gravitas.

So open-minded your brains fall out

By now you've probably heard that, in the process of celebrating the 50th anniversary of the franchise, the Astros planned to wear throwback uniforms, including the Colt .45s uni, which of course featured a Colt .45. That's not going to happen, because we live in a society full of weak-minded people who just might see a gun on a throwback uni and decide to go on a blood-soaked rampage.

In a response to Astros Daily, Astros rep Mike Acosta wrote:
During our discussion with Major League Baseball, it was expressed to us that we could wear the uniform as long as the pistol was removed. We realize this changes the original design, but we still want to honor the Colt .45s. We are also under an obligation to follow Major League Baseball's requests.

I had a very similar response to Yahoo's Kevin Kaduk, so in deference to the guy who published it first, I'll insert this:
It's two games. It's one gun. Baseball should either remember history right or it shouldn't remember it at all.

I was a history major in college. I currently work at a historic site that deals with some of the most uncomfortable topics in American history. Do you know what would happen if we took those stories out of the interpretation of the site for which I work? Weeping. Gnashing of teeth. At best it's just ignorant. At worst it's racist. And rightly so - you can't change history because it's uncomfortable.

So to remove a gun from a uniform that was only going to be used for two games, and likely in front of 40,000 people - tops - to which ESPN would give perhaps 20 seconds of coverage - tops - is preposterous. No one is going to leave Minute Maid Park on April 10 and 20 and think, "Damn those unis were hot! I'm going to get a Colt .45 and shoot somebody." At least no one who is not already in prison. Selig must think that this would be the result, as people head out into the Houston night.

















A quick look at the 2nd Amendment would tell you that a well-regulated militia has the right to keep and bear arms. Baseball teams, and the Astros, in particular, are not well-regulated militias, so they would not fall under 2nd Amendment protection, so MLB has the Consititutional right to deny the Astros to bear arms on their uniforms. (/sarcasm)

But seriously, are you surprised? (I didn't think Selig had it in for Houston or the Astros, but I'm now starting to wonder). Prior to the 1953 season, the Cincinnati Reds changed their name to the Redlegs lest good, clean, capitalist Americans think they Cincinnati was fielding a team full of Communists.

Every now and then we at Astros County try to tell you how to feel. So should you be outraged by MLB? It's okay to be angry, but by God, if Selig makes the Astros house British soldiers at Minute Maid, then we're burning MLB down.

To repeat Kevin Kaduk:
It's two games. It's one gun.

Marty Noble is f***ing hilarious

MLB.com's Marty Noble has a bizarre mish-mash of ideas up now, where he talks about the things baseball fans can start to get excited about, now that January is over halfway over:

Darvish's five-start shutout streak, the Indians' 13-game lead in the American League Central, the Astros' 11th victory, Pujols' hitting streak reaching 46 games, the Royals' run of 16 victories in 22 games, Stephen Strasburg's 0.93 ERA, Bobby Valentine's third skirmish, the Astros' 12th victory, Joe Mauer and Justin Morneau in the same batting order for the 106th time, the Mets' first no-hitter (by Johan Santana), Jose Bautista's four-home run game, the Brewers' third two-game winning streak, J.J. Putz's 50th save, a Steve Bartman sighting at Wrigley, Josh Johnson's ninth shutout ...

A few paragraphs later, Noble is still going; and by the time he's done, the Astros are all the way up to 17 victories! And I thought bloggers were supposed to be the unprofessional ones.

FJM time!

We at Astros County rarely FJM an article. If you're not familiar, go check out Fire Joe Morgan. It's genius. Our continual hesitance to FJM an article has more to do with respect for FJM than anything else. Nevertheless, this article warranted it. Apologies in advance to Fire Joe Morgan.

The Astros' lineup has been a revolving door in the last two years, with blockbuster trades that sent Lance Berkman, Hunter Pence and Michael Bourn to the thick of pennant races, while the Astros welcomed a steady flow of rookies getting their feet wet in the Major Leagues.

A "revolving door" would make you think that, at some point, Berkman, Pence, and Bourn will come back around. Of course, this won't happen, unless they are re-purposed as middle relievers. A more accurate metaphor might be one of a portal to a different planet where the rest of the National League is Terra Nova, and the Astros lineup is a scorched-earth apocalypse where lightning and fire descend on Minute Maid Park in a tangled braid of destruction.

The one constant: Carlos Lee.

This is actually the perfect example of a revolving door. Every time you look at the lineup, there he is. Every July you think you've seen the last of him, but come August 1, there he is, hitting fourth.

The veteran outfielder-turned-first baseman certainly didn't put up the kind of numbers he did in the first three seasons of his six-year deal with the Astros,

That's not necessarily true. Lee made $43m in the first three seasons of his six-year deal, meaning the Astros paid $9,347,826 per WAR. In the last two seasons, the Astros paid Lee $18,095,238 per WAR. Monster numbers.

but he remained the team's most feared slugger and top run producer.

Carlos Lee's OPS+ in 2010: 92. Hunter Pence's OPS+ in 2010: 113. There were actually four players on the 2010 Astros who put up better OPS+ than Lee in 2010. And Pence out-RBI'd Lee, as well. 2011 hitters with a higher OPS+ than Lee: Hunter Pence, Matt Downs, Brian Bogusevic. If by "most feared," you mean, "shortstops who are most on edge that Lee will hit a towering pop-up that will hit their glove with such force that it splits their arm down to the elbow," then yes, this fits.

Lee is the Astros' nominee for the 2011 Hank Aaron Award.

Hank Aaron hangs his head in shame.

What made his numbers this year even more remarkable was the fact he got off to such a bad start in April.

Vote for Lee's relative mediocrity, because he would have been even more cut-worthy had he not sucked it up when the games kinda-sorta mattered.

He hit .194 with two homers and 15 RBIs in the season's first month. He finished the season hitting .275, with 18 home runs and 94 RBIs.

Fact: Take out April, and Lee would have hit .294/.364/.474 over the course of the season. Also, if you take out Carlos Lee, the Astros' payroll would have been $48.5m in 2011.

"That's something I take a lot of pride in my career, driving in runs and getting the best out of it.

"I am very proud of driving in runs at roughly the same rate as Nick Swisher and Shawn Green. The best."

At the same time, that's why you play 162 games," Lee said. "You've got to play and go hard, and it ain't over until it's over."

...Lee said, who has played 162 games twice in his 13 seasons. "You've got to play, and jog down the first base line when you hit a grounder to the left side. It ain't over until I remember how to hit. Take 2011, for example. The Astros were already six games back before I got my average over .200. That's when it's over."

Astros manager Brad Mills has been a staunch supporter of Lee, who is seldom out of the lineup, even when he's struggling.

"Seriously, what choice do I have?" said a weeping Mills, who muted his tearful conversation with Terry Francona to answer. Checking to make sure Francona was still just talking, Mills continued, "The bastard is making over $18 million. Ed Wade won't let me sit a guy making that much money."

"What he's done to be able to get to 90 RBIs is good," Mills said prior to the end of the season.

It's so good, 28 other Major League players achieved as many RBIs as Carlos Lee.

"He's doing some things differently now than he was doing back in April and May, and it's something that we're going to be able to look back on."

"The things he's doing differently? Putting the ball in play. That's different. We hadn't seen that side out of Carlos in April 2011. We'll be able to look back on it. Not fondly, but we'll be able to look back on it."

The big man handled himself pretty well at first base, which wasn't too surprising,

He did well at first base, the place where you stick your biggest defensive liability after they nut it in the second-easiest fielding position on the field, especially in Minute Maid Park, where trying to throw a ball from left field to home plate is approximately the same distance from the yellow line to the 6th bucket in Bozo's Grand Prize Game.

...considering Lee came up through the White Sox system as a third baseman.

His success shouldn't surprising, because as recently as 14 years ago Lee played on the other side of the field.

"It's more of a challenge at first base than it is in left field," he said. "You have to be somewhere on every pitch, you've got to be moving every single pitch."

"I stand in left field, and I can look at the people in the stands. I was probably 30 feet away from that douchebag getting out of the way of the foul ball to let it hit his hot girlfriend. That was a challenging thing to watch. Not nearly as challenging as it is at first base, where I have to concentrate throughout the whole game. And I don't even get to have Michael Bourn standing between me and the dugout, covering foul balls. I had to move constantly. That was more challenging."

"You're more in the game when you're in the infield, and you're always on the move. When you play in [chilly] weather, if you're in the outfield and you're not doing much, you're going to get stiff. At first base, every time the ball's hit, you've got to move."

"Did I mention that my joints get stiff? There used to be entire games where I didn't take one step. Last September, I didn't move an inch. I mean it. I stood in left field next to Jose Tabata even when the Astros were up to bat. Nobody noticed. I got stiff. Couldn't move. Now I move. All the time. It's very tiring. Thank you for nominating me."

The Astros are currently a stupid, petty organization

Last night I had the opportunity to appear on the Crawfish Boxes season-ending podcast, and had a rip-roaring good time. Over the course of the conversation (and we'll provide the link once it's available), it came out that the Astros engaged in some dubious PR in reference to the Houston-area chapter of the BBWAA. David Coleman wrote a post this morning detailing it:

This year, my friend and other members of the chapter voted for Hunter Pence as Astros MVP, which is why he was announced as the winner last week. Before that announcement, though, shenanigans ensued.

According to my boss and friend through Mr. Hartman, there are Astros officials who called him (and presumably other writers) to get them to change their vote so it would be less embarrassing that a Phillie won Astros MVP. This brilliant plan predictably did not work...

...Until this team can get away from these kinds of bone-headed decisions and get back to being a first-rate organization, things are going to be pretty grim. Grim enough to vote a guy as team MVP even though he hasn't been there for 55 games.

If this is true, and there's no reason to think that it is not, then the Astros are - as previously mentioned in the title of this post - a stupid, and petty organization. Think of all of the things wrong with the Astros. And then think that this is what they are spending their time on. This is the kind of bullcrap that makes me ashamed of my favorite team, and makes me not want to support them anymore. It won't happen, of course, and I suspect Drayton, Tal, and Pam Gardner know that this is the case for whatever fans still care about this train-wreck of a franchise.

I suppose that, for me, this episode sums up everything that's wrong with this team.

Today in "No S**t, Sherlock"

Unbelievably, the Austin Chronicle spent what seems to be a pretty decent amount of time on why the Round Rock Express are better this year than they were last year. Should we tell them that maybe it's because they went from the Astros to the Rangers?

God did not want Shuck's dad at last night's game

Take a gander at the crap Shuck's dad had to go through in order to not make it to Houston in time for the game last night:

Shuck's father, Jack, got the call from his son at 2:30 Friday morning and spent the next 16 hours trying - unsuccessfully - to get to Houston in time for the first game of a three-game series against the National League Central-leading Brewers. Jack had a flat tire on his way to the airport in Columbus, then had his flight to Houston canceled because of severe weather.

"This hasn't worked out the way I had hoped," an exasperated Jack Shuck said late Friday afternoon from an airport in North Carolina, where he was hoping to fly standby to Houston. "There's not even a sports bar nearby where I can go watch the game...

"...This is what we've been dreaming of for 20 years and I'm not going to make it there. It's unbelievable," Jack Shuck said. "Maybe I'll be able to look back and laugh about this some day, but I'm not laughing now."

Holy Jeebus. That's just not fair.

This guy thinks the trade deadline ruins baseball

Here's an article out of Fox Sports Detroit that says the real loser at the trade deadline was Baseball.

It's not a 162-game grind anymore. It's a 100-game push for teams to position themselves as buyers or sellers by the July 31 non-waiver trade deadline.

It's making quitters out of some teams, the so-called sellers.

There were reports last week that the Chicago White Sox, 4-1/2 games out of first place at the time, had to win the final game of a series against the first-place Detroit Tigers to avoid a potential fire sale. Meanwhile, baseball's worst team, the Houston Astros, were depleting themselves of major league talent in hopes of a better future.

Yeah, that really hurts Baseball (which has apparently been humanized) - to be able to evaluate your team and adjust in the middle of the season like that. Baseball doesn't like it when a struggling team has a piece they can trade to get better down the road. You would think that a journalist would not equate "selling" with "quitting." The Astros have made some ignorant decisions over the past five years, and were able to remedy some of those mistakes with trades. Sure, the Astros got rid of the franchise's most popular and recognizable players, but were able to bring in much-needed prospects.

Let's keep reading:
You also might say it's exciting to be a fan of a team that strengthens itself for the stretch run. Clubs with deep farm systems are rewarded because they can afford to give up prospects for immediate help.

That's all true, but it still irritates me to see teams throw in the towel with two months to play.

I would say it's exciting to be a fan of a team that strengthens itself for the stretch run. The days of Randy Johnson and Carlos Beltran were among the most fun times to be an Astros fan. Good teams are good because they have developed former prospects into solid major-league talent. And good teams are excellent when they can help themselves in the short-term when they have good, expendable prospects to deal for a missing piece (see: Braves, Atlanta; Phillies, Philadelphia). Clubs with deep farm systems can help teams with weak farm systems. That's how it has worked since Branch Rickey invented the farm system, and Marvin Miller came off of Mt. Sinai with the stone tablets of free agency.

The Astros did what they did because, while the prospect side is improving, they don't have the top-of-the-line major-league talent (Maybe they do, that's why Martinez, Altuve, and Paredes were in the lineup last night). Even with two good players in Pence and Bourn, they still had the worst record in baseball. The System allows teams to trade those players - by a predetermined date - to a team who had a better plan, in order to get better in the future? The first step to becoming a good franchise is to get better in the farm system, which is what the Astros did. At the trade deadline.

For the integrity of the pennant races, teams should play the same game from Opening Day through No. 162.

They don't do that.

And they shouldn't. It's preposterous to think that a system in place when a team can't properly evaluate its situation mid-season is a loser. If the issue is free agency, then call it that. If the issue is that Fox Sports Detroit's Greg Lucas didn't like it that the Indians got better in the short-term, or the White Sox didn't necessarily get worse, then call it that, too. Baseball has a number of unwritten rules, the season means different things to different teams, and to say that every team has to follow the plan they began with is ridiculous, both in baseball, and in "real life."

I read this getting my blood pressure checked at Walgreen's, and officially had a stroke

Zach Levine brings the tough news:

Sounds like Brett Wallace's playing time is going down for a while. Mills will try to get him going w/favorable matchups.

This...I...can't.

Nobody has any idea what they're doing on Crawford Street

Want to see tonight's lineup?

Bourn
Bourgeois (LF)
Pence
Lee (1B)
Johnson
Barmes
Altuve
Quintero
Happ

This is indefensible. Thirty-five games under .500, and Brett Wallace doesn't get a start. You're probably thinking - well, St. Louis must be throwing a left-handed pitcher. If you're thinking that, you've been Millswashed into thinking that Wallace simply can't start against LHP.

BUT YOU WOULD BE WRONG. Because the Cardinals are throwing Kyle McClellan, who - at last report - threw baseballs with his right hand. The only reason I can think that would result in me not jumping on Mills' shoulders and biting him on the nose is if Ed Wade told him, "Hey, the Angels will trade Mike Trout for Carlos Lee. They just want to see Lee play 1B one more time." That's it.