These are great points.
Looking at the expected makeup of the 2022 team, do they need to improve to win a World Series?
If so, do you improve through trades or free agency? What positions need improvement?
This sounds like it should be a new topic.
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In my opinion, the Astros need to bring Graveman back and sign or acquire a top-of-the-rotation starter. Also, I’m prioritizing signing a shortstop so neither Bregman nor Diaz have to handle the role every day. (In Bregman’s case, I don’t want a guy that has dealt with serious lower-body issues the last two seasons playing shortstop every day)
There’s no scenario that would piss me off more than letting Correa go, then signing another big ticket SS.
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I don’t want Correa to leave. I think Crane/Click and Correa should find a way to meet in the middle and get something done at 7 years, $175 million or 8 years, $200 million. But, if he does leave, I can’t see the Astros putting Bregman at shortstop every day with his lower-body injuries the last two seasons, and I don’t know if they want to use Diaz as their primary shortstop, either. So, either give Jeremy Pena the chance to win the job in Spring Training, sign a cheaper alternative like Chris Taylor, or sign a really cheap defensive wizard in Andrelton Simmons who is a major liability at the plate at this point in his career.
The Correa quote was from a few months ago, another site says.
I saw that in the Crawford Boxes (?) article, but the Athletic author says it’s a quote from a recent interview. Either way, Correa has said essentially the same thing on multiple occasions over the past several months, so this isn’t exactly news.
Also, “this is my last season with the Astros” allows for a sliver of interpretation. It could mean “I’m gone after this year.”, or it could mean “this is the last season on my contract, and after that who knows what will happen?”
If Crane backs up the Brinks truck, you never know…
I lost any respect for The Athletic during the cheating scandal. I’m putting an asterisk on anything they say until Correa himself addresses this. This really feels like a reporter trying to create a story, for whatever reason.
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Disagree. Rosenthal got Fiers on the record and anyone would have written that story. Rosenthal was one of the only people reiterating just how many teams were doing this.
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Ditto re The Athletic on the “scandal,” and I was disappointed Rosenthal joined Drehlich in his vendetta. I still like the publication otherwise, though, and read other articles which are not out to get the Astros.
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If the Athletic had wanted to do an expose on cheating in MLB they could have uncovered other sources that revealed the various schemes employed by the innumerable other teams who were trying to win at that time and using technology to steal signs. Instead, they did a hatchet job on the Astros and the results have been catastrophic. So, yeah, fuck them in the ear.
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I thought the Official Spin was that Fiers had been telling anyone with a pulse that story since he left the Astros, and nobody cared because everyone was doing it until the Taubman incident made the Astros the enemy of the media or somesuch.
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I think that is a decent explanation, but I do not know. Drehlich had a vendetta going, and Rosenthal joined him. Sure Rosenthal said other teams were doing it, but he did not have the guts to follow up with investigative reporting on the others.
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This is what really rankles me.
No one in sports media picked up the torch.
Everyone in/out of sports media piled on.
It was a FAN who compiled the data on who heard what bangs and when.
Fuck them all.
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Andy McCullough is good. He’s not Drellich.
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