The Launch Angle

“One of the beautiful things about baseball is that every once in a while you come into a situation where you want to, and where you have to, reach down and prove something.“

~ Nolan Ryan

Hello, everyone, on this fine Wednesday morning. Admittedly, quality ledes and opening paragraphs are sometimes a swing-and-miss with me, so I’ll just cut to the chase: Welcome to The Launch Angle, a new fan-driven site to discuss the Houston Astros and, occasionally, baseball at large. But, first, some background about how this blog came into existence.

To jog your memory, Vox/SBNation, for reasons, decided to terminate the previous staff with The Crawfish Boxes — paid and unpaid — back in late October. It was entirely out of the blue, with little useful information given regarding the why. I was actually braininstorming about my next topic to write that morning when I received the notice. Multiple members of the staff received that same email. Little in terms of personality and substance. It read as one of those generic corporate “thanks, but we’re moving in a different direction” kind of messages. What a cold, unceremonious ending for all of us.

With that said, I wish the now current staff with TCB well. No hard feelings whatsoever toward them. How our termination transpired is increasingly part of the norm for the industry. It has happened before and will, unfortunately, happen again to a variety of blogs and publications that remain a small part of a larger corporate organization in sports media. But even with this recent development, I still look back fondly on my time with TCB. I mean, the Astros clinched three AL pennants and won a World Series during my time with the site starting back in 2019. Numerous deep postseason runs. That was a blast to watch and write about! There was also the sign-stealing scandal (not so fun to cover), but the experience was an overwhelming net positive. It was, indeed, a golden era.

But another reason why I enjoyed writing for the site as much as I did was due to the people. You, the reader, naturally. But also my fellow contributors. I’d be remiss to not express my deep gratitude and appreciation to all the people we had on staff with TCB during my tenure, including, but not limited to, Bill, mhatter106, Clack, Brian Cohn (Hebrew Hammah), CKuno, Dan Martin, Exile in St. Louis, Theo Gerome, l4blitzer, Kevin Kraczkowski, Seth Schwartzberg, Scott Barzilla, Eric Huysman, Jimmy Price, Spencer Morris, and numerous others. Personally, I became a better and more confident writer because of this group. As a site, I know we all strived to provide the best Astros content in our little corner of the internet and had a lot of pride in our work. And, if I can speak for everyone for a moment, we all hope you know that and we sincerely thank you for all of the support over the years.

But once that outlet disappeared, we had to ask ourselves…what comes next? For those who were interested about continuning to write in some fashion, it was decided that a new blog where we can make it more of our own was the next natural step. Thus, this site was born. What is the plan moving forward here with The Launch Angle?

To reiterate, this blog will be Astros-driven fan along with some broader baseball topics included when the fancy strikes us. The coverage, though, won’t be that much different from the old place. Analytically inclined articles, you got it. Trade rumors and free-agent signing reactions? That too. Witty commentary, check. Game recaps, definitely. Complaints? Without a doubt. Can’t forget about minor league updates. Maybe some CKuno rants…well, I can’t guarantee anything, but my fingers are crossed.

The overall aim is to provide quality content with real substance. Yes, we’ll have fun with our posts as we’re not a completely joyless lot. Not every single piece will be downright serious all of the time, but we will avoid anything that approaches clickbait-y territory. Oh, there will also be comments on posts and a forum system in place, although that may require some additional tinkering as we go along. This is a brand new experience for us, so there will be hiccups along the way. But thank you in advance for your patience as we iron out any issues that may arise after this launch.

In terms of the site structure, I will be the site manager here. Bill, after numerous years running of TCB and doing a wonderful job at it, has decided to step aside from the gig. Out of us all, he frankly deserved much better than the manner of how he was relieved of his duties with TCB. There wouldn’t have been a vibrant community of Astros fans over there in the past several years without his care and management, plain and simple. For the rest of the group, there are multiple writers from the previous staff that have expressed interest in contributing to this site. You’ll start seeing their names pop up over here soon enough with more quality content incoming.

As this blog is independent, we will need external support to survive for the long haul. I’ve set up a Patreon for small donations to kick things off; right now, there are three memberships options ($3, $5, and $7 per month) to help keep us afloat. Only donate if/when you want to and whatever your comfort level, one-time or recurring. The last thing we want to do is apply any undue financial pressure upon our readers, but any support is greatly appreciated. For transparency sake, any funds received will go directly to pay the expenses to keep this site operational first and foremost. Any excess funds will be used to compensate our writers and help with any future site improvements when approrpriate.

Now, let’s hope this offseason is productive with renewed hopes in store for 2026, not only for me and you, but for the Astros as well. Next year is setting up to be a crucial campagin for the long-term direction of the franchise, whether good, mediorce, or bad. Regardless, we’ll be right here to provide our takes on this team as we always do.