There’s a lot going on every day in The Launch Angle. This is a guide that will hopefully answer a lot of questions about all the different ways you can enjoy TLA and interact with the TLA community.
Read the Articles
The heart of the Launch Angle is the articles. We love baseball, we love following the Astros, we love to write, and we love for you to read what we write.
You’ll find game previews, game recaps, analytic pieces, opinions and commentary pieces, news updates, discussions about the farm system, daily Launch Briefings and more.
Discuss in the Comments Sections
The soul of the Launch Angle is the readers, the TLA community. The content you’ll find on the Launch Angle doesn’t end when the article ends. That’s just a starting point for the TLA community to continue the conversation.
At the end of every article you’ll find a comment section. Join in on the discussion. React, agree, disagree, raise questions, answer questions.
Reply to and like existing comments.
In the example screenshot below, the red arrow points to a comment icon in the lower right corner of your screen. Use this to quickly jump to the comments section, and also to check if new comments have been posted.
You don’t have to login to post a comment, but if you do, the commenting system can keep track of your preferences and highlight new comments.
Chat on the TLA Discord Server
The comments section isn’t the only way to interact with other TLA readers and Astros fans.
The Launch Angle has a server on the Discord platform, where readers and staff congregate to chat and discuss anything and everything.
If you’ve never used Discord, it’s an application similar to Slack or WhatsApp thats allows users to chat and instant message in real time in a variety of channels.
As of the publication of this post, over 144 TLA readers have joined, making for a lively community.
Joining is easy. Simply use this link: https://launch-angle.com/discord , and join the server.
Once you have joined, you will be default by in The Launch Angle’s server’s #general channel.
From there, you can go into any of around a dozen channels to talk astros, baseballs, sports or anything else. The list of channels is indicated by the red arrow on the screenshot below.
Here is a guide to some of the channels we have made and are active at the moment:
- #general – The main lobby. Everyone is friendly. This is kind of like the lobby when you board a cruise ship and everyone claps and says “Welcome Aboard!”
- #tla-site-news – Any time a new article goes up, a link to it will be posted here. This is also a channel to discuss topics specific to the TLA website itself.
- #gamethread-directory and #game-discussion – See the next section
- #astros – Discuss anything Houston Astros
- #mlb – Want to talk about what Elly De La Cruz did? Or the latest Skenes start? This is your channel
- #hot-stove – Discussion and rumors of trades, signings and transactions
- #down-on-the-farm – Talk about the Astros of tomorrow
- #other-sports – We know you probably follow other sports besides baseball, so do other Astros fans.
- #fantasy-sports – For discussion of anything fantasy baseball or fantasy sport related
- #off-the-field – Everything else. Lately we’ve been talking a lot about Artemis II in here.
Discord also allows you to have private chats and send private messages to other users, if you so desire, a nice feature often missing from comment boards.
Join the Discord Gamethread Parties
Watching, listening to, or following the Astros game live? Join others on The Launch Angle doing the same thing! Celebrate together, grumble together, share insights in real time, maybe even crack a joke or… twenty.
You may have participated in gamethreads in the past on other sites, using comments section. But since following a live baseball game involves reactions in real time, with back and forth that can change from at-bat to at-bat, we have found that using the Discord server for Gamethread parties works wonderfully.
And when Carlos Correa hits a go ahead 3 run home run, it really is a party:
Through four series, the turnout has been incredible:
| Date | Opponent | Result | Participants | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3/26/26 | LAA | L 0-3 | 27 | 1064 |
| 3/27/26 | LAA | L 2-6 | 18 | 1179 |
| 3/28/26 | LAA | W 11-9 | 24 | 916 |
| 3/29/26 | LAA | W 9-7 | 25 | 1201 |
| 3/30/26 | BOS | W 8-1 | 28 | 764 |
| 3/31/26 | BOS | W 9-2 | 20 | 755 |
| 4/1/26 | BOS | W 6-4 | 27 | 579 |
| 4/3/26 | @ATH | L 4-11 | 30 | 1095 |
| 4/4/26 | @ATH | W 11-0 | 26 | 939 |
| 4/5/26 | @ATH | L 10-12 | 34 | 1703 |
| 4/6/26 | @COL | L 7-9 | 31 | 1095 |
| 4/7/26 | @COL | L 1-5 | 20 | 619 |
| 4/8/26 | @COL | L 1-9 | 28 | 1215 |
So how do you find the gamethread? All gamethreads are threads filed under the channel #game-discussion. But to quickly find a specific game’s thread, go to #gamethread-directory, where all gamethread links are listed for quick access.
Follow TLA on X and Bluesky
If you are on social media, The Launch Angle has X (@Launch AngleHOU) and Bluesky (@launchanglehou.bsky.social) accounts you can follow.
Keep updated on new articles, interesting reposts and original posts from the TLA crew.
Support TLA on Patreon
The Launch Angle is free. Use of the Discord server is also free. But it does cost money to keep this site up and running. You’ll notice there are no ads anywhere on this site. We rely on support from readers to help this place afloat.
You will never be required to pay to enjoy The Launch Angle, but even just a little monetary support goes a long way to maintaining this site, and is much appreciated.
A Patreon page has been made to facilitate supporting The Launch Angle, or reach out directly by e-mail at codypoage2@gmail.com.
Write for The Launch Angle
All of the writers for the Launch Angle are Astros fans, just like you. We were readers of Astros websites and decided to start writing to share our voice, our opinions, our insights and analyses with other fellow Astros fans.
We can see from your great commments and discussion that many of you know a lot about baseball and have worthwhile viewpoints to share. If you would like to join the staff and write for The Launch Angle, let us know by email at codypoage2@gmail.com, in the comments or on the Discord server!
Be a TLA Photographer
Lastly, another area where you can help be a part of TLA is to share your photographs with us. As an independent site, we don’t have access to a lot of the professional photographs that you see accompanying the larger publications like The Athletic or The Houston Chronicle. But we do have you, and if you have ever taken a photo of the Astros or of Daikin Park or a game, and stepped back and thought “Wow, this looks like a professional quality shot!”, we invite you to share it with us to use.
Here are some examples of photos that the TLA community has taken themselves and shared with us to use:
Please contact us by email at codypoage2@gmail.com, in the comments or on the Discord server if you have photographs to share!
Feature Photo source: NASA.gov, edited by jw1.
We are happy to announce that Seth Schwartzberg is coming on board to the Launch Angle and will be handing the daily Launch Briefing posts.
These will be similar to the posts (“boils”) he previously did at the previous site, with a daily roundup of news and notes regarding the Astros and around the league.
Also some more changes are being added to the commenting system. You can now embed things like twitter posts and bluesky posts. Rigth now there’s an issue where it embdes if the URL says “twitter” but not “x”. Looking into it.
Please let us know what other things you want to see and what suggestions and feedback you have. This is all still a work in progress.
“Please let us know what other things you want to see and what suggestions and feedback you have. This is all still a work in progress.”
Well….I’d like for the Astros to play better and WIN. Alot to ask I know….. 😏
Best I can do is emojis. which I just added, and it looks like you found.
🚀
There was an option for “stickers” too, but I dont think I’ve EVER seen people use those, so I turned it off
When the memes begin, it will become inevitable!!!
it takes gifs and memes but you gotta paste em in yourself. if someone donates $25 i’ll add the giphy addon to the commenting system, but i just threw a bunch of $ out of pocket for some of these other upgrades, and I gotta draw the line 😢
Great lead photo for this article. And really good timing with ArtemisII circling the moon.
jw1 helped me with that one. 👍
testing 123