Welcome to the Launch Briefing, a daily feature, where you will find a roundup of news and interesting stories from the Astros clubhouse and from around the league.
Discuss and share in the comments!
It’s the Thursday Launch!
Houston Astros News
Mark Bailey passes away (MSN)
Hader on the doorsteps of return (HC)
Houston options Alexander, calls up VanWay (MSN)
AL West News
Lugo removed from Angels 40-man (CBS)
Rangers designate McCutchen (ESPN)
M’s pitching drama off the field (WQD)
MLB News
Hernández expected to land on IL for Dodgers
Travis Kelce buys stake in Guardians (NYT)
MLBPA’s first proposal (NYP)
Hernández set for IL too (LAT)
Cubs, Bummer agree to deal (TR)
Blue Jays select Voth (CBS)
Houston Astros birthdays
C Skip Jutze (80)
IF Rafael Landestoy (73)
IF Bill Doran (68)
RHP Craig Kimbrel (38, Tampa Bay Rays)
OF Pedro León (28, Philadelphia Phillies)
Feature photo from Astros on X, Source Link
Sounds like MLB and MLBPA will meet today with the first proposal of a salary cap dropping from the MLB’s side.
I deserve a negative rec for sharing a Drellich post
for whatever reason, the tweet doesn’t unfurl unless you change the “x.com” in the URL to “twitter.com”, so i changed it for you.
I remember Rafael Landestoy, a SS/2b who played for the Astros in 1978-1980. I was a college student in Houston during the late 70’s, and on some of those dreadful teams, Landestoy was an exciting player to watch. The Astros had a terrible record in 1978 and the Astrodome had few attendees. I would pay for $2 general admission tickets and then move on down to the empty box seats. I had a college roommate who worked in the Astrodome’s club/cafe and gave us drink tickets. It was a nice remembrance, since we could drink mixed drinks and watch the young players called up by a bad team. Landestoy was a decent singles or triples hitter who had no power but ran with blazing speed and had acrobatic defense. He is the only player I remember from that year’s team. We hoped he could become an all star type player, but his future was more like a professional utility player. Landestoy did play in the 1980s playoff game against the Phillies. I looked it up, and the 73 year old Landestoy currently supervises international operations for the NY Mets. I vaguely recall at some
point in the 80’s or 90’s Landestoy tried to start a professional seniors baseball league in Florida.
That was my Dad’s favorite period to go to games because it was so cheap and he could sit anywhere.
The 100 loss years were kind of like that where you could sit anywhere. Not cheap but significantly cheaper than now.
My favorite part was that you could arrive like 15 minutes before first pitch and still be one of the first 10,000 fans for the giveaway.
i completely forgot kimbrel was an astro last year
I’m surprised he’s not part of this year’s train wreck. His price was right and his negative WAR would fit in perfectly with the other 8-10 pitchers with negative WAR.
On this subject
1) I don’t ever expect not should you want Aaron judge to bunt (especially with 2 outs)
2) Yordan should never bunt
3) It still bothers me that NO REPORTER ever followed up with Kyle schwarber to ask him why he bunted with 2 strikes 2 outs in an elimination game in the 8th inning in a game he had already hit a home run in