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.
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Houston Astros News
Javier will need one more start (HC)
López might be in line for the Mets job (SI)
What is happening to Arrighetti (HC)
AL West News
Angels fire GM (ESPN)
MLB News
Mets fire Mendoza (APN)
Red Sox place Mayer on IL (ESPN)
Giants DFA Wilkins (TR)
Twins outright Voth (NBC)
Houston Astros birthdays
IF Eddie Kasko (95, died in 2020 at 88)
IF Daryle Ward (51)
OF Yordan Alvarez (29)
Feature photo from Astros on X, Source Link
this is just SI/FanSided crap (at some point i know they split into two but they both out the same garbage)
The Athletic put out a piece just listing some names of who could be the next manager. The Athletic does put out legitimately good content, but they also crank out “list content” type pieces which are empty filler desigend to generate clicks, and this was one of them.
this was the whole excerpt of their mention of Lopez:
and then SI’s blog writer made it a whole unnecessary clickbait piece.
Babakanush brought this up in this discord:
I keep seeing realignment proposals like this. I don’t like the idea of two teams in the same city being in the same league. They need to be in different leagues so they can both thrive.
If charlotte and Portland are the expansion cities, this is what I would go with:
AL East: NYY, BOS, BAL, TOR
AL North: MIN, DET, CLE, CHW
AL South: HOU, TEX, KC, COL
AL West: Vegas, SEA, Portland, LAA
NL East: NYM, PHI, WAS, PIT
NL North: MIL, CHC, STL, CIN
NL South: ATL, MIA, TB, Charlotte
NL West: LAD, SDP, SFG, ARI
– Only TB and COL would change leagues
– Most of the major division rivalries are preserved except for NYM-ATL. NYM still has PHI though, and PHI with PIT in the same division should be good. HOU is separated from Seattle but we haven’t been in the same division that long anyways
– I don’t love it for Houston, because I don’t like having to go to Coors more but overall I think this makes the most sense for all 32 as a whole
Angels fire their GM. First off, I had some amusement over the name of the Angels’ President, Molly Jolly. Second, it appears that retired Cardinals’ GM Mozeliak will enter as a consultant and act as an interim GM this season. Mozeliak is wily and can execute good trades. It will be interesting to see what kind of trading path he takes at the mid-season deadline.
Some of the early reporting said Moreno was against trading some of their better assets. You would think that when the team in your division that is actively pulling a Major League is consistently outperforming you that might make you consider changing course. Mozeliak Will make the best of it but if he can’t convince Moreno to pivot that franchise will just continue to spin its wheels
So I looked up Molly Jolly. She married into the name Jolly. I mean I’d have said “ehhh you know what I’m gonna keep my maiden name Taylor” but she WANTED to be Molly Jolly.