If someone lower on list has a great spring, I would be curious about Arrighetti as a high leverage setup man to take innings off Abreu. He has the stuff for it...
12 games as a SP, 14 as a RP, 56 at 1B, 23 at 3B, 17 as hotdog vendor, 35 at 2B, 3 as ballboy, 89 as catcher. Somehow he'll still manage 25HR and an .800 OPS.
The Astros dodged a major bullet with Pablo Lopez. I don’t think many fans realize how close he was to being an Astro.
Brown, Imai, Javier, Burrows, Arrighetti and McCullers, with Blubaugh being the first man up when Lance inevitably starts the season in the IL.
I get the feeling that Lance McCullers may be done. He seems like a great guy, but his promise as an ACE level pitcher was curtailed by constant injuries. I have doubt he makes the team out of Spring Training. But will be interesting to see if he has anything in the tank for one last encore.
Lance's fairwell tour at Sugar Land should sell tickets. If he can prove he can get AAA hitters out and shows control I'm open to giving him a chance again with the big club.
We have talked quite a bit about the Astros gaining a year of control of Cam Smith if he spends 16+ days in the minors. What we have not mentioned recently is Spencer Arrighetti is in the same boat. Spencer starting the season in AAA is a very real possibility, since he is one of about 6 pitchers challenging for the #5-6 spots and they are all pretty close in projection. He is still early enough in his career that the Astros would gain a 7th year of control over him if he spends 16+ days in AAA as well.
I don’t even think he needs 16 does he? He didn’t start the season with us in 2024 so I think he needs less than a week down on the farm.
It's not cumulative. If he gets 172+ days (out of 187) on the 26 man or ML IL then it counts as a full season. He officially has 2.000 seasons of MLB service time. He is not a FA until he has at least 6.000.
I think Blubaugh ends up playing a huge role in the pen. A guy like Devenski / McHugh in the early years of our dynasty. Could give you multiple innings when needed, and could also give you a shut down 8th or even 9th inning when needed. 2017 Devenski was a beast 2018 McHugh was even better We haven't had that guy since then. If Imai and Arrighetti prove to be solid starters this year and the others have health, Blu could be that guy
Dana has a reckless disregard for that stuff. I think Arrighetti might have missed getting another year by like 2 days. It’s always a little difficult to calculate exactly.
