I remember a radio interview he had during the offseason when he was describing his routine. He said he started the day with something like two ventis from Starbucks on the way to the cages. He didn't mention whether it was black coffee or not, but if he was ordering venti vanilla bulls*** whatevers with sugar and syrup and 4 pumps blah blah no wonder he got fat in a hurry. Dude just comes off as immature, lazy, and not serious at all about his career.
His salary was the lowest on the team, as a really low round pick. I thought he had that fire, he stopped working which really set him back, MLB is very unforgiving, 1 year a All Star, 2 years later out of the league, somewhere in the minors, and then released.
Astros need to send him AA to rethink about his career, if Astros release him all of a sudden Tyler becomes a All Star on another team.
This ignores all of the hard work it took to make and excel in D1 college baseball and to get promoted through 5 levels of the competitive Astros minor league system.
Teams will look at his past production and see a cheap reclamation product. Astros may not miss him, but I suspect they don't want to lose him for notching.
Maybe they are still having nightmares about cutting JD Martinez? In all seriousness it’s a good question, my guess is they are trying to decide between him and Kemp. If White can pick it up a bit I think they’d choose him over Kemp and they could use him at DH when facing a LHP allowing them to sit either Reddick or Alvarez (if he struggles against lefties although he’s been good in the minors against them). Against lefty starters last year, White hit .375/.469/.788 in ~100 PA. On the other hand, he hit .215/.277/.377 against righty starters in 141 PA. Edit: I should add he’s actually been better against RHP this year than LHP (although neither results are great) so it could very well be them trying to figure out what’s going on and if he can really be a viable option to platoon. Otherwise, he’s absolutely useless to us going forward as someone above mentioned.
That's my issue. We survived them giving up on JD Martinez. White isn't consistently, even at his best, giving the team enough that he isn't an easily replaceable player. If White is DFA'd and goes elsewhere (and g-d forbid becomes an All-Star), the Astros will still be the best team in the league with many prospects in the pipeline. The Astros don't have a say in the matter any more. White is out of options. He'd have to accept a minor league assignment in order to stay in the organization. If they designate him for assignment, he's as good as gone.
They need to have a talk to him about his weight. He's a freaking professional athlete who isn't a pitcher. He needs to take care of his body.
Meant to say, Tucker being a left handed who is striking out a lot doesn't make since with brantley and reddick stroking lefthanders and kemp coming around. Alvarez is a perfect fit if you get rid of white
Possibly - but I don't see any real scenario where they get much more than that out of him. He's not getting traded for anything of value, and he's going to have to go sooner or later when Alvarez is brought up. There's not really any room on the team for two guys like that. (edit: I also can't see them just leaving Alvarez and Tucker in the minors all season long, which seems to be the only way White could stay)
This is probably the case. Luhnow doesn't like losing value for nothing. One thing that is overlooked often is that the Astros bad players are usually significantly better than the other teams bad players. White and Stassi have been worth nearly three wins more than the Red Sox negative WAR position players. White is probably gone from the Astros for one reason, the Astros have too many better players, and there just isn't room on the roster to see if this is a slump or to see if White is done. I'm not convinced that White is only thing that needs to change to get Alvarez plate appearances.
The Astros are in no rush to bring up Alvarez. They have a 7.5 game lead in their division (largest in MLB) and the best offense in baseball. People seem to forget that Alex Bregman was raking in the minors. He came up and struggled very much like Tucker did his first 60 or so at bats. There is no guarantee Alvarez will hit major league pitching. So why rush to make the move? So a bunch of fans have something more to cheer for? The best team in baseball isn't enough? I wouldn't mind if Alvarez doesn't see the majors until September. That means we are getting production from White/Kemp and don't have injuries. Alvarez will probably be up before the All Star break but we don't need him. Fans are just sick of looking at fattie McWhite. I don't even see why White gets as much playing time as he does. Put Marisnick in center every day and rotate Brantley and Reddick between DH and LF. I would rather see Kemp get more time even at DH over White. Kemp, Brantley, and Reddick all hit lefties better than White this year as well.
Information is important. Astros probably want to know that Alvarez can hit MLB pitching before the playoffs. I don't think Astros make move today, but I doubt Astros keep him in AAA past the middle of July.
When IS a good time to bring players up? In the middle of a pennant race? When the team is struggling? When the player is struggling? The reason to do it now is precisely *because* they don't need him.
That only matters IF they want/need him on the 25 man playoff roster. Doing it "now" is absolutey the wrong time. At the minimum you wait until after the super 2 deadline. Another reason not to do it in the near future... nobody wants to hear it because we all fall in love with prospects.... but his trade value is extremely high right now. He plays LF, DH, and 1B. Those are not the hardest positions to replace in MLB. If the Astros decide to make a big move to get an ace pitcher under multiple years of control he could be a valuable trade piece. If you bring him up and he goes Kyle Tucker against major league pitching you hurt that value. I believe he will most likely be up in the next few weeks, but I wouldn't be shocked if they kept him down the way we are rolling right now. He's a nice luxury to have.
Pretty sure Astros want Alvarez on playoff roster. Pretty sure Astros are more concerned with how Alvarez plays for them than his trade value.
