THE PALLILOG
Filtered for your Astros pleasure: Spring Training must-watch stories unveiled
Feb 22, 2024, 2:36 pm
The Astros open square off against the Nationals on Saturday. Photo by Rich Storry/Getty Images.
The Astros open their Grapefruit League schedule Saturday against the Washington Nationals at the spring training park they share in West Palm Beach. This does not induce goosebumps but we’ll take it since it means the regular season opener is little more than a month away. In 2017 the Astros moved their spring training base east from Kissimmee, the Nationals moved theirs south from Viera. Dusty Baker was the Nationals’ manager that year. 2017 worked out pretty well for the Astros. Dusty got fired after the 2017 season, which in time worked out pretty well for him too. Two years later the Nationals won their first World Series (no need to recap how). In the four seasons since the Astros and Nationals have been pretty much diametrically opposed. For the Astros it’s been another World Series title, four more American League Championship Series appearances, and three more AL West crowns. For the Nats, four consecutive last place finishes in the National League East. Washington’s 71-91 record last season was its best record of the last four seasons. The Astros certainly expect more excellence in 2024. No one expects the Nationals to not stink again this year. I mean, name three current Nationals. Good luck.
Hope springs eternal
Winning and losing in spring training is of no consequence. We’ll hear stories about “building winning expectations, culture, and environment” and other flim-flam. The team results are meaningless. They are not predictive of the regular season ahead. Best spring training record in Florida last year? The Cardinals, who went on to produce their worst season in 28 years. Best spring training record in Arizona last year? The Angels, who went on to be, the Angels.
Individual player statistics aren’t a big deal either, other than where they help guys win big league jobs. You may recall that for a stretch last spring training, Justin Dirden was all the rage at Astros’ camp. He was pounding the ball, batting over .300 with eye-opening power that produced an OPS over 1.000! Dirden didn’t make the big club and went on to have a poor season at AAA Sugar Land. So results should be taken with many grains of salt, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t developments worth tracking and fun to follow.
Being as good as they are, among non-pitchers the Astros have very few roster spots up for grabs, but here are a couple of spring training storylines…
How will the pendulum swing on Jeremy Pena with his retooled swing? Pena had a solid rookie season followed by a superstar postseason. He was great in spring training last year (see what I mean?) then had a lackluster sophomore season. Leaving the financials out of it, there are several American League shortstops you’d take over Pena for 2024. Corey Seager, Bobby Witt Jr., Bo Bichette, J.P. Crawford, and Gunnar Henderson all were obviously better players last season (note that Carlos Correa is not on that list). Witt, Bichette, and Rookie of the Year winner Henderson are all younger than Pena. If Pena winds up the sixth or seventh-best shortstop in the AL that’s a solid starter, but he needs to make a notable leap if there is star level production in his future.
The disappearance of Pena’s power was near total as last year went along. He hit six home runs by the end of April then just four more the rest of the season, not one after July 5. That said, Pena had a fabulous month of August when he hit .333 while drawing more walks than he did in any two other months combined. If Pena can pair his .324 on base percentage of 2023 (it was .289 in ’22) with 2022’s .426 slugging percentage (which plunged to .381 last year) everyone who roots for the Astros should be pleased. That would not be anything approaching a stud offensive player but fine for a guy who should slot eighth in the batting order. A .750 OPS combined with strong defense is a good shortstop.
It seems few believe in the guy who probably bats ninth opening day, Jake Meyers. That he works cheap is definitely a reason the Astros intend to give Meyers a shot as the primary center fielder. It is simple truth that Meyers has been a lousy offensive player the last two years. In 605 at bats as an Astro he has struck out a whopping 192 times. Nevertheless, Meyers should still give the Astros more production out of the nine-hole than did Martin Maldonado. The defensive metrics say Meyers is an excellent glove man, despite having more of a noodle arm than a rifle.
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A mention that our second season of the Stone Cold ‘Stros podcast is off and running. Brandon Strange, Josh Jordan, and I discuss varied Astros topics weekly. On our regular schedule the post goes up Monday afternoon. You can get the video version (first part released Monday, second part Tuesday, sometimes a third part Wednesday) via YouTube: Stone Cold 'Stros - YouTube with the complete audio available at initial release Monday via Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
They’ll be watching in Canada, not just because of Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, though the NBA’s scoring champion and MVP favorite who plays for Oklahoma City surely helps lure in fans who are north of the border.
They’ll be watching from Serbia and Greece, the homelands of Denver star Nikola Jokic and Milwaukee star Giannis Antetokounmpo. Alperen Sengun will have them watching Houston games in the middle of the night in Turkey, too. Slovenian fans will be watching Luka Doncic and the Lakers play their playoff opener at 2:30 a.m. Sunday, 5:30 p.m. Saturday in Los Angeles. Fans in Cameroon will be tuned in to see Pascal Siakam and the Indiana Pacers. Defending champion Boston features, among others, Kristaps Porzingis of Latvia and Al Horford of the Dominican Republic.
Once again, the NBA playoffs are setting up to be a showcase for international stars.
In a season where the five statistical champions were from five different countries, an NBA first — Gilgeous-Alexander is Canadian, rebounding champion Domantas Sabonis of Sacramento is from Lithuania, blocked shots champion Victor Wembanyama of San Antonio is from France, steals champion Dyson Daniels of Atlanta is from Australia, and assists champion Trae Young of the Hawks is from the U.S. — the postseason will have plenty of international feel as well. Gilgeous-Alexander is in, while Sabonis and Daniels (along with Young, obviously) could join him if their teams get through the play-in tournament.
“We have a tremendous number of international players in this league,” NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said earlier this season. “It’s roughly 30% of our players representing, at least on opening day, 43 different countries, so there’s much more of a global sense around our teams.”
By the end of the season, it wound up being 44 different countries — at least in terms of countries where players who scored in the NBA this season were born. For the first time in NBA history, players from one country other than the U.S. combined to score more than 15,000 points; Canadian players scored 15,588 this season, led by Gilgeous-Alexander, the first scoring champion from that country.
Gilgeous-Alexander is favored to be MVP this season. It'll be either him or Jokic, which means it'll be a seventh consecutive year with an international MVP for the NBA. Antetokounmpo won twice, then Jokic won three of the next four, with Cameroon-born Joel Embiid of the Philadelphia 76ers winning two seasons ago.
“Shai is in the category of you do not stop him,” Toronto coach Darko Rajakovic said after a game between the Raptors and Thunder this season.
In other words, he's like a lot of other international guys now. Nobody truly stops Jokic, Antetokounmpo and Doncic either.
And this season brought another international first: Doncic finished atop the NBA's most popular jersey list, meaning NBAStore.com sold more of his jerseys than they did anyone else's. Sure, that was bolstered by Doncic changing jerseys midseason when he was traded by Dallas to the Los Angeles Lakers, but it still is significant.
The Slovenian star is the first international player to finish atop the most popular jerseys list — and the first player other than Stephen Curry or LeBron James to hold that spot in more than a decade, since soon-to-be-enshrined Basketball Hall of Famer Carmelo Anthony did it when he was with New York in 2012-13.
“We’re so small, we have 2 million people. But really, our sport is amazing,” fellow Slovene Ajsa Sivka said when she was drafted by the WNBA's Chicago Sky on Monday night and asked about Doncic and other top Slovenian athletes. “No matter what sport, we have at least someone that’s great in it. I’m just really proud to be Slovenian.”
All this comes at a time where the NBA is more serious than perhaps ever before about growing its international footprint. Last month, FIBA — the sport's international governing body — and the NBA announced a plan to partner on a new European basketball league that has been taking shape for many years. The initial target calls for a 16-team league and it potentially could involve many of the biggest franchise names in Europe, such as Real Madrid, Paris Saint-Germain and Manchester City.
It was a season where four players topped 2,000 points in the NBA and three of them were international with Gilgeous-Alexander, Jokic and Antetokounmpo. Globally, time spent watching NBA League Pass was up 6% over last season. More people watched NBA games in France this season than ever before, even with Wembanyama missing the final two months. NBA-related social media views in Canada this season set records, and league metrics show more fans than ever were watching in the Asia-Pacific region — already a basketball hotbed — as well.
FIBA secretary general Andreas Zagklis said the numbers — which are clearly being fueled by the continued international growth — suggest the game is very strong right now.
“Looking around the world, and of course here in North America," Zagklis said, "the NBA is most popular and more commercially successful than ever.”