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Baseball did Astros no favors this week, but here's how they can make it right

Mar 21, 2023, 4:31 pm

Ryan Pressly and Kyle Tucker are representing the USA in the WBC. Composite image by Brandon Strange.

I’m hearing voices in Houston sports media calling for the end of the World Baseball Classic – or at least a boycott by the Houston Astros – because Jose Altuve suffered a broken thumb during the Venezuela vs. USA game, will require surgery, and is out for 8-10 weeks.

I know, it sucks that our star second baseball and team leader will miss about a third of the 2023 season. But it wasn’t the World Baseball Classic that threw the 96 mph fastball that struck Altuve in the hand – it was a pitch that got away from Colorado Rockies reliever Daniel Bard – a respected MLB veteran, former first-round draft pick and winner of Comeback Player of the Year in 2020.

It just happened to one of our guys. It happens.

Blaming Altuve’s injury on the World Baseball Classic makes no more sense than pinning Lance McCullers’ latest injury on MLB’s traditional spring training. McCullers was diagnosed with an elbow strain after throwing a bullpen session at Astros camp in West Palm Beach, Fla.

At least Altuve incurred his unfortunate injury facing an experienced MLB veteran in a game that meant a lot to the Astros’ future Hall of Famer. It wasn’t during a meaningless game in Florida against a minor league pitcher with control problems wearing No. 92 on his uniform with no chance of making the parent club.

I like the World Baseball Classic. Judging from TV ratings on Fox Sports channels and large crowds, the event was a success. Teams from 20 countries participated – that’s 14 more countries than sent baseball teams to the 2021 Olympics in Tokyo.

The WBC is growing in popularity and participation. Twenty countries sent teams to the WBC this year, up from 16 last time. Great Britain, the Czech Republic, and Nicaragua sent teams for the first time. They joined squads from traditional baseball powerhouses like the USA, Dominican Republic, Cuba, Mexico, Japan, Puerto Rico, Venezuela and The Netherlands. Yes, The Netherlands. They take baseball very seriously there.

China and Chinese Taipei played together on the same field. Israel sent a team, including Bellaire Little League product Josh Wolf.

Baseball needs the WBC if it wants to expand its footprint globally like the NBA has, and the NFL is trying to do.

Some are saying, fine, the WBC has its merits but springtime isn’t the right time. Players are out of shape, at least not in midseason baseball shape, and the event is competing for media coverage with March Madness, NFL free agency, and the NBA’s playoff push.

While that’s true, any time of year you picked for the WBC would clash with other big-time sports events. Sports is a yearlong obsession worldwide.

A reasonable rescheduling might be during the middle of the MLB season, during what is now the All-Star break. Soccer takes midseason breaks for tournaments. Sure it will be weird at first for baseball, but the All-Star Game isn’t the attraction or honor it once was. Now players make suspect excuses to avoid playing in it.

Doing away with baseball’s All-Star Game and slotting the WBC in its place might be a good idea. The NFL has all but killed its Pro Ball and replaced it with a silly flag football game that nobody cares about. The NBA All-Star Game is a joke 3-point contest with even less defense than the actual 3-point contest.

And while baseball players may not be in midseason form during the WBC now, it’s not like the old days when players needed spring training to lose winter flab and wake up their muscles from hibernation. Most baseball players stay in shape all year. They have personal trainers, private chefs and workout rooms in their swankiendas. Back when, baseball players worked at local breweries and sponsors’ businesses during the winter to make ends meet. Not today.

Spring training, come on, really is a little ridiculous. The Astros will have played 30 practice games before Opening Day this season. NFL teams play only three preseason games. NBA teams play only four. College football teams play only none.

The championship game of the World Baseball Classic has the USA with its superstar lineup including Mike Trout, Mookie Betts, Paul Goldschmidt, Nolan Arenado, and many more against Japan with some guy named Shohei Ohtani. How perfect is that?

The WBC truly is a “world series” for the sport. It may take a little tinkering but baseball needs it. Even if it hurts at first – more precisely at second if you’re the Astros.

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THE PALLILOG

Here's how the Astros can reap the benefits from latest pitching shakeup

The Astros are utilizing a 6-man rotation. Composite Getty Image.

The Astros should schedule an Old-Timers Game, if not annually maybe every other year. Only the Yankees have regularly played Old Timers Games and it’s a highlight in the Bronx every season. The Astros have plenty enough history to welcome back an ample number of guys to make for a fabulous event. Maybe they could tie it into their now annual Hall of Fame Weekend. Anyway, don’t you feel that if Jose Altuve took part in an Old Timers Game in 2050 he’d bang out a couple of hits, and then if the Astros played him in the regular game he’d line one more hit somehow, at age 60?

After missing the first 43 games of the season while recovering from his broken thumb, Altuve went 0 for four in his first game back, but has since been generally fantastic with his OPS through nine games played at 1.013. It won’t stay that high, but Altuve is a direly needed upgrade to the Astros’ offense which has been utterly mediocre. Offense is the reason the Astros continue to look up at the Texas Rangers in the American League West. The Rangers’ offense has been fantastic, outscoring the Astros by a whopping 100 runs through the first third of the season.

As the regular season entered its middle third this week, the Astros are in the middle of playing a game in 17 consecutive days. It’s their longest stretch of the season without an off day. They are inserting Ronel Blanco as a sixth starting pitcher in the rotation for a couple of turns. The point of mixing in a sixth starter isn’t that the Astros are teeming with guys who belong in a big league rotation. The 29-year-old Blanco is not a notable prospect. This is about lightening the load a little on two guys: Cristian Javier and Hunter Brown.

In becoming a rotation mainstay last season, Javier blew past his previous biggest season workload by nearly 50 innings. He’s on pace to go another 25 innings beyond that this year without even accounting for the playoffs. Hunter Brown last year set his professional high with 130 innings pitched encompassing work with the Space Cowboys and Astros. Brown is on pace for about 170 innings this regular season. That’s a significant jump, and of course the Astros are hoping for another postseason of multiple rounds. Javier, Brown, and Framber Valdez are the three most critical pitchers on the staff, and the Astros hope they remain healthily so for several more years.

Lance McCullers’s latest recovery setback makes his plight increasingly sad. Well, except for him on payday. The odds now lopsidedly favor McCullers never again pitching a near fully healthy and effective season. His only one to date was 2021 (until he broke down in the playoffs), the year before his five year 85 million dollar contract kicked in. McCullers pulls down 17 mil this year (And again next year. And in 2025. And 2026), exactly two and a half times what Framber Valdez makes. I reckon Framber’s representation is aware of this, as it is of the five year 63 million dollar deal the Astros struck with Cristian Javier. Framber is more than three years older than Javier, but has been better, and can hit free agency after the 2025 season, the same time Javier could have gone to market.

Timing isn’t everything but it darn sure can matter. The Astros’ two best relief pitchers through May were Hector Neris and Phil Maton. Neris enters June with a 1.19 earned run average, Maton even better with a teeny-weeny 0.68 ERA. Maton has been especially amazing, given that last year while not pitching very well he posted his career best ERA at 3.84. His 2022 ended ignominiously when after giving up a hit to his brother Nick in the regular season finale, Phil took the ding-a-ling of the week award by breaking his pitching hand punching his locker, sidelining him for the postseason. The Hurt Locker won the Academy Award for Best Picture in 2010. Now Maton is up for Best Pitcher (per inning worked). Both Neris and Maton were James Click acquisitions. Both become free agents after this season.

Up next

Four games with the Angels at Minute Maid Park through the weekend mean the amazing Shohei Ohtani is in town. It’s “Sho-time” on the mound Friday night in a doozy of a pitching matchup with Framber, with Ohtani batting in at least three of the four games. In one player the Angels have a pitcher as good as Cristian Javier and a hitter better than Kyle Tucker. And the Angels will probably miss the playoffs again anyway. And then lose Ohtani in free agency. After the Angels series the Astros are on the road next week. They start with four games at Toronto against the Blue Jays’ very potent lineup, then it’s three at Cleveland vs. the Guardians whose offense has been pathetic so far this season.

Walk this way

Geek Astro factoid of the week: Jeremy Pena drew two walks in Tuesday’s win over the Twins. In his rookie season, Pena had only one two walk game, also in May, also against the Twins. Tuesday’s bases on balls finally got Pena into double digits for the season. He has just 11 walks drawn (largely explaining his weak .307 on-base percentage) vs. 50 strikeouts.

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Stone Cold ‘Stros is the weekly Astro-centric podcast I am part of alongside Brandon Strange and Josh Jordan. On our regular schedule it goes up at 3PM Monday on the SportsMapHouston YouTube channel, is available there for playback at any point, and also becomes available in podcast form at outlets galore. Such as:

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