It would be kind of funny if Christian Walker simply decided he wanted to check out what the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo is all about. “Ow, my left oblique feels kind of sore. How about sending me to Houston for the weekend to get an MRI?” That would be quite a bodacious move, and total bull (props to you if you see what I did there). Of course, faking pain is not the case, and the Astros now cross their fingers that their 60-million dollar free agent signee doesn’t start his Houston tenure on the injured list. It certainly isn’t encouraging to know that Walker missed about 20 percent of last season with a left oblique injury. In 2021 he spent two stints on the IL because of right oblique problems. Obviously the Astros want return on their investment as quickly and as substantially as possible, but they would be fools not to treat this conservatively. Walker turns 34 years old the second day of the regular season. No one should be having night sweats just yet over the possibility that Walker is about to become Jose Abreu 2.0. Abreu was 36 when he debuted with the Astros. However, it is accurate to note that Abreu had a significantly higher WAR in his last season before joining the Astros than did Walker.

If Walker turns out to be sidelined for a month, that would mean the Astros need a first baseman for the first week and a half or so of the regular season. Let the drumbeat for Cam Smith begin! The sample size remains laughably small, but Smith continues to speak softly and swing a very, very big stick. If you’ll accept a .636 batting average as pretty good. It’s only 11 at bats. But yowza! If Walker is to be down into the regular season, and Smith keeps rocketing line drives in the Grapefruit League, the plot thickens. Smith only has 19 at bats above single-A. That’s 19 more than Albert Pujols had when the St. Louis Cardinals decided to have him in their lineup to begin the 2001 season. Albert did fairly well. He’s merely the greatest first baseman in National League history.

The much more conservative approach would be a platoon with Jon Singleton in the lineup against most right-handed pitchers and whoever is not catching between Yainer Diaz and Victor Caratini playing against lefties. Zach Dezenzo would be another option. Cam Smith is not an option to play first base, at least not early in 2025. Just in the last few days, he’s started doing some outfield drills because of the possible pathway to the big club in right field that I wrote about last week. Cam Smith is not going to make a huge jump to the big leagues and basically try to learn a new position on the fly there. However, Isaac Paredes owns a first baseman’s glove. Paredes started 13 games at first for the Rays last season. He made 40 starts total at first over the last three seasons, his only big league starts at first, after a grand total of two at first in the minors. Paredes temporarily moving to first would open up third base for Smith. Just sayin’...

What's in a name?

File this more under trivial than trivia, but here goes. When Isaac Paredes takes the field in the season opener, he officially becomes the third Paredes in Astros’ history. Utility man Jimmy Paredes got some run during the franchise deep in the abyss stage from 2010-13. Relief pitcher Enoli Paredes got 32 1/3 innings in over three seasons 2020-22. There have been only six guys named Paredes in MLB history. Come March 27 the Astros will have had half of them.

On the farm

MLB Pipeline this week released its in order ranking of the Astros’ top 30 prospects. Cam Smith is the obvious number one. Brice Matthews is number two. Drafted as a shortstop, Matthews has a better route to the bigs as a second baseman, given the Astros’ weak depth chart there with Jose Altuve becoming primarily a left fielder. Outfielder Jacob Melton is third. Considering the present state of the Astros’ outfield and that Melton turns 25 this September, if worth a darn, he should play his way on to the 26-man roster at some point this year. Catcher Walker Yanek ranks fourth. He was the Astros’ first round pick last July. Dezenzo rounds out the top five.

We’re under three weeks until Opening Day. Join Brandon Strange, Josh Jordan, and me for the Stone Cold ‘Stros podcast which drops each Monday afternoon, with an additional episode now on Thursday. Click here to catch!

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