PoppaB05 said:

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Gurriel is right behind Altuve and Alvarez in my "He's definitely coming through" confidence level late in games.

Also, that 2017 team was so much fun.

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Correa was mine once the calendar flipped to October. I always felt like he'd come through

The Marlins are no longer hiring a practice squad of non-pro players, after MLB approached the organization with concerns.

The advertisements have been removed.

Here's a story on those concerns and what happened, with @ByMcCullough: https://t.co/Ksi10BIuN8 https://t.co/mqawaCule6

— Sam Blum (@SamBlum3) March 18, 2025

The Original Houston 1836 said:

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EastCoastAgNc said:

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The Marlins are no longer hiring a practice squad of non-pro players, after MLB approached the organization with concerns.

The advertisements have been removed.

Here's a story on those concerns and what happened, with @ByMcCullough: https://t.co/Ksi10BIuN8 https://t.co/mqawaCule6

— Sam Blum (@SamBlum3) March 18, 2025

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What about their practice of hiring non-pro players to play for the Marlins?

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Baseball started and the cubs suck

PoppaB05 said:

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Gurriel is right behind Altuve and Alvarez in my "He's definitely coming through" confidence level late in games.

Also, that 2017 team was so much fun.

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I remember his last season here struggling at the plate, at least by Yuli standards, and he basically flipped a switch in the postseason on the way to winning the World Series.

Then we thought we had a better albeit much more expensive replacement just a year after Yuli won a Gold Glove and the batting title in '21.

I hope that lesson isn't forgotten anytime soon and that Christian has a great 3 years in Houston.

Source: Ex-Yankees outfielder Alex Verdugo hasn’t received a formal big-league contract offer since the end of last season. https://t.co/iZvkawo15t

— Brendan Kuty 🧟‍♂️ (@BrendanKutyNJ) March 18, 2025

There are still some interesting names out there.

SP
Kyle Gibson
Lance Lynn
Spencer Turnbull
Patrick Corbin
Alex Wood
Anthony DeSclafani

RP
David Robertson
Joe Kelly
Craig Kimbrel
Drew Smyly
Brooks Raley
Will Smith

C
Yasmani Grandal
Yan Gomes

IF
Whit Merrifield
Anthony Rizzo
Miguel Sano

OF
Alex Verdugo
David Peralta
Adam Duvall
Robbie Grossman

DH
JD Martinez
Matt Carpenter

Lance Lynn signed with the Cubs a couple of days ago.

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JD Martinez

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Bring it full circle. Begin as a Stro, retire as a Stro

Yeah it was mostly a joke. But I definitely wouldn't be opposed to taking a flyer on Verdugo, if the terms were right. I liked what Farmer threw out there

I don't get why we haven't taken a flyer on Verdugo either

A lot of character concerns and he refuses to sign a contract for less than two years.

Could Merrifield give us something? He was good a few years ago (all star in 2023)

I think he's washed. His legs were a big part of what made him good and he doesn't have the same wheels

The majority of them are guys who were once interesting but are now washed up.

However, there are SEVERAL RP options there and I just wish we would snag one. We feel short on the back end as I don't think Tayler Scott is the guy that he was in the first half of the last year or the one they are counting on him to be.

Of the OF remaining, Peralta is the one that is mildly surprising. Defense is subpar, but he still has a competent LH bat.

Grossman is now useless against RHP, and Duvall is washed up although he seems to wake back up every time he plays at Minute Maid...errr...Daikin Park.

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Why the season hinges on Yordan lvarez: Now that Kyle Tucker is gone, and with Jose Altuve turning 35 in May, lvarez is the sun around which the Astros orbit. When he is healthy, lvarez is one of the five best hitters in baseball, a force who punishes bad pitches and manages others with aplomb. For a guy with four consecutive 30-homer-plus seasons, lvarez rarely strikes out -- he had the third-lowest K rate of anyone with 30-plus last year -- and rarely chases bad pitches.

lvarez played a career-high 147 games last season, and if Houston returns to form amid an overhaul from its two World Series-winning seasons, it will be with lvarez hitting the massive sorts of home runs like he did in the 2022 World Series-clinching Game 6.

How to win your fantasy league: Grab third baseman Isaac Paredes and fall in love with Daikin Park's left-field Crawford Boxes. No player and stadium marry quite as well as Paredes and Houston's home park thanks to his extreme-pull approach, with 1,786 career plate appearances and every one of his 72 home runs to left. It didn't work in Chicago, where Paredes hit three homers in 52 games. But with the foul pole in left only 315 feet away, it should in Houston.

The best thing I heard all spring: The ocean of praise lavished on Cam Smith is rare for a player with 134 professional plate appearances, though since entering organized baseball, Smith has done nothing but hit. Chosen 14th overall by the Cubs last summer, Smith looked like their third baseman of the future. He came to the Astros in the Kyle Tucker deal, carried an OPS of nearly 2.000 through his first spring, and is now readying to transition to right field, the truest sign yet that the team wants him in Houston full time as soon as possible.

Something you might not know: From May 11 on, right-hander Hunter Brown posted the third-best ERA in baseball behind Paul Skenes (who's arguably the best pitcher in the game) and Chris Sale (who won the National League Cy Young Award). In each of his 24 outings, he went at least five innings, and 19 times it was six or more. With a six-pitch mix, including a nasty changeup he debuted last season, Brown won't start Opening Day. But by the end of the season, he's primed to be the clear ace of Houston's future.

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Passan's MLB Preview

Not sure how credible Dykstra is, but if this is true holy moly!! We should've been investing in a PI team to follow Umps around instead of buzzers!

MLB casuals: “The @astros defiled the game by using trashcans!!!!”

Lenny Dykstra: 😳pic.twitter.com/8VX86kkdE7

— JTyler (@TX2WI) March 18, 2025

Dykstra isn't the most credible of sources, but also the type that would actually do this, so who knows. This was from 2015 when he had a book coming out. Could be true. Could have been made up to generate interest in the book.

But players and teams have been doing everything they could to gain an edge for as long as the game has been played, so it's definitely believable.