Welcome to the last Saturday of 2018 without the Astros doing baseball things on a field until October.
*Brian McTaggart resets the Astros roster after an off-season that was, by this off-season's standards, INSANE.
*The Associated Press has a Spring Training preview (I guess) of the Astros. Notable quote from Luhnow:
The plan that Jim Crane had in 2011 when he hired me and bought this team was to get the Astros relevant as soon as possible and then win multiple championships. So we're on our way to our goal. We certainly by no stretch have achieved it.
*MLB.com's Anthony Castrovince has the ten best rivalries for 2018 and the Astros have two spots on it: v. New York (#5) and Arlington (#4).
*New York media sure does like to talk about the Astros. Here's the NJ.com beat writers wondering who's better right now: The Astros or the Yankees. Short version is that Randy Miller is all in on the Yankees, while Brendan Kuty gives the edge to the Astros.
*The Astros dominated the Houston Sports Awards thing the other night.
*Brian T. Smith: At last, your World Series champion Astros are back.
*Sam Miller: Why no one will ever hit .400 again. It's a really interesting read. And, for what it's worth, Jose Altuve had an 81-game stretch from May 27-September 2 in which he hit .396/.448/.617.
We didn't come out here to play tiddlywinks, son.
-Hal Smith
