Wednesday Morning Hot Links

Ladies and Gentlemen, here is your host for this morning's Hot Links: give it up for Flick Nickem!

*Crowd claps politely but nothing crazy. They just didn't want him to feel bad*

Yes that's right folks I'm back behind the keyboard ready to cook up some hot links regarding the Houston Astros baseball team for the next few months again. My """""break""""" is over, but in all actuality I was buried in things I had to do for my coursework so James let me take a vacation while I got everything smoothed out. Well, my finals are all the way done and I do not have to worry about anything school-related so hopefully that means better and more thought-out content coming up in the coming days. Remember, if you don't like me doing the posting on this website, I still post every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday so you can go ahead and skip those days if you would like I won't mind or tell. 

But ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh it's Hot Links time!

~Jeff Luhnow says the team had "a very productive day" yesterday at the Winter Meetings, so it sounds like we can expect some sort of free agent news in the coming days. I hope this means we offered Bryce Harper a quarter of a billion dollars because if I had a quarter of a billion dollars I would definitely do that. Or give it to Marwin.

~And speaking of Bryce Harper, let's talk about just how likely this fantasy would be.

~Forrest Whitley messed around and threw a baseball 110 miles per hour so maybe this kid could be an alright pitcher. Scouts were so impressed that they're letting him come to Spring Training this year. 

~ICYMI from yesterday and since the offseason is still slow: here is a great piece by Chandler Rome on the Astros' 2-sport athlete Kyle Tucker. Speaking of the kid, he is the main topic on this week's MLB Pipeline Podcast so we should all head on over and check it out.

~Last evening, Alex Bregman got #wet.

~The Rangers and Astros will be the only teams in 2019 to only have a 3 day All-Star break which is absolutely fine by me but I will still miss them dearly and three days is still a long time for my heart to wait.

~I hope we aren't banning the shift.

~Tony Kemp is making pure-hearted content on Twitter dot com again.

~They keep grooming Aledmys Diaz to be the next Marwin Gonzalez which is weird because we don't need two super utility players on the team. What a silly org lol

~The animal that was initially believed to be rat which turned out to be a ferret is actually a weasel. Also it appears as if there is a Ferret Association of Connecticut, which really brightened my day.

~"Hawaiian Monk Seals Keep Getting Eels Stuck Up Their Snouts, Nobody 'NOSE' Why." I have nothing to add.

On This Day in Baseball History

-In 1930, the rules committee created the ground rule double. Originally, if a ball bounced into the stands, it was ruled as a home run.

-In 1933, arguably the trade with the best names from top to bottom, the A's traded Lefty Grove, Rube Wallberg, and Max Bishop to Boston for Bob Kline and Rabbit Warstler.

-In 1966, the U.S. Supreme Court voted 4 to 3 to not review Wisconsin's suit to block the Milwaukee Braves move to Atlanta.

-In 2007, the Astros traded to acquire Miguel Tejada from Baltimore in exchange for Matt Albers, Troy Patton, Luke Scott, Dennis Sarfate, and Michael Costanzo.

-In 2009, the Astros made their free agent splash on the same day, this time for pitcher Brandon Lyon.