Something I was thinking of today:
Carlos Correa, career debut until 2018 back injury: .285/.363/.495, 386K:205BB, 79HR, 297 RBI
Carlos Correa, return to end of 2018 regular season: .180/.261/.256, 34K:16BB, 2HR, 16RBI
Carlos Correa, 2018 postseason: .241/.371/.379, 9K:6BB, 1HR, 6RBI
Carlos Correa, 2019 Opening Day until Massaged Rib: .290/.360/.547, 51K:20BB, 11HR, 35 RBI
Carlos Correa, return from Rib to end of 2019 reg season: .244/.355/.611, 24K:15BB, 10HR, 24 RBI
Carlos Correa, 2019 postseason: .191/.257/.382, 27K:6BB, 3HR, 9RBI
When Carlos Correa is healthy, he is a super-star. He will be in his Age 25 season in 2020. He has played in 185 regular season games in 2018-19, 51.1% of the Astros' total regular season games.
*Yordan Alvarez won the Baseball Digest AL Rookie of the Year Award, the 4th Astro (Greg Gross - 1974; Jeff Bagwell - 1991; Willy Taveras - 2005) to do so.
*The Hardball Times: Hinch didn't blow it - the Nationals won it.
*MLBTR posted their Top 50 Free Agents list, with predictions:
Gerrit Cole - 8yrs/$256m to...Anaheim.
Click the link to find where they predict Will Harris ends up, as well as who comes to Houston...Josh Lindblom, anybody?
*The Astros have three of MLB's Top-30 outfielders...and that doesn't include Josh Reddick, according to FanGraphs' Paul Sporer.
*Two minor-leaguers, Granden Goetzman and Erasmo Pinales, became minor-league free agents. As a 26-year old at Corpus, Goetzman hit .225/.303/.422 in 82 games. 24-year old Pinales threw 18IP for Corpus, allowing 20H/8ER, 31K:12BB.
*The Super-Two cutoff is projected to be the least amount of service time in a decade.
*An automated strike zone, sort of, is coming to the minors in 2020.
*The Athletic's Katie Strang: Cocaine and molly are becoming more popular in the NHL.
*BBC: The selfie that revealed I was a stolen baby.
*Popular Mechanics: What would happen if the internet went down...forever?
*A Musical Selection: I don't care what any of you says, this is a great song. And if you didn't know it was Hootie & The Blowfish, I can almost guarantee you'd love it:
The Hot Links Music playlist on Spotify is now over 14 hours long.
We didn't come out here to play tiddlywinks, son.
-Hal Smith
