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Houston Astros: 3 Things to be Thankful For This Offseason
By Eric Huysman
2) The Astros can only get better from here
A.J. Reed playing first. Photo Credit by Tammy Tucker
They were the surprise Cinderella team in 2015, even though the Texas Rangers came back from a worse record in 2015 than the Astros. The truth is, the Astros are built to last and constantly replenish itself for the foreseeable future. The next wave of talent is due to hit at some point in 2016, including A.J. Reed, Mark Appel, Tony Kemp, and Joseph Musgrove since he was added to the 40-man roster for the 2016 season.
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Appel will probably be the number five guy in 2016 at some point, probably not opening day. Appel will learn to be more consistent, but will strive in the majors. Reed should be the missing element in this Astros lineup, a consistent RBI bat along the lines of Paul Goldschmidt, Miguel Cabrera, and Nolan Arenado hopefully. The Astros will want him to get some experience in Triple-A, but he can be fast tracked like Correa was in 2015 if the Astros don’t have any other answers at first base.
Further down the road you will see some of the premiere talents in the Astros organization such as Daz Cameron, Alex Bregman, Riley Ferrell, Kyle Tucker, Francis Martes, and J.D. Davis. The Astros organization is so loaded that they could potentially lose 4-5 of their top 30 prospects in the Rule V draft. Look for Luhnow to try to deal some excess talent for major league talent to help now, instead of losing them in the Rule V draft.
Sports Illustrated famously predicted that the Astros would win the World Series in 2017 which is no longer an out of reach possibility as it was in 2014 when the Astros were losing 97 games.
Next: What is my third thing I am thankful for? Click to go on.