Astros: Once Altuve, Springer & Co. return, who stays and who goes?

The Astros will have some big decisions to make when Jose Altuve, George Springer, Carlos Correa and the rest of the injured return.

As I discussed yesterday, the Astros currently have seven players on the 10-day Injured List. Altuve and Springer are nearing their return, with Max Stassi and Collin McHugh closely behind. Then, hopefully, not too far down the road, Carlos Correa, Aledmys Diaz, and Joe Smith will be back on the active roster.

There will be a lot of roster shuffling in the very near future and A.J. Hinch and the front office will have to weigh out all of their options. Speaking of options, with players like Tony Kemp, Tyler White and Jake Marisnick all out of options, that could factor heavily in any decisions to be made.

The first thing that has to be ironed out is how many pitchers does Hinch want to go with in the upcoming schedule. If you’ll remember, Reymin Guduan was sent back down to make room for Yordan Alvarez. That shifted the balance of the 25-man roster to 12 pitchers and 13 position players, dropping the pitcher compliment by one, for the time being.

I would imagine, the two recent days off on the June schedule helped Hinch in his decision to drop that extra pitcher. But going forward, the Astros have only one off day out of the remaining 16 games left in June. But then, they have two quick days off in the first week of July and the All-Star break shortly following.