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Forrest Whitley's number change has Astros' reliever channeling 2x Cy Young winner

Eric Cole
Eric Cole

Climbing Tal's Hill

Atlanta Braves v Houston Astros / Logan Riely/GettyImages

Forrest Whitley's big league experience has been limited to three short stints with the Houston Astros last season, but the former top prospect is a familiar name at this point. Throughout his up-and-down career, fans kept close tabs on Whitley for any signs of hope, but few expected that a number could be causing him so much strife.

Players can be funny about uniform numbers. Some digits are viewed as reserved for bench players, and as a result are viewed as undesirable. Some players feel very strongly about the numerals they wear; be it for branding purposes, to pay homage to past baseball heroes, or just good ole fashioned superstition—which is obviously poppycock.

In Whitley's case, his latest (and possibly last) opportunity to stick with the big league club required a uniform number change. Instead of the No. 60 that had been assigned to him in the past, Whitley asked to change his uniform to No. 55 in honor of Tim Lincecum.

Astros reliever Forrest Whitley changing his number to Tim Lincecum's may be wishful thinking

Aside from making this writer feel extremely old, Whitley changing his number as a tribute to Lincecum is incredibly cool. Younger fans may not realize just how much of a force Lincecum was from 2008-2011. During that span, he won a pair of Cy Young Awards, and seemed to be on the fast track to the Baseball Hall of Fame. Unfortunately, Lincecum's body wasn't able to hold up, and he rapidly faded, pitching his final game in 2016.

If we were to offer a guess as to Whitley's favorite pitcher growing up, Lincecum wouldn't have been our first choice. Thankfully Whitley hasn't taken too many lessons from Lincecum's delivery because he was probably the only pitcher on Earth who could pull that off.

One does hope that the number change does Whitley some good. The talent is incredibly real, and if he thinks changing to No. 55 could give him a bit of an edge, great. It's on Whitley to make the most of this opportunity, and if he falls on his face yet again, this change is unfortunately going to become another way to ridicule him, especially given the more unfortunate aspects of Lincecum's legacy.

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Eric Cole

Eric Cole

I started my career writing about baseball covering the Atlanta Braves for SB Nation's Talking Chop back in 2015 which has since been renamed Battery Power. After years of writing for those fine folks, I made the decision to take over as Site Expert at House That Hank Built before becoming a full-time MLB Staff Writer for FanSided in 2023. Along the way, I have been a guest on multiple ESPN radio affiliates as well as 680 The Fan and 92.9 The Game to discuss Braves baseball and especially Braves prospects and was a long-time host on the Battery Power podcast. These days, I continue to write about the Braves as well as covering the Astros, Padres, and Angels with particular expertise with minor league coverage, the MLB Draft, and bashing Anthony Rendon when possible. When I am not writing about or talking about baseball (which is seldom), I am an avid baseball card collector (Maddux and Soroka being my primary personal collections) and I also collect shark teeth. All other sports are mostly dead to me as my Bills have broken my heart too many times.