Meet Luis Valbuena, Your New Third Baseman

The Houston Astros have gotten through the first few weeks of Spring Training with a 7-7-1 record.

Things have been up-and-down but one thing’s for sure, these guys are battling hard to shock the world once the season starts.

As these few weeks have progressed, it has become clearly evident that there is a new sheriff…err uh…third baseman in town.

Who could it possibly be?

That would be none other than Luis Valbuena.

Valbuena, who was acquired by Astros back in January along with pitcher Dan Straily from the Chicago Cubs in exchange for Dexter Fowler, has appeared to be a steal so far.

I’ll have to admit, it was tough losing Fowler because he was one of my favorite players.

The guy could hit and field quite well with a motor that nobody could seem to shut down.

But I knew it was the beginning of the end when he and Astros did not agree during arbitration proceedings.

Fowler filed for $10.8 million when the Astros offered him $8.5 million.

I’m sure general manager Jeff Luhnow had a contingency for this and was able to make that swap shipping Fowler to the Cubs.

He eventually settled on $9.5 million with the Cubs.

For a guy I thought was going to offer some competition to Matt Dominguez , the incumbent at third base, he has all but ran away with the gig this early in.

Valbuena, 29, has gone 12-for-28 for a .429 batting average, with seven ribbies, two home runs and four doubles through 10 games and 30 plate appearances in Spring Training so far.

His on-base plus slugging is an amazing 1.219.

He’s doing things that Matty D was not always the best at — that’s getting on-base.

Because all-in-all, things cannot happen if you don’t have guys on base to score and that’s ultimately what the Astros are looking for in a infielder along with the usual attributes of quality defense, fielding and hitting.

In contrast, Matty D has gone 7-for-26, batting .269, with a pretty darn horrible .591 OPS through 12 games and 28 plate appearances in ST.

If one is making a case to be the Opening Day starter, Matty D has certainly not brought anything to the table.

His Spring Training numbers are similar to what he put up throughout the 2014 season — bad, bad and more bad!

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Instead, I would suggest that he start packing his bags and start looking for a pad in Fresno, Calif. because I think he will be on a Opening Day roster — just not with the Astros.

He’ll be a part of the Grizzlies’ Opening Day roster, if even that…

Meanwhile, Houston is Valbuena’s 4th stop in his seven-year MLB career with previous stints for the Seattle Mariners, Cleveland Indians and the Chicago Cubs.

He spent his rookie season with the Mariners, three years with the Indians and the most recent three with the Cubs.

I honestly feel that he’ll be here for awhile if he continues to play like this!

Matty D still has about another week to do some convincing to keep his job but it’s not looking good at all.