Houston Astros: Assessing the Roster for the ALDS
3. The Ones That Didn’t Make It
Unfortunately, some big contributors for the Houston Astros in 2018 had to be left off of the ALDS roster. It is no way indicative of their performances. Rather, it is merely having to make the tough decisions as a manager as to who is in or out.
As they say, it’s a good problem to have when you are this stacked to the brim with talent.
Among the pitchers, the noticeable absences are Hector Rondon, Chris Devenski, and Brad Peacock. Not too long ago, Peacock came down with a case of hand, foot, and mouth disease and had to get medical treatment to improve. Likely, him being left off is merely a health precaution.
For the position players, Derek Fisher and Max Stassi come to mind. Fisher is more understandable since they have enough of the defensive specialties of Marisnick, Kemp, and Staw. That, coupled with his bat not rising to the major league level, were good reasons to keep him off of a playoff roster. Please note, I say that with nothing but love for the Fish.
Two X-Factors for the Astros playoff run. light. Also
Stassi, on the other hand, is a tad more of an upset. I wrote about his early season surge in April, but since then, Maximus has not been the same. Add to that, Gattis definitely got seniority on the offensive side, and the team likely did not want to go with three catchers again.
Luhnow said that advancing to the AL pennant could give any of the spacemen-in-waiting a shot to play in that championship. Looks like we’ll see what happens.