It's asinine to think the Astros just ignored a treatable medical condition for one of their players. The more likely scenario is that it's time consuming and takes a little trial and error (along with second opinions) to find the right treatment for a hormonal condition. This is just the media/fans finding yet another reason to **** all over the Astros.
Not sure if this situation has merit or not, but for the most part, the Astros have supplied the manure to the fans and media, and painted the bullseye on the chest of their organization.
Well Astros had a lot of negative press regarding Appel/Nix, getting hacked, and the Comcast deal... and it turned out okay in the end.
The Osuna, Taubman, and Detroit reporter situations were all situations that the Astros front office brought onto themselves (can try all you want to blame others, but the Astros actions are the ones that made those issues into ****storms for the Astros), and have for all intents and purposes chosen to be the villain. The villain shouldn't get the benefit of the doubt especially within 30 days of admitting they lied in a press release.
F**k Tyler White. Even if he has a condition, when he showed up to camp in embarrassing shape he lost even the slightest room to complain. The idea that the Astros would deny simple treatment that could help a player's performance is just absurd, it defies all logic.
Having said that, I find it highly unlikely that the Astros denied him medical attention. The Astros spent a lot of time having him work on catching, and also spent a lot of time detailing his work out specifics and gave him a good number of at bats in the the big leagues. Is it possible that Tyler figured it out working with his own doctor? Is it possible that the Dodgers physicians figured it out and the Astros physicians didn't? Absolutely. However it makes no sense that the Astros knew of his malady and decided to not get him help while letting his struggle in the big leagues.
"Yeah, let's trifle over $50 of medication while we hemorrhage value on what used to be one of our highly rated prospects." ...said no organization ever.
My guess is that the Astros physicians didn't think problem would affect/wasn't affecting his performance, didn't think it was a big deal, or that initial treatments weren't successful. I'm not seeing a lot of press on Whitegate. As such, I take the comment about media/fans finding ways to **** on the Astros is more about the other things. The Astros have done a lot of things that upset certain people, but for the most part, these things blow over/get accepted. Certain things don't, and the Astros did those things. The Astros choose to do things that gave a platform for the people they've upset.
Who's this highly rated prospect? This thread is about White a guy who had an incredibly bad year, but likely will bounce back as a good backup, 2nd division starter slim or fat. Do people actually think that White will be better than that because he's slim? He, chunky version, was as good in 2018 in 200 or ABs as he, extra chunky version, was bad in 2019 in 200 or so ABs.
The extra chunk could have played a role in his sudden inability to hit fastballs. We won't know for sure until next season if he shows up as svelte pro athlete White.
Doesn't make him highly rated. He was up on Astros opening day in 2016. If he was highly rated by the Astros, he would have been in minors until June to manipulate future salaries or at least another couple of weeks to manipulate service time. Edit: White had a bad 2019. He had a great 2018. He has not flamed out in the bigs just yet. He is a bat-only prospect that only hits fastballs that stopped hitting fastballs. Guys like him tend to have big swings in value.
He was #28 in their system in 2015. That's not Correa/Bregman level, but that's still highly rated. How many guys are in a system? 125? 150? He was #28. And he did flame out: after setting the world on fire for about 8 days in 2016, he fell off a cliff and didn't sniff the show again, iirc, until halfway through 2017.
Assuming MLB.com is your source as it has White at 28th, they only rate 30 players per system. Even the loosiest troll definition of highly rated would not consider 28 out of 30 highly rated.
It's 28 out of 150, regardless of whether they choose to only list 30. I'm not excited about the troll reference. I've done no trolling here.
