Gurriel finished last season as the Astros best hitter. He also finished as the league's best hitter. If I am making the line up there is no question as to who is leading off, With Dusty, who knows.
Yuli had a nice year, but he wasn't remotely close to being the league's best hitter nor the best hitter on the Astros.
Altuve is not an ideal leadoff hitter IMHO. Important skills of a leadoff hitter: 1) get on base 2) skilled baserunner 3) high baseball IQ 4) able to make very quick correct decisions at plate and on bases. 5) fast baserunner 6) see lots of pitches The gist here is you want the leadoff hitter to get on base and give the run producers the best chance to drive them in by: running the bases, making the right choices to jot waste opportunities, and help them see pitches. Because of this Pena may become the best leadoff hitter on this team but right now he needs more experience learning the league pitchers and other players, and going through situations so he can react and make decisions instantly. He does not need the pressure while learning.
Castro's health may be interesting to monitor. There are only he and Maldy on the 40 man. There is depth in the minors at catcher but adding a 3rd catcher to the 40 man could create an issue. The team may plan on adding Korey Lee later in the season but if a 3rd catcher is needed early maybe it's better for him and the team if they add Papierski or Manea so he can play everyday at AAA. If that is the case they would have to make a tough decision and possibly lose another player.
There may be many opinions of what best hitter means, but the only opinion that is correct is that the best hitter is the one that is the best at hitting. Yuli was the best at getting hits per at bat.
I will say best hitter is Tucker with a 147 OPS+. But the best leadoff man is Gurriel with a 383 OBP.
Actually this isn't accurate, offensive production isn't subjective. Tucker was clearly our best hitter last year
My goodness, Chandler Rome is such an asshat. This is Evan Dreillich part 2 in the making. Is it in baseball beat writer DNA to be a smarmy, cranky, insufferable douche?
Sounds like Baez is going to be a non-factor again if he's still really 88-90. Good thing they have plenty of AAV available or that contract would hurt!
