Espada will be on the hot seat this season even though he doesn\u2019t deserve to be. Let\u2019s not forget he\u2019s led two flawed, injury-riddled teams to 88 and 87 wins, respectively, in his first two seasons as a manager. But Astros owner Jim Crane is notoriously demanding, and it would not shock me if he fires Espada if things don\u2019t go according to plan this season. It would be a mistake for him to do so, but there\u2019s no question it\u2019s a very real possibility.<\/p>\n
Is the most exciting player in the division Julio Rodriguez? Is he the one guy you\u2019d personally pay to see?<\/p>\n
Julio Rodriguez is the most exciting player in the division and one of the 5-10 most exciting players in all of baseball. Cal Raleigh is coming off a historic season, Nick Kurtz is an unbelievable offensive talent and let\u2019s not forget Mike Trout is still around, but no one else can impact a game offensively, defensively and on the basepaths like Rodriguez. I expect him to come out extra motivated after how close the Mariners came to reaching their first World Series last year and deliver an MVP-caliber season.<\/p>\n
Doesn\u2019t it \u201cfeel\u201d like it\u2019s been much longer than Fall of 2023 since the Rangers won the World Series?<\/p>\n
There\u2019s no question the Rangers\u2019 last two seasons have been a disappointment and they\u2019re in a very different place as an organization. They really need their young players like Wyatt Langford, Josh Jung, Evan Carter, Jack Leiter and Kumar Rocker to deliver strong, consistent, healthy seasons. Otherwise, it\u2019s hard to see things meaningfully changing for them this year, even with the additions of MacKenzie Gore and Brandon Nimmo.<\/p>\n
Does A.L. West place multiple teams into the post season or just the division winner? <\/p>\n
I think it will be close, just as it was last season when the Astros missed out on a wild card spot because of a tiebreaker. I expect the Mariners to run away with the division and assert themselves as arguably the best team in the American League. I can see the Astros contending for the final AL wild card spot, and don\u2019t rule out the Athletics if you\u2019re looking for a sleeper team. Their offense will be one of the best and most exciting to watch in baseball, and even with a lot of question marks on their pitching staff, they\u2019re going to win some slugfests.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Espada will be on the hot seat this season even though he doesn\u2019t deserve to be. Let\u2019s not…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":636519,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2389],"tags":[42,5,139,54,64940,65265,4522,36802,3211,4,3537],"class_list":{"0":"post-636518","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-houston-astros","8":"tag-astros","9":"tag-baseball","10":"tag-houston","11":"tag-houston-astros","12":"tag-houston-astros-analysis","13":"tag-houston-astros-discussion","14":"tag-houston-astros-news","15":"tag-houston-astros-rumors","16":"tag-houstonastros","17":"tag-mlb","18":"tag-mlb-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116270688874883319","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/636518","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=636518"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/636518\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/636519"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=636518"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=636518"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=636518"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}