The loss of Yuli

Much is being made of the impact of Bregman both on the stat sheet and in the clubhouse, and to a great extent I agree. He’s been a heartbeat of the team with his hitting, his glove, and his arm (and not so much base running) since 2017. He makes a lot of “winning plays” which might not make it on the back of a baseball card.

Breggy, like Correa and Springer before him, will command a huge payday which it remains to be seen whether we offer.

Now, when you think about winning plays with the glove, the bat, and on the bases, there are hardly many guys I’ve seen in an Astros uniform who made them as consistently as Yuli Gurriel. Sure, he struggled in 2020 and 2021 in the postseason, but in 2022 he was phenomenal.

I look at our last couple of seasons and we’ve lost countless tight games where the margins are incredible slim, notably in the playoffs, where every pitch and moment is so huge.

Looking now at what Yuli’s brining to KC, it makes me truly wonder whether we’d have won the title last year and made a run this year if we’d just resigned him for a measly 2 yr, $12M deal instead of sinking $58M into Abreu.

Anyways, it’s great seeing Yuli do his thing in postseason once again. He’ll always be the 1B of arguably the best infield of all time (2017-2022) if you ask me!