Holdin' Onto Hope Part 2: Cranes, Trains, and Auto-Explosions (The Show 12)

[TheNumber35]

The Story Thus Far:
Read here: Holdin’ Onto Hope

OR

Spoiler

Lucas Harrell ended up in the hospital after a brawl in a Houston bar 2 weeks before Spring Training of 2012 started. “Jeff Luhnow” (or who we think to be Jeff Luhnow) is linked to the incident, claiming that Harrell failing is the first step in his plan. A plan that would give him controlling stake of the Astros.

Fast-forward a couple days, Jim Crane (Astros Owner) has just finished giving the commencement speech at EMU when a young man, Brandon Gillespie, approaches him and asks for a job in Houston. Crane is impressed with Gillespie and decides to give him a shot, which causes Brandon to pick up and move to Houston with his long-time girlfriend Lisa.

Brandon works with the newly healthy Harrell on his mechanics in Spring Training, causing Harrell to pitch unbelievably well (to the tone of an undefeated record, and an ERA of 0.00), which causes Luhnow to freak out, because Harrell isn’t failing. He vows to find a new plan and get things working in his favor again. A couple days later, Luhnow trades Carlos Lee away so he can control the team playing around Harrell, and hopefully cause Harrell to fail.

We now learn about the bet Crane made to save his job and his team. Luhnow has some faulty evidence linking Crane to sketchy activity, activity that could get him thrown in jail and have the team turned over to Luhnow. Which led Crane to make a desperation bet that Lucas Harrell could be an average big league pitcher. His frustration with the bet leads him to inadvertently discover evidence against Luhnow, evidence that could switch the tide of this battle.

Spoiler

It seemed someone was pulling Luhnow’s strings the whole time, we later discover this to be Mark Cuban. Cuban wants the team so he can run it into the ground and make money off sports gambling. Meanwhile, Crane uses the evidence to blackmail Luhnow into getting rid of his evidence on Crane. Unfortunately for Crane, this is exactly what Luhnow wanted. Jeff plotted to get Jim on tape blackmailing him, so he could take it to the police and bust him. Right before Crane was taken, he sent Gillespie off to find some men, claiming that “their worst fear could be realized in 3 weeks time.”

These men ended up being Astros Hall of Famers Craig Biggio and Jeff Bagwell. Gillespie tracked them down and found out the truth about the situation he had gotten himself into. Also, he learned that the Jeff Luhnow we’ve been shown is actually a doppelganger, someone paid to impersonate Luhnow and do Cuban’s bidding. After a little deliberation, the men successfully kidnap the doppelganger and send the real Luhnow home.

The doppelganger’s real name is Henry and after he was interrogated by Biggio and Bagwell we see for the first time, Cuban’s right hand man. He talks very vaguely about “taking care of the real Luhnow” and kills Henry with some sort of poison.

The real Jeff Luhnow goes to work for the first time in months, and promptly gets blackmailed over the phone by Cuban’s right hand man. The man kidnapped Luhnow’s wife but says he will return her unharmed. However, he claims if the Astros aren’t turned over to him in 6 months, he will do it again and then kill his wife.

Finally, Brandon Gillespie goes home for a vacation and receives a call from a blocked caller, who ends up being Jim Crane. Crane’s call is static-filled and difficult to understand, but all Brandon really hears are the words “explosion…people…but…me…dead” The call cuts out after that, leaving Brandon confused and bewildered.

Oh, and there was some baseball too…the Astros were bad, finishing 66 and 96 on the season.

Alright, now we’re back…after some internet troubles and what feels like an eternity of turmoil in La Casa de Gillespie (in real life of course.), its offseason time! When we left things off, the Cincinnati Reds were holding the trophy and celebrating their World Series Championship. Congrats again to the champs, but now it’s time for us to bolster this stupid team a little bit and look forward to 2013.

First things first…we need a new manager. Because Brad Mills sucked a hard one. Eventually, after scouring the list of potential hires, we landed on Ned Yost. Yost is an experienced hand that could help develop our talent and potentially lead this team to the World Series when we’re ready. So we settled on a 3 year deal with Ned and moved on to bigger fish, namely the actual team we put on the field.




Now then, let’s take a look at the top free agents of 2012:




Victorino heads the list of position players, while E-Jack heads the list of pitchers. Both are premier players, and both want nothing to do with Houston…of that we can be sure. Let’s focus our efforts on players that we can renew and retain first, then take a look at what’s left in free agency. After getting all our guys locked up (with the exception of Brett Wallace, Chris Snyder, some relief pitchers, and Matt Downs.) we take a look in FA to see this name pop up:



Alex Gonzalez is still unsigned? Are the Brewers going crazy? This guy had a 20+ homer season with 77 RBI last year and his .277 average would have led our god-forsaken squad. Sign em’ up boys! Because we are Houston, and because Alex is merely a stopgap until Correa is ready to play, we decided to lowball him with a one year deal as Spring closed in and see what happens. And what do you know? He signed with us. That solves our SS issue this season, as Villar did nothing to impress us down in OKC last season. We also picked up Ryan Theriot to be our utility infielder, a job that Matt Downs was filling before signing a deal with Oakland.*


*Side note: San Fran is stockpiling free agent talent after their lost play-in game last season. They picked up Victorino to man Center for them and Dotel to sure up the bullpen.*

[TheNumber35]

Anyways, we took a shot at Bryan LaHair on a cheap 1 year deal as well, but St Louis of all places, swooped in and picked him up before we could even think about the possibilities of a power hitter in Houston. We also tried with Jesse Carlson on a cheap deal, but he said no way. After it was all said and done, Gonzalez and Theriot were our only big pickups, oh that reminds me...speaking of Theriot:



Anyways, most of our signings were either for depth or they were fringe arms for our bullpen/rotation in the minors and bigs. The one guy to watch of those fringe arms is Hector Noesi. Hector was with Seattle last season, had a poor season in the rotation on that 107 loss Mariner squad. But he has good stuff and could be a helpful bullpen arm in the No-Name Bullpen we’re going to feature.

Notable Free Agent Signings:
Edwin Jackson: NYY
Anibal Sanchez: SD
JD Drew: SD
Dioner Navarro: SFG
Octavio Dotel: SFG
Shane Victorino: SFG
Jhonny Peralta: NYY
Brett Wallace: NYY
Ryan Madson: NYY
JJ Putz: TB
Ichiro Suzuki: TOR
Rod Barajas: DET
Andruw Jones: KC
JP Howell: LAA
AJ Pierzynski: LAA
Jason Kubel: LAA
Matt Downs: OAK


Look at LA and San Fran...both look to be bolstering their squads for postseason runs with solid pickups. And New York as well, considering Jeter and Mo retired last season...signing Peralta and Madson were solid pickups that fulfilled huge needs for them. And Houston? Well we're still going to be bad, but at least we didn't spend ridiculous amounts of money for average players (I'm looking at you Yankees! 43 million over 4 years for Peralta? Haha good luck with that man.)

[TheNumber35]

Onward to Spring! Maybe this can be our year (doubtful, but you never know.)


I had to start out with the good thus far, as we've played 3 games this Spring and JD hit that mammoth HR off former Astro and current Blue Jay Wandy Rodriguez. It was a 3R HR that led to a Houston win against the Suzuki led Jays.

Onto the construction of the team, which is honestly not as wide open as last year. The only competition to watch is the bullpen. Since most of our young arms and position players are around another half year away from contributing in the rotation, the bullpen is the place to watch for movers and shakers. Not to mention our pitching staff and lineup are both pretty set this year, with our rotation looking like this:


Bud Norris
JA Happ
Kyle Weiland
Jordan Lyles
Lucas Harrell

We didn’t want to resign Happ, but apparently someone really wanted him…as he was inked anyways. And since we really can’t drop a 3 year contract into free agency without some ramifications on our budget, we’ll stick with him for now. Hopefully someone will want him later in the year or something. I would have loved to give Cosart or Folty a shot up here this season, but with the contract of Happ, I can’t do that in good conscious.

Our starting 8 looks like this:
C: Castro
1B: Hessman
2B: Altuve
3B: Johnson
SS: Gonzalez
LF: Martinez
CF: Maxwell
RF: Bogey

Really no surprises here either, but considering Singleton, Springer, and Correa are both at least a year away, we needed some veteran help at 1st, center, and short. Enter Hessman and Gonzalez. Hessman performed well down the stretch for us, we so wanted to give him another shot, and Gonzalez is a proven threat in a lineup that brings the glove as well. Both guys are going to be keys to the offense this year and make up 2/5 of our infield. Maxwell speaks for himself in Center. After taking the job from Schafer, he hit 19 dingers and played solid defense all year long. So of course he retains his job for now.

The bullpen is a bit shakier than everywhere else as of right now:
LR: Wilton Lopez/Anthony Bass/Craig Stammen
MR: Wesley Wright
MR: David Carpenter/Juan Abreu
MR: Rhiner Cruz
MR: Hector Noesi/Anthony Bass/Craig Stammen
SU: Fernando Rodriguez
SU: Kevin Jepsen
CP: Sergio Escalona

All these roles are subject to change, except Escalona as the closer because of his stellar 2012 campaign. Whoever pitches the best will be in the key roles and situations this season, as it should be on any club.

As for our bench, it looks like this as of right now:
LF Travis Buck
SS Ryan Theriot
C Johnny Monell
CF Jordan Schafer

A five man bench is something I’d like to have but with our rotation’s struggles last season, it’s safer to carry 13 pitchers and 12 position players for now. Schafer gives us speed and defense off the bench, Theriot is our utility guy since he can play pretty much every position except catcher. Monell is our backup catcher, he was acquired in the Brandon Lyon trade last season and looks to make an impact as a backup. And Buck gives us a guy who can spell Bogey or JD in the corner OF spots, as well as a solid pinch hitting option.

[TheNumber35]

Brandon Gillespie's Apartment
Houston, TX
February 26th, 2013


It had been about 4 months since the call. The call that shook his entire foundation, that defined everything he had thought or done in the last 4 months.

Quote: Originally Posted by FLASHBACK to Jim Crane Call

We don't...much time Brandon...listen careful...There...an explosion...hundreds dead and unaccounted...but I'm...the gist of things is this: people...I'm dead and.....

That voice still haunts him from time to time and there were so many questions to be answered because of it. What did he want from Brandon? What happened to Jim? Why call Brandon of all people in his last moments? All questions that ate away at the 24 year old on a daily basis. It was about that time to start the season again, time to get things going again, time to take his mind off his old friend. He was gone and it was high time Brandon moved on to bigger things. Like his promotion, Brandon had been promoted because of his hard work and excellent eye for talent to the Assistant General Manager. Jeff Luhnow was still the GM and owner, the Jerry Jones of the MLB...except without all the winning and money of course.

Jeff had seemed off since the end of the season, for whatever reason. Brandon didn't make too much of it, as he couldn't really do much to help in whatever problem Jeff was having anyways...plus Brandon was having his own demons come back up with the whole Crane thing. The news had just gotten a hold of the story of Crane's death and things were looking bleak.

Quote: Originally Posted by News Reporter

Jim Crane, former owner of the Houston Astros was one of the 143 unaccounted for prisoners after the prison explosion of 4 months ago. Crane, a wealthy man in his own right, was serving a 3 year sentence after he reached a plea bargain in a blackmail and extortion case. The cause of the explosion is still unknown, although authorities have preliminarily guessed it was caused by some sort of gas leak...

Brandon clicked off the TV, he couldn't listen to this anymore. Jim was still haunting him and he'd be damned if he made this worse by continuing to feed his own fire. It was time to move on, Jim Crane wasn't coming back...he was gone forever.

[TheNumber35]

That may be the last update you guys get until I get my internet back at home, I'm working on one more funny story spot. But I may be leaving Panera soon, as my ride works in 40 minutes lol and still needs to go home and change. So we'll see. Also, I'm working on switching up my playing style. I'm thinking I want to go to a play 1 sim 1, or to playing every game...thoughts?

[TheNumber35]

Jay Crawford: This just into Sportscenter, according to the Houston Chronicle, Astros pitcher JA Happ has been discovered to be an illegal immigrant from Russia. Happ's real identity is unknown at this time, however he is believed to be former KGB assassin Sergei Nikolav. Happ is considered to be very dangerous and not to be approached for any reason. The Astros organization, via Owner/GM Jeff Luhnow, have released this message in response to the news on Happ's identity



"We are extremely disappointed to find out about JA...or whatever his name is. We will fully cooperate with the FBI in handing over any and all information about him that we have."

Houston opened Spring camp earlier this week with Happ slotted to be their #2 starter, this is a huge blow to a team without much pitching depth and organizational depth in general. Houston finished 29 games out of first place last season with a record of 66 and 92. Spring Camp now opens up a job for one of the talented prospect arms the Astros have in the minors, possibly top pitching prospect Jarred Cosart or 25 year old Paul Clemens. Houston also has Jeanmar Gomez, Felix Doubrount, and Anthony Bass in camp this Spring trying for AAA and AA pitching spots, so they could also be options.

[jknott10]

Quote: Originally Posted by TheNumber35

That may be the last update you guys get until I get my internet back at home, I'm working on one more funny story spot. But I may be leaving Panera soon, as my ride works in 40 minutes lol and still needs to go home and change. So we'll see. Also, I'm working on switching up my playing style. I'm thinking I want to go to a play 1 sim 1, or to playing every game...thoughts?

How bout play 1 sim 2 or play one game a series then 2 games per division series. You get more played games in and the season still moves at a decent pace

[AC]

Wow, I missed a lot! Like yours, my internet was out. But since I'm such a brilliant mind, I fixed it.

Spoiler

All I did was reset my router..... But you've probably tried that.