TCB All-Time Astros Dream Draft Tournament Preview

Welcome to the Crawfish Boxes All-Time Astros Dream Draft Tournament!

Over the past week, five TCB writers (bilbos, Hebrew Hammah, Cody Poage, Theo Gerome and mhatter106) participated in a 15 round draft, where the objective was to construct the best roster possible comprised entirely of Astros past and present.

• Each team’s roster was to be comprised of 9 position players: 8 for each position, plus an extra to serve as DH.
• Each team’s roster was also to include 6 pitchers, at least 3 of whom needed to be starting pitchers.
• Only players who spent at least two full seasons with the Astros were eligible to be drafted. To be eligible for a position, that player must have had at least two seasons where it was their primary position.
• Players drafted are the Houston versions of themselves. In other words, Joe Morgan is Joe Morgan from the Astros, not from the Reds. Luis Gonzalez is the Houston version, not the Arizona version.
• A 16th round was conducted, where each writer was able to select which uniform/stadium combination from franchise history their team would use. The options were: Colt 45 uniforms and Colt Stadium, Tequila Sunrise Rainbow jerseys and early Astrodome, 90’s Blue & Gold jerseys and Late Astrodome, Brick Red uniforms and Enron Field (with Tal’s Hill), and finally today’s uniforms and Minute Maid Park (without Tal’s Hill)

You can view the Draft results here: Rounds 1-5, Rounds 6-10, Rounds 11-15

Each writer wrote up a defense of their roster construction (some more logical than others), which you can read here:

• Hatter
• Theo Gerome
• Cody Poage
• Bilbos
• Hebrew Hammah

TCB voting for who had the best team began yesterday and continues until tomorrow morning, with Hammer currently in the lead with 37% of the vote at the time of this writing.

All five teams will now face off against each other using Out of the Park 21 baseball simulator software. (This is the same software MLB.com used to run their Dream Bracket tournament.)

Here’s how it will work:

• A 5 team double elimination tournament bracket will be used. Seeding was determined randomly by dice roll.
• The version of the player being used in each matchup comes from the year that player had the highest bWAR for the Astros. That means 1986 Mike Scott, 1994 Jeff Bagwell, and 2000 Richard Hidalgo. One exception was made to this: although 2016 Jose Altuve has a marginally higher bWAR, we are using the 2017 MVP version of Jose Altuve.
• Each writer has determined their batting lineup. There are no injuries, no substitutions, no pinch hitting and no pinch running, because there is no bench.
• 3 of the 6 pitchers on each team will throw 2 innings each (Innings 1-2, 3-4, 5-6). These must be starting pitchers. The remaining 3 will throw 1 inning each (7, 8 and 9).
• There are no pitching substitutions for matchups or ineffectiveness. The pitcher is left in until he gets the 3 or 6 outs he is assigned to get, no matter how long it takes. If the game goes into extra innings, the 9th inning pitcher will continue to pitch until the game is over.
• Player fatigue is reset to normal before each match.
• Box scores and recaps from each tournament match will be posted on TCB as they are simulated.

Here are the 5 teams’ lineups and pitching staffs along with some statistics from the historical year they were pulled from. As I could not name all 5 teams “Houston Astros”, I renamed each team according to their manager and their uniform/time period: Hatter Colt 45’s, Theta Rainbows, Cody Blue & Gold, Bilbos Brick Red, and Hammer H’s.

Below is the double elimination tournament bracket.

The battle begins tomorrow, Friday, June 19 with the first matchup: Cody and Jeff Bagwell take on Bilbos and Jose Altuve! Stay tuned!