JA Happ

The Seattle Mariners entered the 2015 Major League Baseball season with championship aspirations, but their inconsistent play has them toward the bottom of the American League standings.

In the aftermath of significant, life-threatening head injuries suffered by pitchers, MLB has informed its 30 clubs that padded caps have been approved to provide some head protection against line drives flying back at the mound.

Between poor pitching and a severe injury, 2013 has not been friendly to Toronto Blue Jays starting pitcher J.A. Happ.

This upcoming season for Astros pitchers will be an interesting one for fantasy owners. With Brett Myers’ 2010 success, a strong second half from Wandy Rodriguez, and J.A. Happ’s potential, Houston has a chance to showcase three top-100 starters this year.

In his first season with Houston, Brett Myers had one of the best years of his career. He successfully took over the role as ace of the rotation, especially with Oswalt’s move to Philly.

The Houston Astros decided about halfway through last season that it was time to enter that period that no fan wants to hear, and that is rebuilding. The Astros decided to trade away the only remaining players from that 2005 team that made the World Series.

Baseball, like all sports, is in the age of specialization.

In football, teams have a guy on the roster who is just a long-snapper and a guy who just handle kickoffs. In basketball, teams have guys on their roster who are defensive specialists or three-point specialists.

In baseball, as we all know, teams have left-handed pitchers on the roster just to pitch to one left-handed batter in the game. Well, the Houston Astros took specialization to another level on Wednesday afternoon.

Although the Houston Astros have spent a majority of the 2010 season in the cellar of the National League Central, there are plenty of reasons to be excited about the team’s future.

Today, we’re going to look at 15 solid reasons to get pumped up about next year’s Astros squad.

Let’s begin by taking a look at five honorable mention candidates before quickly narrowing down to the top 10 players on Houston’s young and talented depth chart with the highest probability of becoming future MLB stars.

In MLB, a sophomore slump, also refer to as sophomore jinx, is identified when a player is not able to live up to the standards set by their rookie season. 

Reasons to blame for the "slump" may be injury or lack of adjustments.

Pitchers seem to be more likely to regress because of fatigue. The innings pitched in their rookie season may have dramatically surpassed the prior season; think of the "Verducci Effect".

It has been less than a week since J.A. Happ was dealt to the Houston Astros with Anthony Gose and Jonathan Villar for Roy Oswalt. Unlike minor league prospects Gose and Villar, however, Happ was once a key piece of the Phillies' starting roster, particularly in 2009, when he finished second in Rookie of the Year balloting to Marlins outfielder Chris Coghlan.

Happ's odd career as a Phillie saw him go from organizational spare part in 2008, to rookie sensation in 2009, and then back to spare part in 2010.

His forearm injury and subsequent extended DL stint led Phillies GM Ruben Amaro Jr.

Houston Astros pitcher Roy Oswalt has been traded to the Philadelphia Phillies.

In return, Houston got a major league-ready pitcher in J.A. Happ and two minor league prospects.

One of them was Anthony Goss, who was immediately traded to the Toronto Blue Jays for first baseman Brett Wallace.

The Phillies have been looking for a starting pitcher to go along with ace Roy Halladay and Cole Hamels. Hamels has not been at his best this year, so it was a great move to get Oswalt with Halladay to lead the pitching rotation.