Happy Birthday - 8/2

No future Astros with birthdays, but one former Astro celebrates the day ~

C Humberto Quintero (34)
Originally signed by the White Sox out of Venezuela in 1997, Quintero came to Houston in a March 2005 trade with San Diego for Tim Redding. In 344 games from 2005 through 2011, he hit .234/.266/.319. He was sent to Kansas City, along with Jason Bourgeois, in a March 2012 trade that netted the Astros LHP Kevin Chapman and OF D'Andre Toney. He is currently playing for Seattle's AAA team. My favorite memory of Q will always be this one:

Happy Birthday - 8/2

No future Astros and only one former Astro with a birthday today ~

C Humberto Quintero (34)
Originally signed by the White Sox out of Venezuela in 1997, Quintero came to Houston in a March 2005 trade with San Diego for Tim Redding. In 344 games from 2005 through 2011, he hit .234/.266/.319. He was sent to Kansas City, along with Jason Bourgeois, in a March 2012 trade that netted the Astros LHP Kevin Chapman and OF D'Andre Toney. He recently signed with Seattle. My favorite memory of Q will always be this one:

Happy Birthday - 8/2

No future Astros and only one former Astro with a birthday today ~

C Humberto Quintero (33)
Originally signed by the White Sox out of Venezuela in 1997, Quintero came to Houston in a March 2005 trade with San Diego for Tim Redding. In 344 games from 2005 through 2011, he hit .234/.266/.319. He was sent to Kansas City, along with Jason Bourgeois, in a March 2012 trade that netted the Astros LHP Kevin Chapman and OF D'Andre Toney. He recently signed with Milwaukee. My favorite memory of Q is this one:

Roster Moves - 3/20

The Astros traded Humberto Quintero and Jason Bourgeois to the Royals for Kevin Chapman and a PTBNL.  I was one of Q's biggest supporters but I totally approve of this trade even without knowing who the PTBNL is.  You don't lose much, if anything, defensively with Chris Snyder as the back-up and you gain a lot offensively.  Let me put it this way: Q=37BB in 1137 PA; Snyder=272BB in 2177 PA.  And as much as I enjoy watching the Bourgeois Boogie on the basepaths, I realistically understand that he will probably be past his base-stealing prime by the time the Astros are back in the playoffs.  Chapman sound like a great pick-up and I trust Luhnow to make the team better with the PTBNL.  Zachary Levine has the story here.

In any event, we'll always have this ~



That's the good news.  The bad news is that it was cut day at the minor league camp.  None of the cuts have been made official yet, but we know that C Jordan Comadena was released yesterday and I believe that is the case with C Kevin Gonzalez and C Bubby Williams as well (based on tweets I saw yesterday).  Once the cuts are made official, I will post them.

Roster Moves - 12/12

The Astros came to terms with C Humberto Quintero and signed him to a one-year contract.  In related news, C Jason Castro is having foot surgery due to an injury suffered in the final game of the Arizona Fall League.  He will miss at least the first part of Spring Training.

The Astros also tendered a contract to LHP J.A. Happ.