Who is the guy? Part one

This series of posts comes after some discussions with my Dad. Every team seems to have a player that the fans identify as their guy. Opposing fans associate him with your franchise the way they used to associate Bagwell and Biggio with the Astros. This is usually a guy who has been with the team for some time and has success on the field. The Astros lost their two guys last year via trade. I am going to venture into figuring out the new guy. Who will adorn the Astros billboards? Who will sell the most t-shirt jerseys? In no particular order, here are the candidates.

Carlos Lee
No. The majority of fans have been hoping upon hope that he could get traded. He seems to take the brunt of the fans' wrath. Whether that is fair or not is for another post. I am sure that Crane is aware of this fact and will work tirelessly to market the young players.

Bud Norris
Bud has an interesting set of qualifications. First of all, he seems like a quality guy. My wife took my son to an autograph signing in Waco, and she spoke highly of how kind Bud was toward them. He has a sense of humor, as we saw in his antics with Greg Lucas during broadcasts last year. He has only been with the team for two and a half seasons, but you are going to be hard pressed to find too many guys outside of Lee or Wandy with any more tenure than that. Bud has respectable numbers outside of his win and loss record. He is a little high on the walk numbers, but Houston has always had a love affair with power pitchers, and this is the closest that we have at this time. Another factor in his favor is that he is a home grown product. He could become the face if he getsnoffmto a fast start, and takes the role of our ace, but if this happens, look for the Astros to sell high, which means that he wouldn't be the Dave for very long.

Jose Altuve
This is a dark horse. We don't have a lot of numbers to look at in regards to the gritty second baseman, but he does pass the eye test. He plays way bigger than his stature. He hustles out every grounder and doesn't shy away from the diving attempt on defense. He doesn't have raw power, huge defensive range, or blazing speed, but he plays the game hard, and a city like Houston can get behind a guy like that.

This concludes part one. Part two will come later in the week. When this long process is over, we will have a better idea of which player we should all be buying t-shirt jerseys.