Believing that a name confers great power to its owner, the Astros are hoping to create their own brand of Moneyball-esque market inefficiencies. The Astros are already well known for creating box score confusion with their pitching triumvirate of Aneury, Fernando, and Wandy Rodriguez, but they also have a near-monopoly on men who go by their initials, preferably starting with a J.

On the Astros current roster, they have J.A. Happ, J.R. Towles, J.D. Martinez, and J.B. Shuck. Unfortunately, the three position players were of no use in the Astros 3-1 loss to the Pirates, combining to go 0-for-5 with 3 strikeouts and a walk.

Maybe the Astros need to follow Gary Smith’s work and find baseball players with “positive initials” like ACE, who live, on average, 4.5 years longer than their more negative counterparts. No word on how that impacts their WAR, though.