Debating the roster part of daily routine for Luhnow

Greetings from Port St. Lucie, Fla., where the Astros will play the Mets at 12:10 p.m CT today.

Astros general manager Jeff Luhnow and assistant GM David Stearns are on the trip, and Luhnow said he’s pleased with some of the players who are having consistent performances, such as Brandon Laird, Rick Ankiel and Brandon Barnes.

“Those have been good outcomes,” he said. “It’s nice to have a couple of starting pitchers do well like [Philip] Humber and [John] Ely, so you can find good news and bad news in every game during the spring. It’s still early on, but I’m very excited about some for the early strong performances and hoping that more guys jump on that train.”

Luhnow and manager Bo Porter talk roster composition on a daily basis, but with three weeks before the start of the regular season, a lot can change. Remember last year? It wasn’t until halfway through spring a year ago when Lucas Harrell was stretched out and put in the rotation, and he wound up being their best starting pitcher, going 11-11.

“Bo and I are talking about it constantly, and upstairs we’re hypothesizing on scenarios on who makes the club and what it means for everybody else,” Luhnow said. “Our conversations will different today than they will a week from now and than they will at the end of March. If spring would end today, what we would we do? We have that conversations every couple of days.”

Starting lineups

ASTROS

2B Marwin Gonzalez

LF Fernando Martinez

1B Carlos Pena

DH J.D. Martinez

3B Brett Wallace

CF Rick Ankiel

C Jason Castro

RF Trevor Crowe

SS Jonathan Villar

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RHP Alex White

METS

RF Marlon Byrd

2B Justin Turner

1B Ike Davis

LF Lucas Duda

C John Buck

CF Matt den Dekker

DH Anthony Recker

SS Ruben Tejada

3B Wilmer Flores

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RHP Jeremy Hefner