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Hank Chinaski

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Everything posted by Hank Chinaski

  1. Astros were 1 for 21 (.048) on balls in play last night.
  2. Right - only makes sense if you’re getting a guy who may be that good later…meaning, if we’re ready to start remaking the roster (at least to a degree). (And honestly, if the front office can’t make Dusty play him every day, maybe you get more value this way. But I’d rather replace Dusty and hold onto the guy who is a known quantity.)
  3. Wait, why would we trade Chas? For what? Offense is a problem. He’s one of our best offensive players. He’s cheap. Who could we realistically get for Chas that matches/exceeds the value of a 3.5-win player on a pre-arb contract?
  4. Agreed, but I also want to note that he is not interchangeable with Chas. He’s a 4th OF. Chas should be an everyday guy. I know you know this. But Chas and Meyers have frequently been sort of lumped together as equal entities since the both came up around the same time. They shouldn’t be. Chas is a good everyday player (who inexplicably doesn’t get to play every day).
  5. I mean…the “buying players” thing is kind of hilarious; isn’t that kind of baked into the entire recruiting process across the board now? And don’t they crow about how they invented the greatest NIL model the world has ever known? Wouldn’t any reasonable person assume that every high-end recruit is getting “paid” in 2023? But, just as the Aggies are undefeated in games that were never played, so too are they the best when it comes to conjuring unsubstantiated, untestable, and fantastic narratives that all conclude that Texas is just the worst (“Texas kills conferences,” “these kids don’t really want to be Longhorns, they’d much rather be Ags if not for the money,” etcetera and so forth).
  6. The magnitude of their collective inferiority complex is incalculable. Also, they seem to know a whole lot more about UT rings than I do (which means they know something about UT rings).
  7. Still milking that story for every drop he can get out of it.
  8. Sure, but 6-9 is probably more likely.
  9. For the love of god, can someone take this decision away from Dusty? What does anyone need to see to understand that Chas is a good starting CF?
  10. @Wulaw Horn and his handsome co-host discussed concern for Javier in this week’s podcast. Those guys are pretty smart.
  11. Disagree. This is a team with current and upcoming offensive uncertainties; Chas is a known quantity at this point - he’s 10-15% better than league average offensively and good defensively, with more years of team control. He has surplus value because he is an above-average starting CF making relative peanuts, even if Dusty treats him as though he isn’t. I mean, of course, it depends on who you get back; but seeking to trade Chas right now doesn’t make a ton of sense. Playing him in CF every day instead makes way more sense. I’d much rather see the FO tell Dusty to cut the shit and play him everyday than try to move him. Gilbert isn’t going to be in Houston until a year from now at the earliest. And he’s obviously not a sure thing. A very likely outcome for him is - basically Chas McCormick. And that would be good. A team that regularly starts a below-average hitter in the OF shouldn’t be trading an above-average starting OF unless it is punting on the rest of the season.
  12. Chas: 115 wRC+ Dubon: 97 wRC+ Julks: 91 wRC+ just…why? This isn’t controversial. In 2023 we know how to assess a hitter’s value, and we know how to assemble lineups based on that value. It isn’t rocket science, and common sense dictates that you should structure your lineup in a way that maximizes the run-scoring probabilities of the team. We intentionally don’t do that. Think about that.
  13. Reminder that Chas McCormick, for his career, averages 3.5 fWAR / 600 PAs, yet we still refuse to play him every day…so that we can keep running Corey Julks and his 85 wRC+ out there. Its getting difficult to care.
  14. Some of both. Fewer injuries to deal with last year, so it was a bit more stable. But we still had things like Tucker hitting 6th, Dubon hitting 2nd, etc. Also it seems like someone told him to cut the shit when the postseason arrived.
  15. Agreed…OF is probably the deepest position in the system, and we’re lacking any real IF solutions. Tucker is really good, but if he doesn’t want to sign an extension, you have a chance to cash him in for a couple of very good prospects and a few lottery tickets. He’s a 4-5 win player; Chas is a 3.5 win player, if you actually let him play every day. He probably gives you 75-80% of Tucker’s production. Then you have Meyers, Yordan, and by 2024 possibly Gilbert (and whoever may be targeted in FA). I’d try to extend Bregman again (I know he hasn’t been great this year but I think he’ll be fine because his underlying stats seem mostly fine, and his current deal ends after his age-30 season), as well as Altuve for a few more seasons (he needs to be retained, a la Biggio). I think Bregman will be a 3-5 WAR guy for several more years (he’ll always have a pretty high floor due him to his BB/K ratio. Altuve will be chasing 3,000, and he will steadily decline, but you keep him anyway. If you extend those guys the IF is mostly set for the next few seasons.
  16. Correct, they aren’t there. There are no Tucker, Bregman, Correa level prospects in the system right now…those guys were top-5 picks. Gilbert and a few others are promising, but the days of stacking high-end draft picks in the system ended 8 years ago. That’s the price of success. (Of course, losing your top two picks in consecutive seasons handicaps you that much more.) I'm not optimistic about this season. The injuries have been too much and exposed a bit of a lack of depth. I just don’t (and haven’t, since the Urquidy and Garcia injuries) see a team that can flip a switch and turn it all around; I see a mediocre lineup (could turn it around to a degree when Yordan comes back, but it’s not going to be dominant) and a pretty-good pitching staff that has been over-performing and is probably due for some downward regression. That said, there is a path to resetting the roster on the fly (as opposed to a true, radical “rebuild”), but they have to be smart about it. @Wulaw Horn covers this really well on his podcast that he linked above ^^.
  17. I took it my first semester - my fine arts credit. I wouldn’t say the final was difficult, but you would have had to go to class (well maybe not to pass, but to get an A). First half of the course was all about the antecedents of what became “rock,” going all the way back to slave songs and such. It was more a history of American music (and some culture) in general than what you’d think of as “rock”. Was a good class.
  18. Chas sent down? I feel like I’m taking crazy pills. He has a 120 wRC+. He’s been one of the better performers on the team. He’s been an above average offensive player every year he’s been in MLB and he’s good defensively. Sent down? He should be starting in CF every damn day. He may be the most underappreciated Astro I can recall. Grae stays? He’s not a major league player. He wasn’t good offensively in the minors. He adds nothing to the roster. Dubon is the utility guy. That is the flexibility.
  19. I admire your optimism, but take a quick gander at that 2019 roster. This team is not in the same galaxy as that one. The offense will probably get a little better, the pitching will probably get a little worse. Add it all together and you’re still nothing more than a mediocre team. It’s what they’ve been all season and there’s no real reason to believe that they’re anything more than that.
  20. Meh. People are frustrated because of all the unforced errors that have contributed to this shitty season. It didn’t and doesn’t have to be this way. But Crane fucked up the off-season and Dusty creatively fucks up the actual season in new and imaginative ways pretty much every day by stubbornly refusing to play his best players. If Crane had taken the GM thing seriously in the winter and if Dusty actually tries to assemble the lineup in ways conducive to, you know, winning games, and it still isn’t good enough, that’s ok, no team is going to be dominant forever. But this feels (and has felt, for months) like self-sabotage via simple incompetency.
  21. Sure, when your best bat is on the IL, why not sit the next best bat too? Makes total sense. After all, we’re the Astros and are entitled to make the playoffs, so no need to attempt to win regular season games.
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