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Hank Chinaski

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Everything posted by Hank Chinaski

  1. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA Seriously, fuck this team. Perfect fucking lineup for a must-win game. Cherry on top of this clown show of a season. The Astros are a dumb, dumb organization.
  2. We’ve been operating as a dumb organization, top to bottom, since the ‘22 WS ended.
  3. Yes! A tradition nearly as good as the “first time Kyle Field visitor” stories…. Derek Farmer > Cedric Benson Reggie McNeal > VY Lets see how this one works out.
  4. I’m going with laughing. It’s tragic comedy. Matter of fact, I had this exchange with @Wulaw Horn about a week ago: Me: I’m embracing the comedic element of all this. Like, Shakespearean comedy, not real comedy. Wulaw: Shakespeare sucks.
  5. The owner shouldn’t tell the manager who to play. The owner should create an org structure such that that the front office/GM/analytics staff and the manager are on the same page. What’s insane is allowing the manager to play the wrong players.
  6. It’s a sample size thing. You maximize your team’s odds of winning any given game by starting your best players. Over a big enough sample - like 162 games - it does matter who you play at catcher. If we flipped totals of MM and YD starts at catcher, this team probably has about 4 more wins than it currently does. Those wins are pretty important. Again, it’s what people have been screaming all season, and right now is exactly why. this team never had the luxury of fucking around with subpar lineups as frequently as it did. (And I’m not talking about the injuries - I’m talking about catcher, Chas sitting 25% of the time, the stupid batting orders, etc.)
  7. Regression in that several starters - Javier, France, Bielak - had results that were significantly better than the underlying data suggested they should be for a first couple months of the season. Regression in that Brown was a rookie who had never thrown a lot of innings and was unlikely to sustain his fast start. Regression from the bullpen compared to 2022, when almost to a man they were outstanding (bullpens are notoriously variable from year to year).
  8. That’s the whole point. They haven’t been good enough for an extended period at any point all season. It has been evident since April that we won’t even play our best players consistently and that the pitching regression was coming hard. (Though the pitching actually kept us afloat for a while and the regression didn’t really hit until the second half.)
  9. I wrote this 3 months ago and you told me I am a miserable person. Which you may not be wrong about. But still.
  10. I’d exclude Brown from this right now. I just can’t fathom a GM, whose job it is to build and maintain a roster, simply being cool with the manager playing crappy players over good players most of the time. Which makes me think that Crane has made it clear that it’s all Dusty’s call. There is speculation that this is what got Click fired in the first place. It sure looks like it’s coming from Crane, who, like I said yesterday, seems to now prioritize Dusty’s ego over winning. The problem with Crane being the crux of the issue is obvious and is the worst case scenario: the silver lining of this shitshow of a season should be that bad decisions (which lead to commensurately bad outcomes) bring consequences of necessary change. But when the owner is the one making the bad decisions…
  11. Agree, in the sense that it doesn’t make me angry anymore. But I still find it astounding that in 2023, when the information we have access to about every aspect of every player’s performance and abilities is so abundant and informative and foundational to how every single club operates, this is allowed to happen. Just fascinating.
  12. Yainer Diaz is 30% better than league average as a hitter and grades out well defensively. Martin Maldonado is 33% worse than league average as a hitter and grades out poorly defensively. We choose to start MM almost every day instead of YD. The Astros organization prioritizes Dusty Baker’s ego over winning.
  13. I think he’s got a good shot, but I’m not sure it’s probable at this point. 158 per for 6 years is one thing; doing that at ages 34-39 is another. “What he did in 2022” - sure, but 2022 was an MVP-caliber season. It may not be so easy to simply replicate that annually through his mid- to late-30s. If he stays healthy, sure, I’d expect him to get there. But that’s the problem with age - staying healthy gets tougher and tougher. His evolution as a hitter over his career is kind of fascinating; his approach now is really different than it was early in his career. His walks are up, his power is way up. It makes him a more valuable offensive player but doesn’t necessarily make him more likely to compile hits.
  14. And he was this good last year too. He’s kept this up for a season and a half now, at ages 32-33.
  15. I don’t think there is really any reason to believe he’s a worse hitter as a DH than as a catcher. But yeah, the commitment to refusing to maximize the lineup is astounding.
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