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2022 Houston Astros Thread


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Saw the wrangler after the first pitch in the diamond club. Really pleasant surprise to see machete knock one out. 7th inning a buddy was telling everyone he has drank more beers tonight than maldy has hits for the year.

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3 minutes ago, tx 3 putt said:

 

after the all star break i bet 

im very very interested to see what taylor jones can do. he has some potential 

Yeah he hasn’t been able to work out much I would bet.  It’s gonna be awhile.

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32 minutes ago, tx 3 putt said:

 

after the all star break i bet 

im very very interested to see what taylor jones can do. he has some potential 

I've never really seen it with Jones. Happy to be proven wrong. 

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4 hours ago, TexArcher said:

5 in a row and 8 out of 10.  Feels like the rumors of our demise might have been greatly exaggerated.

 

Maybe. I’m seeing a pretty mediocre offensive team. They 18th in the league in runs scored and are striking out in 21.7% of their PAs, up 2 points from last year and about 3 points from 2018-19. 

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4 minutes ago, Hank Chinaski said:

Maybe. I’m seeing a pretty mediocre offensive team. They 18th in the league in runs scored and are striking out in 21.7% of their PAs, up 2 points from last year and about 3 points from 2018-19. 

offense is down across the league, but agreed, we need to hit better.

our pitching numbers are probably strengthened by this as well, but i see 4+ quality starters and at least 5 workable pieces in the pen.

pretty happy with where we are.  we're 16-11 and blew ~2 games we should've won.  we should be 18-9 but 16-11 is fine.  let's go win this series.

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4 minutes ago, Hank Chinaski said:

Maybe. I’m seeing a pretty mediocre offensive team. They 18th in the league in runs scored and are striking out in 21.7% of their PAs, up 2 points from last year and about 3 points from 2018-19. 

It’s hard to be good on offense with as many AB’s as Castro (looks done in his last year), Maldonado, Goodrum and Siri have gotten. The good news is Meyers and Jones coming back should permanently end the Goodrum and Siri situations. 

I think it was 2017 where our underrated special was not having a single guy get AB’s that wasn’t below average, but we’ve replaced that (for the moment) with 4 pretty bad offensive players getting decent number of AB’s, while watching Alydmes Diaz also get a fair number of plate appearances so far. 


What I’d say to combat this fear is this: those guys (other than the catchers) should be about through. 

How I think the lineup will shake out, eventually is this:

Plus/plus (mvp caliber bat)- Yordan (he’s a DH so he ain’t winning MVP, just talking about that kind of quality hitter

Plus (all star caliber)- Tucker, Altuve, Bregman, probably Peña (but waiting to see how league adjusts to him) 

above average- Brantley, Meyers/chazzy fizz combo 

average/below average- Yuli  he’s old man- it happens  I still think he ends up a league average bat but that’s not what you hope for at 1st  this the average/below average accounting for position.
Jones  

Subpar- Diaz

Horrific/close your eyes and wonder why Greinke can’t take these guys AB’s: Maldy/Castro  

5 fringe all star or better type guys and 2 above average guys to go with Yuli and the abomination before God that is the Astros catching situation from an offensive standpoint should make for a pretty decent lineup.  I bet we finish somewhere between 7-10 when it all settled out. It’s not nearly as good a lineup as we had in 2017-2019 but it’s plenty good enough if we keep pitching this way. The fact that 1B is such an easy upgrade (either Yuli playing better or a trade) gives us some room to grow easily that others might not have. 
I’ve been banging the “we are one or two bats short” drum since the off-season but even though we are 18th right now I’m actually more optimistic than I was back then. Altuve getting right will help (and I think that’s in progress). 

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Also- we are on pace for 96 wins right now. 

If you look at the Yankees schedule, for example, they have played 7 games against good teams and 18 games against shit teams (counting Boston as shit right now because they look it, their record shows it, and I was never sold on them). By contrast we’ve had 2 against the DBacks, 3 against the Rangers and now 2 against the Tigers. 7 shit games. 

6 Blue Jays (2-4)

6 Mariners (4-2)

7 Angels (4-3)

19 games against average or better teams.  

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20 minutes ago, Wulaw Horn said:

It’s hard to be good on offense with as many AB’s as Castro (looks done in his last year), Maldonado, Goodrum and Siri have gotten. The good news is Meyers and Jones coming back should permanently end the Goodrum and Siri situations. 

I think it was 2017 where our underrated special was not having a single guy get AB’s that wasn’t below average, but we’ve replaced that (for the moment) with 4 pretty bad offensive players getting decent number of AB’s, while watching Alydmes Diaz also get a fair number of plate appearances so far. 


What I’d say to combat this fear is this: those guys (other than the catchers) should be about through. 

How I think the lineup will shake out, eventually is this:

Plus/plus (mvp caliber bat)- Yordan (he’s a DH so he ain’t winning MVP, just talking about that kind of quality hitter

Plus (all star caliber)- Tucker, Altuve, Bregman, probably Peña (but waiting to see how league adjusts to him) 

above average- Brantley, Meyers/chazzy fizz combo 

average/below average- Yuli  he’s old man- it happens  I still think he ends up a league average bat but that’s not what you hope for at 1st  this the average/below average accounting for position.
Jones  

Subpar- Diaz

Horrific/close your eyes and wonder why Greinke can’t take these guys AB’s: Maldy/Castro  

5 fringe all star or better type guys and 2 above average guys to go with Yuli and the abomination before God that is the Astros catching situation from an offensive standpoint should make for a pretty decent lineup.  I bet we finish somewhere between 7-10 when it all settled out. It’s not nearly as good a lineup as we had in 2017-2019 but it’s plenty good enough if we keep pitching this way. The fact that 1B is such an easy upgrade (either Yuli playing better or a trade) gives us some room to grow easily that others might not have. 
I’ve been banging the “we are one or two bats short” drum since the off-season but even though we are 18th right now I’m actually more optimistic than I was back then. Altuve getting right will help (and I think that’s in progress). 

Yeah, it comes down to Altuve, Bregman and Yuli. Is Altuve still a plus offensive player (I think he is)? Is Bregman more of a good offensive player (like in 2021 and so far in 22) than a great one (18-19)? Did age finally catch up and make Yuli no better than average? I think we know what we’ll get from Yordan, Tucker, Brantley, and probably Pena.

Meyers is a wild card when returns. 

The catchers can’t hit but that’s been true for years. 

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5 minutes ago, Hank Chinaski said:

Yeah, it comes down to Altuve, Bregman and Yuli. Is Altuve still a plus offensive player (I think he is)? Is Bregman more of a good offensive player (like in 2021 and so far in 22) than a great one (18-19)? Did age finally catch up and make Yuli no better than average? I think we know what we’ll get from Yordan, Tucker, Brantley, and probably Pena.

Meyers is a wild card when returns. 

The catchers can’t hit but that’s been true for years. 

I’m comfortable where I have all of those guys (Bregman fringe all star as opposed to the MVP guy, Altuve fringe all star as opposed to MVP guy and Yuli average to below average). Really, Altuve is the only guy who is not performing on the category I placed him currently (maybe Tucker). Both are showing signs of breaking out and stickers has merely been bad luck. 
It’s early. We are likely just fine. 

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14 minutes ago, Hank Chinaski said:

Yeah, it comes down to Altuve, Bregman and Yuli. Is Altuve still a plus offensive player (I think he is)? Is Bregman more of a good offensive player (like in 2021 and so far in 22) than a great one (18-19)? Did age finally catch up and make Yuli no better than average? I think we know what we’ll get from Yordan, Tucker, Brantley, and probably Pena.

Meyers is a wild card when returns. 

The catchers can’t hit but that’s been true for years. 

i feel pretty confident that he'll be better than siri and at least on the chas level offensively, and he's great defensively.

health-wise, maybe he's a wildcard.

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You had last year’s AL Batting champ penned in as ‘average to below average’ for 2022?  Yuli ain’t exactly a liability in the field either.  Maybe I just cannot read good.

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48 minutes ago, slorch said:

You had last year’s AL Batting champ penned in as ‘average to below average’ for 2022?  Yuli ain’t exactly a liability in the field either.  Maybe I just cannot read good.

If you haven't noticed, Yuli has been a complete nada at the plate so far. BB rate down, strike out rate up. Very little power. Could be another slow start, but it could just as likely be his age has caught up with him. Should probably switch him and Pena in the lineup. If Maltro wasn't a complete disaster in the box, I'd hit Gurriel last.

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2 hours ago, rvm96 said:

I've never really seen it with Jones. Happy to be proven wrong. 

Felt the same way last season.  Keep hoping he’d flash glimpses.  Would love to see him turn the corner, but returning from injury puts him in an even tougher spot.

Pena ain’t perfect, but you can damn sure see the ’it’ factor. Jones not so much. Yet.

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34 minutes ago, slorch said:

You had last year’s AL Batting champ penned in as ‘average to below average’ for 2022?  Yuli ain’t exactly a liability in the field either.  Maybe I just cannot read good.

Dude- if you don’t hit the ball over the fence you aren’t great. If you don’t walk a fair amount you aren’t great. If you want to go ahead and hit 320 or something like that you won’t be a bad offensive player per se, but elite offensive players are measure by OPS not batting average. Also- you are talking about last year. For a guy that just turned 38. Father Time comes for everyone eventually. It’s not hard yo imagine he went from an above average but not super star offensive player last year to average or worse this year. That’s what the results say so far. If he ends up 320 again I will happily admit to being wrong. 

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18 minutes ago, Wulaw Horn said:

Dude- if you don’t hit the ball over the fence you aren’t great. If you don’t walk a fair amount you aren’t great. If you want to go ahead and hit 320 or something like that you won’t be a bad offensive player per se, but elite offensive players are measure by OPS not batting average. Also- you are talking about last year. For a guy that just turned 38. Father Time comes for everyone eventually. It’s not hard yo imagine he went from an above average but not super star offensive player last year to average or worse this year. That’s what the results say so far. If he ends up 320 again I will happily admit to being wrong. 

Just for the record he had a good OPS last and was #53 overall in walks

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Just now, rvm96 said:

Just for the record he had a good OPS last and was #53 overall in walks

Yep. He’s started to walk more as he’s gotten older and talked about that change in his approach and credited correa and someone else for that insight. He wasn’t an all star, superstar nor did he receive any MVP votes but he was in that plus category of fringe all star without a doubt. This year he’s been very bad.  I project average for the year, which was what I was responding to. I like obp 100 better than BA and 200 iso as a sign of a guy that’s plus plus. 

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24 minutes ago, Wulaw Horn said:

Dude- if you don’t hit the ball over the fence you aren’t great. If you don’t walk a fair amount you aren’t great. If you want to go ahead and hit 320 or something like that you won’t be a bad offensive player per se, but elite offensive players are measure by OPS not batting average. Also- you are talking about last year. For a guy that just turned 38. Father Time comes for everyone eventually. It’s not hard yo imagine he went from an above average but not super star offensive player last year to average or worse this year. That’s what the results say so far. If he ends up 320 again I will happily admit to being wrong. 

I missed the part where I said he was an MVP candidate this season, but that was a pretty nice rant.  
 

Got that outta your system, Sport?

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