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2023 Houston Astros Thread


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I sometimes catch myself worrying about Alvarez’ health. If it’s not an oblique, we’ll then he’s now got a head cold that backs up his rehab start by 3 days. Or he gets lightheaded in left field (perhaps from the firecrackers) Or he has to be sent home for health reasons right before an important road trip to Tampa Bay. 

I’m just saying a lot of things seem to happen. And my God, he’s 27. I don’t think I even saw one doctor in my whole 20’s. 
 

And JV worries me as well. 
 

They make me think about the glass blowers on the island of Murano near Venice, Italy. 
 

Yea, that shit is kick ass, but how the fuck do you keep it from breaking?

These are my concerns, dude. 
 

In stark contrast is King Tuck. He is a fucking Ironman. Every day 5-tool player. Consistent. 

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1 minute ago, Overlord said:

I sometimes catch myself worrying about Alvarez’ health. If it’s not an oblique, we’ll then he’s now got a head cold that backs up his rehab start by 3 days. Or he gets lightheaded in left field (perhaps from the firecrackers) Or he has to be sent home for health reasons right before an important road trip to Tampa Bay. 

I’m just saying a lot of things seem to happen. And my God, he’s 27. I don’t think I even saw one doctor in my whole 20’s. 
 

And JV worries me as well. 
 

They make me think about the glass blowers on the island of Murano near Venice, Italy. 
 

Yea, that shit is kick ass, but how the fuck do you keep it from breaking?

These are my concerns, dude. 
 

In stark contrast is King Tuck. He is a fucking Ironman. Every day 5-tool player. Consistent. 

Calm Down Al Pacino GIF

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4 hours ago, Gourmand said:

I love the swagger and if any fanbase deserves to flip bats it's us, but some of y'all aren't giving the Rangers enough credit imo. That lineup is stacked and they just addressed their glaring team weaknesses so it's going to be a dogfight for the division title. They aren't fading away. The Astros need to put together a long 10 gm winning streak like they have in past seasons.

I don’t expect them to fade.  I am saying they overachieved first half of the season and should come back to earth a bit, without crashing.

I also expect the Astros to stretch it out to where last 2 weeks of the season, there’s no worrying about hpu’s and judgment call bullshit with a pennant in the balance.

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1 hour ago, kevwun said:

Dusty also give multiple guys off days at the same time while doing shit like putting Julks at DH. It's not the off days, but the absolute shit lineups he likes to run out from time to time for no reason.

my theory is the data analytics dudes are running the show with the possibility that the more some players, even the great ones, are played the lower their production. So, play some guys some days and sit others to maximize everyone's production.  Whatever. 

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17 minutes ago, Make em eat Taco Bell said:

my theory is the data analytics dudes are running the show with the possibility that the more some players, even the great ones, are played the lower their production. So, play some guys some days and sit others to maximize everyone's production.  Whatever. 

Your theory is so logical that I'm sure it's untrue. 

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All the talk about Maldy’s game management. Enough. 
 

He calls no pitches himself. He looks to the dugout after every pitch. Every single pitch. I’ve never seen him not look to the dugout for the call. 
 

I guess that takes a lot of long nights sitting at the dinning table with a bucket of chicken, looking at spreadsheets and vinn diagrams. 

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9 minutes ago, Overlord said:

All the talk about Maldy’s game management. Enough. 
 

He calls no pitches himself. He looks to the dugout after every pitch. Every single pitch. I’ve never seen him not look to the dugout for the call. 
 

I guess that takes a lot of long nights sitting at the dinning table with a bucket of chicken, looking at spreadsheets and vinn diagrams. 

So are you saying it’s really Brac that is the wizard behind the curtain/bullpen fence calling all of the shots via the dugout and then Maldy?

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5 minutes ago, UTexasFight said:

So are you saying it’s really Brac that is the wizard behind the curtain/bullpen fence calling all of the shots via the dugout and then Maldy?

I don’t know who’s calling them, and I have no problem with. Maybe pitching coach?

I got no problem with who calls pitches, but with the talk about his game planning and studying, I would think he would have more input.
 

I’m not seeing shit. He looks to the dugout every single pitch. It’s annoying now. 

 

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It's almost like the Machete haters refuse to believe these players when it's been explained many times. Ffs, even Chandler tweeted an aggressive "let me dumb it down for you, stupid" recently in answering the Maldonado vs Diaz question.

I'm not saying I want Machete over Diaz, I'm just accepting the reality as explained by Astros pitchers and insiders. It is what it is.

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12 minutes ago, Overlord said:

I don’t know who’s calling them, and I have no problem with. Maybe pitching coach?

I got no problem with who calls pitches, but with the talk about his game planning and studying, I would think he would have more input.
 

I’m not seeing shit. He looks to the dugout every single pitch. It’s annoying now. 

 

Maldy is the one calling the pitches dude jfc

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10 minutes ago, Gourmand said:

It's almost like the Machete haters refuse to believe these players when it's been explained many times. Ffs, even Chandler tweeted an aggressive "let me dumb it down for you, stupid" recently in answering the Maldonado vs Diaz question.

I'm not saying I want Machete over Diaz, I'm just accepting the reality as explained by Astros pitchers and insiders. It is what it is.

We all understand that the pitchers believe this; however, the Machete haters also believe it’s bullshit. This is why they can’t bring Maldy back next year. It could create team chemistry issues if they bring him back as a true backup to Diaz.

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28 minutes ago, Gourmand said:

It's almost like the Machete haters refuse to believe these players when it's been explained many times. Ffs, even Chandler tweeted an aggressive "let me dumb it down for you, stupid" recently in answering the Maldonado vs Diaz question.

I'm not saying I want Machete over Diaz, I'm just accepting the reality as explained by Astros pitchers and insiders. It is what it is.

Who fucking cares?  He catches better pitchers and his cERA is half a run higher. They are wrong. It means nothing. 

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36 minutes ago, Gourmand said:

It's almost like the Machete haters refuse to believe these players when it's been explained many times. Ffs, even Chandler tweeted an aggressive "let me dumb it down for you, stupid" recently in answering the Maldonado vs Diaz question.

I'm not saying I want Machete over Diaz, I'm just accepting the reality as explained by Astros pitchers and insiders. It is what it is.


the surly thread has 0 years of pro baseball experience, of course they know better 

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34 minutes ago, Wulaw Horn said:

Who fucking cares?  He catches better pitchers and his cERA is half a run higher. They are wrong. It means nothing. 

100% this. If he isn’t better than the other guy in any sort of measurable way when he plays - any at all - then it’s all make-believe. 

I have no doubt that they like him. Hell I wouldn’t argue that he hasn’t helped them become better players. None of that has anything to do with playing him over Diaz in 2023 when every conceivable metric demonstrates that Diaz is the superior player in ways that can be directly linked to actually winning baseball games.

Make him the backup, keep him around. If all his value is unobservable anyway, then let him hang out in the dugout 4 out of every 5 games.  

 

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2 hours ago, Wulaw Horn said:

Who fucking cares?  He catches better pitchers and his cERA is half a run higher. They are wrong. It means nothing. 

trust means everything between pitcher and catcher. how do you quantify that?

I think the coaches/development staff/FO analysts/pitching staff know what they're doing. Y'all need to stop sniffing your own farts. 

 

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9 minutes ago, Gourmand said:

trust means everything between pitcher and catcher. how do you quantify that?

I think the coaches/development staff/FO analysts/pitching staff know what they're doing. Y'all need to stop sniffing your own farts. 

Facts are stubborn things. The staff allows more runs when Maldonado is catching. Now you can try to find reasons that explain that but you won't have much luck considering that Maldonado catches the better pitchers more often.

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2 minutes ago, Huckleberry said:

Facts are stubborn things. The staff allows more runs when Maldonado is catching. Now you can try to find reasons that explain that but you won't have much luck considering that Maldonado catches the better pitchers more often.

It's also a fact that the organization is very analytics-driven and has excelled at player development, so I'm of the opinion they have data and inside info about Maldonado/Diaz we don't. I think Diaz should be catching more but I am also confident that will be that case as he develops his defensive skills and builds rapport with the entire pitching staff and works on the intangibles that make Machete respected in the clubhouse. 

 

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26 minutes ago, Gourmand said:

trust means everything between pitcher and catcher. how do you quantify that?

I think the coaches/development staff/FO analysts/pitching staff know what they're doing. Y'all need to stop sniffing your own farts. 

 

How do you quantify it?   By the way we measure success in baseball dude- runs scored and runs allowed. 
the best Gm’s in the history of the game are a lawyer, quant, and management consultant. The other call is go ahead and put Jeff Bagwell in charge because he’s a great player- he knows shit. 
it’s math man, it isn’t hard. 

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5 minutes ago, Gourmand said:

It's also a fact that the organization is very analytics-driven and has excelled at player development, so I'm of the opinion they have data and inside info about Maldonado/Diaz we don't. I think Diaz should be catching more but I am also confident that will be that case as he develops his defensive skills and builds rapport with the entire pitching staff and works on the intangibles that make Machete respected in the clubhouse. 

 

Go read Dusty’s quote about how Diaz and maldy are basically the same player. And then ducking wash your eyes out with bleach trying to understand how someone can be so dumb. It’s hocus locus and superstition. What @Huckleberrysaid. 

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2 minutes ago, Wulaw Horn said:

How do you quantify it?   By the way we measure success in baseball dude- runs scored and runs allowed. 
the best Gm’s in the history of the game are a lawyer, quant, and management consultant. The other call is go ahead and put Jeff Bagwell in charge because he’s a great player- he knows shit. 
it’s math man, it isn’t hard. 


but did you look at the back of his baseball card ?

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2 minutes ago, Wulaw Horn said:

how do you quantify it?   By the way we measure success in baseball dude- runs scored and runs allowed.

correlation is not causation. 

How many WS rings does Yainer have? CHECK MATE.

But in all seriousness, I'm not wholly disagreeing because I want Yainer catching more not less, but he's not very good situationally with the bat and he is terrible against LHP. He needs to get better at working counts and not being such a free-swinger. His power is awesome and his exit velos are impressive so he will hit consistently. Machete is just terrible all around with the bat but he should always start against LHP over Diaz. 

The belief that you know better than the pitchers who throw to these guys or the coaches/player development/analytics nerds who have built this baseball dynasty is evidence of you sniffing your own farts. 

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7 hours ago, Gourmand said:

correlation is not causation. 

How many WS rings does Yainer have? CHECK MATE.

But in all seriousness, I'm not wholly disagreeing because I want Yainer catching more not less, but he's not very good situationally with the bat and he is terrible against LHP. He needs to get better at working counts and not being such a free-swinger. His power is awesome and his exit velos are impressive so he will hit consistently. Machete is just terrible all around with the bat but he should always start against LHP over Diaz. 

The belief that you know better than the pitchers who throw to these guys or the coaches/player development/analytics nerds who have built this baseball dynasty is evidence of you sniffing your own farts. 

Remember when yanier was “terrible” early in the year and I (and some others) kept saying go look at his expected stats (same with Bregman and Tucker) he’s been unlucky and it’s small sample size bullshit?  And then his real stay caught up to his expected stats more or less because that’s how baseball works and everyone was like- oh- he’s our best hitter we’ve ever had as a catcher?  Yeah- the stuff against LHP is almost surely the same as is the clutch stat stuff. It’s all small sample size bullshit. As is his hitting 1000 ops as a catcher on the positive side in almost side, but it sure would be nice to find out. 
All that’s stuff is bat related. He’s also just flat better defensively than maldonado in every conceivable way and every category, and I strongly suspect every day you see maldonado is the best day of the rest of his career more or less. Bringing him back again next year would literally be the dumbest thing I can imagine the Astros doing.  Diaz needs to play every day regardless of if it’s a LHP or there’s some situation going on where his small sample size numbers say there is problems.  Every day, of course as you know at catcher means 120 games. He should probably catch 120, DH 25 and just sit for 20. 

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11 minutes ago, AugieBall said:

I really really want Maldonado to be re-signed, and for as many of you as possible to be standing near Wulaw when it happens.  

That will be almost as funny as if we lose the division by 1 game while maldonado is worth -1 win and yainer would have been worth 4 wins if he played every day. Because, if the season ended today playing time would literally be the difference between Astros in 1st and getting the bye or Astros packing their bags and headed to a 3 game series at Tampa. 

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