Jump to content

2018 Houston Astros Season Thread


Planet Houston

Recommended Posts

7 minutes ago, UTexasFight said:

 


My guess is they think they are...$11.5M to Mr. McCann

 

From a team leadership standpoint, I agree.  From a tactical in-game info standpoint, I’m not so sure.    

McCann has to focus on his own pitchers and opposing hitters.  I don’t think he has the bandwidth to scrutinize opposing pitchers like Beltrán did.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Guadaloopy said:

 It sure looks like the only mistake this front office made in the last 6 years was releasing JD Martinez.  Even the Aiken situation was handled skillfully after the elbow problems were discovered.  

Is there anything in the book specifically about JD?  The Astros gave him nearly 1,000 MLB PAs over which JD showed no improvement.  I think that situation was just bad luck for Houston.  

However, one decision that I think is open to criticism (I certainly don't understand it) was the decision to get rid of our Appalachian League team. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 minutes ago, Fozzz said:

Is there anything in the book specifically about JD?  The Astros gave him nearly 1,000 MLB PAs over which JD showed no improvement.  I think that situation was just bad luck for Houston.  

However, one decision that I think is open to criticism (I certainly don't understand it) was the decision to get rid of our Appalachian League team. 

Yes. Several pages of the book talk about how JD reworked his swing in California and Venezuela in the offseason before the Astros released him.  He came back and sat down with team officials to tell them about his new swing and asked for a chance to show it in spring training.  

The Astros were already heavy into data and all of the predictive data they had for JD said to let him go.   They didn’t give him an adequate look in spring training (only 18 at bats) to overcome what their thousands of data points already told them.  

They regretted the decision within a month.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

15 minutes ago, Guadaloopy said:

Yes. Several pages of the book talk about how JD reworked his swing in California and Venezuela in the offseason before the Astros released him.  He came back and sat down with team officials to tell them about his new swing and asked for a chance to show it in spring training.  

The Astros were already heavy into data and all of the predictive data they had for JD said to let him go.   They didn’t give him an adequate look in spring training (only 18 at bats) to overcome what their thousands of data points already told them.  

They regretted the decision within a month.  

I'm sure they regretted it, and maybe had they given him more PAs in Spring Training things would have been different, but to be fair JD didn't come out of the gates in Detroit hitting lights out either.  He didn't start hitting until mid-May of 2014, after he had accumulated 60+ PAs with the Tigers and a couple of their minor league affiliates, so it's plausible that he would have kept sucking in Spring Training even had they given him a greater share of PAs.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

18 minutes ago, Guadaloopy said:

Yes. Several pages of the book talk about how JD reworked his swing in California and Venezuela in the offseason before the Astros released him.  He came back and sat down with team officials to tell them about his new swing and asked for a chance to show it in spring training.  

The Astros were already heavy into data and all of the predictive data they had for JD said to let him go.   They didn’t give him an adequate look in spring training (only 18 at bats) to overcome what their thousands of data points already told them.  

They regretted the decision within a month.  

One more point on this.   The FO says in the book that if they had current swing tracking tech back then, they would have seen JD’s reworked swing in the data and wouldn’t have been so quick to discard the new info in favor of historical data.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

29 minutes ago, Guadaloopy said:

Yes. Several pages of the book talk about how JD reworked his swing in California and Venezuela in the offseason before the Astros released him.  He came back and sat down with team officials to tell them about his new swing and asked for a chance to show it in spring training.  

The Astros were already heavy into data and all of the predictive data they had for JD said to let him go.   They didn’t give him an adequate look in spring training (only 18 at bats) to overcome what their thousands of data points already told them.  

They regretted the decision within a month.  

you can't win them all, but the two things i would point to, besides the obvious number of chances he had to show himself (this wasn't a kenny lofton situation).  

1. it's not like he went to detroit and was fantastic and is going to lead them to the promised land.  he's been on 3 teams since the astros.  no evidence points to him manning left for us right now, no matter how much of a badass he's become.

2. we won the world series.  so there aren't any mistakes.  fuck em.  you never know what events drive other events.  if the team looked a little different maybe we don't draft bregman, or tucker, or trade for verlander, or sign morton.  

if correa makes the play in g4 vs kc, maybe we make it to the world series and lose, and none of this ever happens and we're still chasing.  fuck the what ifs.

  • Like 2
  • Haha 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Another factor with JD Martinez......Maybe he doesn't develop like he did if he stayed with the Astros.

The Astros in 2014 had veteran leadership like Dexter Fowler (28), Chris Carter (27), and Jason Castro (27).

The Tigers in 2014 had Miguel Cabrera (31), Ian Kinsler (32), Torri Hunter (38), and Victor Martinez (35).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just now, henrygandorf said:

you can't win them all, but the two things i would point to, besides the obvious number of chances he had to show himself (this wasn't a kenny lofton situation).  

1. it's not like he went to detroit and was fantastic and is going to lead them to the promised land.  he's been on 3 teams since the astros.  no evidence points to him manning left for us right now, no matter how much of a badass he's become.

2. we won the world series.  so there aren't any mistakes.  fuck em.  you never know what events drive other events.  if the team looked a little different maybe we don't draft bregman, or tucker, or trade for verlander, or sign morton.  

if correa makes the play in g4 vs kc, maybe we make it to the world series and lose, and none of this ever happens and we're still chasing.  fuck the what ifs.

Reiter frames it as Luhnow’s confession of his biggest mistake/regret as GM.  

Also, if JD is on the 2017 team, it’s highly unlikely that there would have been a spot for Beltrán.  So even though Luhnow himself views it as a big miss, his brain trust stayed the course and it worked.   

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 minutes ago, BornOrange said:

Another factor with JD Martinez......Maybe he doesn't develop like he did if he stayed with the Astros.

The Astros in 2014 had veteran leadership like Dexter Fowler (28), Chris Carter (27), and Jason Castro (27).

The Tigers in 2014 had Miguel Cabrera (31), Ian Kinsler (32), Torri Hunter (38), and Victor Martinez (35).

It was Jason Castro who put JD Martinez in touch with his swing doctor in CA. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 minutes ago, Guadaloopy said:

It was Jason Castro who put JD Martinez in touch with his swing doctor in CA. 

But I read somewhere that Martinez gave the veterans on the Tigers like Cabrera a lot of credit for his development.

He definitely got better pitches to hit with those guys in the lineup than he would have gotten with the Astros.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 minute ago, BornOrange said:

And Castro should have sued his swing doctor for malpractice.

Castro is very similar to Morgan Ensberg.   Too cerebral.  Their talent and mechanics ultimately couldn’t overcome their brains overthinking what the pitcher is going to throw.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Interesting article about Giles's struggles this season:

How Ken Giles Became a Minor Leaguer 

by Jay Jaffe

Ken Giles did not have a good night on Tuesday. Called upon in the top of the ninth inning to protect the Astros’ 4-0 lead over the A’s, he served up three straight singles over the course of eight pitches, allowing one run and bringing the tying run to the plate in the form of Matt Olson. On the heels of a visit from pitching coach Brent Strom after back-to-back hits by Mark Canha and Jed Lowrie, manager A.J. Hinch didn’t like what he saw, and after a first-pitch single by Khris Davis, came out to get Giles, who… didn’t like what he saw either. The closer appeared to have some choice words as he handed over the ball.

The A’s wound up tying the game in the ninth, with all three runs charged to Giles’ room, and they went ahead, 5-4, in the top of the 11th. The Astros nonetheless rallied for two runs in the bottom of the inning, scoring the winning run in bizarre fashion, when A’s catcher Jonathan Lucroy made a hash of Alex Bregman’s swinging bunt:

 

Giles was reportedly not in the clubhouse after the game, and by Wednesday afternoon, he was a Fresno Grizzly. He’d been optioned to the team’s Triple-A affiliate in what general manager Jeff Luhnow called “a baseball decision.”

The GM added:

“I don’t know what he said (on Tuesday). Things are said between players and players and staff, and that’s a clubhouse issue. That’s dealt with separately. This was a baseball decision. Ken has had success in certain situations and he hasn’t been successful in other situations the way he should be.”

Luhnow steered clear of singling out Giles’ displays of anger, which included punching himself in the face after serving up a three-run homer to the Yankees’ Gary Sanchez on May 1. Hinch, however, expressed concern, saying, “He pitches with a lot of emotion and when things are going well, we love it, and when things aren’t going well we have our concerns just because of the volatility of the end of the game type stuff.”

 

Giles hasn’t been to the minors since he was called up by the Phillies in June 2014, but the 27-year-old righty has pitched erratically this year and hasn’t come close to the lofty expectations that come with being acquired in exchange for five prospects, as he was in December 2015. Though he saved 34 games in the regular season last year, he quickly became the invisible closer during the Astros’ championship run, getting lit up for 10 runs in 7.2 postseason innings. While he netted a save in closing out the Division Series against the Red Sox and another in the ALCS opener against the Yankees, he turned two-run leads into one-run leads both times. After he blew the save and took the loss in ALCS Game Four, he didn’t get another save chance, as Hinch kept the ball in the hands of starters-turned-relievers Charlie Morton, Lance McCullers Jr., and Brad Peacock for multiple innings rather than turn the ball over to Giles — a departure from orthodoxy that played a huge role in the team’s ALCS and World Series wins.

While Giles has more saves (12) than any other Astro this year, has converted each of save opportunity successfully, and has pitched the ninth inning in 27 of his 34 appearances (compared to just five in the eighth), Hinch hasn’t hesitated to use other pitchers to close games as well based upon matchups. Hector Rondon has seven saves and has outpitched Giles in terms of both ERA and FIP (1.62 and 1.78 for Rondon, 4.99 and 2.25 for Giles). Chris Devenski has two saves and has generally been more effective than Giles, as well (2.45 ERA, 2.88 FIP). Brad Peacock (3.12 ERA, 4.12 FIP) has two saves, too.

In the wake of last fall’s diminished role, it seems clear that Hinch doesn’t trust Giles to the same extent that he once did. On April 14, Hinch conceded to the Houston Chronicle that he had not “done a good enough job” of finding work for Giles in non-save situations. Though Giles notched his first save of the year on April 9, it was really only from April 25 through the end of May when he was consistently the ninth-inning go-to guy. His failure to protect an 8-3 lead against the Indians on May 27 — another three-hits-and-out stint — this one including a 17-pitch battle that he lost to José Ramírez — kicked off a five-run rally in a game the Astros lost in 14 innings, and more or less ended Giles’ hold on regular closing duty. Eight of his 12 saves came in that five-week span, but he’s had only three save opportunities since, with Rondon receiving seven and converting five in that span, Devenski blowing his only chance, and Peacock converting a two-inning save.

Despite all of the juggling, the system has worked well for the Astros, if not for Giles himself. Though they were victimized by the A’s twice while losing three out of four games in Houston this week, the Astros’ bullpen has the AL’s second-lowest ERA (2.85) and FIP (2.88), and the team has the league’s third-highest winning percentage (.902, 46-5) in games in which they’ve led after six innings, behind the Red Sox (.946, 53-3) and Yankees (.940, 47-3).

As the Astros’ broadcast pointed out on Tuesday night while Giles dug himself a hole, he’s pitched brilliantly in those save opportunities this year, not allowing a single run (though his only inherited runner in those situations scored). Here’s a FanGraphs-flavored version of the split:

 
Ken Giles in Save and Non-Save Sitautions, 2018
Situation G IP H BB% K% ERA FIP
Save 12 11.0 7 2.5% 37.5% 0.00 0.68
Non-Save 22 19.2 29 2.2% 18.0% 7.78 3.13
Total 34 30.2 36 2.3% 24.0% 4.99 2.25

Giles has been untouchable in save spots, holding batters to a .179/.200/.179 line, but in all of his other appearances, he’s been beaten at a .333/.348/.517 clip. It’s not uncommon to hear complaints about closers not pitching well in non-save situations, perhaps due to a lack of intensity or focus. Certain closers seem to wind up as targets of the ire of bloggers or sports talk radio spittle-sprayers, complaints that tend to hinge upon selective memory and small sample sizes within a given season. For what it’s worth, in Giles’ five-year career, his numbers are better in non-save situations (2.54 ERA, 2.10 FIP in 132.2 IP) than in save situations (2.92 ERA, 2.43 FIP, 142 IP).

Both Hinch and Luhnow cited Giles’ problems with his slider, which he throws 42.3% of the time, with his four-seam fastball accounting for virtually all of the balance of his pitches. His overall numbers on the pitch look quite healthy: a 47.0% out-of-zone swing rate, 27.6% whiff rate, and .128/.128/.277 line (15 wRC+) on the 47 at-bats that ended with a slider. Those may not be at their peaks within his five-season career, but they’re within the ranges of what he’s done in the past:

 
Ken Giles’ Slider, 2014-18
Year Pitches O-Swing% SwStr% AVG OBP SLG wRC+ wOBA xwOBA
2014 277 47.1% 24.9% .099 .135 .113 -23 .118 n/a
2015 446 46.3% 25.1% .171 .205 .225 28 .192 .196
2016 529 54.9% 34.0% .094 .141 .188 -1 .158 .131
2017 450 46.5% 23.1% .130 .151 .211 5 .157 .163
2018 196 47.0% 27.6% .128 .128 .277 15 .168 .225
Total 1898 49.2% 27.3% .125 .156 .200 5 .168 .169
wOBA and xwOBA via Baseball Savant. Data for 2014 not included in total calculations for those categories.

The erosion in Giles’ performance stands out a bit more in terms of his relative rankings among qualifiers — pitchers who’ve thrown at least 200 sliders over a full season, 100 this year, and/or 500 over the three-season span — in wRC+, O-Swing% and SwStr%.:

 
Relative Rankings of Giles’ Slider Among Qualifiers
Year Qualifiers wRC+ O-Swing% SwStr%
2016 202 6 1 1
2017 211 12 22 24
2018 260 37 24 10
Total 195 4 3 2
Number of qualifiers is based on those who threw at least 200 sliders in 2016 and -17, 100 in 2018, and 500 from 2016 to -18.

Across the 2016-18 span, Giles’ slider is in the top four of all three of these measures, but his standing in 2018 isn’t what it once was. In wRC+, he’s fallen from the 97th percentile to the 86th, though the drops in the other category aren’t as steep.

One thing that stands out in that table of raw data above, beyond those insane 2016 numbers, is the elevated slugging percentage and xwOBA against him this year; when his slider has been hit, it’s been hit a bit harder. Where he allowed five homers on sliders in 2016-17, one for every 196 thrown, he’s allowed two this year, one for every 98 thrown — twice the frequency! But still, that’s pretty subtle, and in fact, his Statcast average exit velocity on the pitch is down from last year (82.3 mph vs. 84.9), with the average launch angle unchanged (13 degrees).

It’s actually Giles’ fastball that’s getting mercilessly pummeled (.380/.402/.506, 164 wRC+) this year relative to last (.283/.392/.404, 131 wRC+). His velocity is down slightly (from 98.4 to 97.9), his swinging-strike rate has dropped substantially (from 10.7% to 8.2%), and his average exit velo has soared from 87.8 mph to 93.6 mph, with his xwOBA rising from .344 to .392. He’s throwing the fastball more (57.7%, up from 52.8%), which is probably exacerbating his problems with both pitches.

According to Hinch, Giles’ slider lacks the shape or depth it had previously. Indeed, via Brooks Baseball, here’s a game-by-game graphs of the pitch’s horizontal movement:

GilesHoriz.png

In March and April, the pitch averaged 1.27 inches of horizontal movement to the glove side, but that dropped to 0.87 inches in May and -0.2 inches — in other words, more towards the arm side — in June. I asked FanGraphs alum and pitch-shapes expert Eno Sarris (now at The Athletic) to describe what he saw in Giles’ monthly variance in movement. “Crazy weird,” he said, adding, “It looks like he had too much cut early [this season] and then tried to correct it and went too far.”

Meanwhile, here’s the game-by-game graph of the vertical movement of Giles’ slider:

GilesVert.png

Two years ago, Giles’ slider had an average drop of 0.18 inches — slightly less than expected due to gravity. Last year, that increased to 0.47 and this year to 1.20, so his slider is averaging an inch less drop than in 2016. Couple that with the horizontal inconsistency and, yes, that’s a different shape with less depth.

It’s fair to wonder if Giles’ erratic performance owes anything to the Astros’ unorthodox approach. Maybe he feels the need to be The Man and is lost in other roles. It’s certainly possible that the relationship with Hinch is strained. With two years of club control remaining after this one, he could be an appealing asset to trade come July 31, at least if the Astros can get him pointed back in the right direction. Ultimately, however, the team would probably be better off if he could just rediscover his dominant ninth-inning form.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Whether or not you believe Giles has struggled (i.e., more than just a little worse than last year) is dependent on how much meaning you place on the difference between his ERA and his fielding independent stats.  The strongest argument is that he hasn't been unlucky on contact - as xwOBA shows he's been hit plenty hard this year.  However, people tend to confuse the "expected" statcast stats as being predictive of future performance when they are no more predictive than FIP.  Even when you filter out bad luck/poor defense, pitchers simply don't have much control over what happens to the ball when it's put in play.  It's a marginal skill and ~80% of what separates good pitchers from bad pitchers is the ability to miss bats and limit walks.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I love Sparks

NINE-FOOT-WALKOFF OF THE WEEK

We all have our niches in life. Alex Bregman just happens to have the strangest but truest niche of all time:

The accidental infield walkoff something-or-other!

We’ll get to what he did Tuesday – the strangest but truest nine-foot walkoff whatever-that-was in baseball history – in a moment. But we remind you that back on April 8, the Astros’ favorite human dust storm was the man who hit a seemingly humdrum pop-up against the Padres that Eric Hosmer somehow managed to turn into a walkoff whatever-that-was by overrunning it.

So we checked in with our friends from Sports Info Solutions. And here’s what we found:

— Their tale of the tape on that pop-up in April pegged it as having traveled exactly 38 feet.
— Their tale of the tape on Bregman’s walkoff squibber Tuesday estimated that one came to rest a whopping nine feet from home plate.

So that’s two walkoffs by one man, with a total distance of 47 feet? Who does that, you ask? No one, says Sports Info Solutions. Well, no one else, they mean.

Their database of batted balls goes back 17 seasons to 2002. Nobody else has had two walkoff anythings that traveled 38 feet or shorter in their whole careers. And Alex Bregman has had two in three months. Because of course he has.

“It seems like every time something crazy happens,” Astros broadcast witticist Steve Sparks told Useless Info, “he’s right in the middle of it.”

Doesn’t it? But it doesn’t get much crazier than the goofy walkoff Tuesday in the 11th inning. Furious swing. Balls spins in the dirt in foul territory, then suddenly veers back into fair territory and stops, nine feet up the line. How did it go fair anyway?

“It didn’t want to be a foul ball,” Sparks theorized.

Then A’s catcher Jonathan Lucroy scooped it up. And because Bregman thought it was a foul ball, he hadn’t run. So as Lucroy reached to tag him, Bregman was actually backpedaling backwards in the direction of the batter’s box. But the baseball then mysteriously popped out of Lucroy’s bare hand. So off went Bregman, pumping furiously toward first base.

“What was the ‘Hit Probability?’” Sparks asked. “About 4 percent? It might be zero. It might be the first zero-percent fair ball.”

Nope, we told him, after some exhaustive research. It was actually judged by Statcast to have a 7 percent hit probability.

“Wow, 7 percent seems high,” Sparks said. “I guess it’s the equivalent of an almost perfect bunt. But as soon as Bregman doesn’t leave the batter’s box, you lose all probability that it would be hit. It might be a probability of a hit if he was running. But he didn’t run. And not only that. The catcher was out ahead of him. On a bunt, you’re running out of the box so the catcher is behind you. Then you’ve got the probability of a hit. But he’s not running. It’s a full swing. He thinks it’s foul. And the catcher is out ahead of him? It’s got to be zero. Outside of a heart attack, it’s got to be an out. And I think he lived through it.”

Oh, he lived through it, all right. But even that part got slightly precarious – because Bregman was only safe at first when Lucroy’s throw conked him in the batting helmet and caromed into walkoff land. How did that happen?

“It’s called the Bregman Effect,” Sparks reported, accurately.

Of all the strange-but-true stuff that had to happen for a nine-foot squibber to become a walkoff, the strangest was this: How did an all-star catcher miss the tag when neither he nor the “runner” were actually “running?” You’d have to conclude it’s because Alex Bregman just has Adrian Peterson-type miss-ability, right?

“That’s exactly what it was,” Sparks said. “Or maybe Barry Sanders. Barry Sanders had that maneuverability, to avoid contact. And that’s Alex. He reminds me of Barry Sanders. Two steps. Backpedals. Jackknifes his body to avoid the tag. It’s amazing.

“Or possibly,” Sparks said, with a laugh, “he has a voodoo doll in his back pocket and he can maneuver the defenders the way he wants.”

So let’s see now. In just half a season, Bregman already has walked it off with a 38-foot-pop-up and a 9-foot swinging bunt. So what can he possibly do for his next walkoff trick?

“I say he leans into an eephus pitch with the bases loaded,” Sparks predicted. “How about that one?”

Hold on, we retorted. Who the heck would throw Alex Bregman an eephus pitch with the bases loaded?

“Steven Wright – in the ALDS,” quipped Sparks, former knuckleball king that he is.

“And if that happens,” he laughed, “you and I are going to Vegas.”

Link to comment
Share on other sites

bregman's ceiling was originally dustin pedroia, which i was excited about.  pedroia has an mvp, although injuries have really fucked with the last couple seasons.

i thought it was accurate, as i saw bregs as a .310, 18hr, 85rbi, 12sb type of guy.   bunch of doubles, bunch of runs if he hit 2nd.

he's on pace for 35 homers and 110 rbi.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.



×
×
  • Create New...