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2018-2019 Astros Offseason Thread


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1 hour ago, Mez2 said:

Really like the signing, allows us some leeway with the younger guys too if miley is able to eat up innings.

Really a no lose situation and doesn't affect us next year in FA. Luhnow is smart. I.think we're still going to add a bat

 

Agree with the take on Miley. But they don’t need a bat.

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14 hours ago, Scraps said:

Nightengale thinks they are still in on Keuchel btw

That seems unlikely unless they can get him at a real bargain.  They probably see Verlander/Cole/McHugh/James/Miley as being fine to start the season given the competition within the division, with the hope that Miley is supplanted by Whitley later in the season.

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It's been mentioned, but Miley pitched very differently last year than he has previously in his career. He threw his cutter about 40% of the time - a pitch he barely used at all previous to 2018. He also threw more curveballs and fewer fastballs, and almost eliminated his slider altogether. Will be interesting to see if he can maintain his success last year (relative to the previous few) with this varied approach, or if it was more of a fluky 80 innings. 

Either way, he'll eat innings and provide depth at minimal cost and no long-term commitment. 

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I'd be more sanguine on Miley if the pitch mix change in 2018 resulted in a K%-BB% spike, but that wasn't the case.  Miley made all those adjustments and boosted his SwStr% by 1%.  Whoopee.  He limited contact but those stats tend to be pretty volatile, so while there is some potential upside, I'm not going to put much faith into him doing something similar in 2019.

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2 hours ago, Storm the Field said:

Suppose we're envisioning Miley to move back and forth between rotation and pen.

I imagine they’re envisioning him in the rotation at the beginning of the year (barring something else like a Keuchel reunion I guess), but moving to the pen when Whitley is ready, assuming James sticks.

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On 1/31/2019 at 6:08 PM, Hank Chinaski said:

Yup, no real risk here and Miley was pretty good last year, albeit in a short season. 

ERA = 2.57, FIP = 3.59, xFIP = 4.30

Wow. I would literally bet that you can't find anyone else with numbers that divergent.  

Edited by Beau Vine
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1 hour ago, DallasGatr said:

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She looks like a Hee-Haw extra, (nothing wrong with that.)


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Miley might be the most country guy in MLB.  He's from a tiny little town in La.  I met a bunch of his family waiting for the players' pass window to open on the night he made his MLB debut.  There were about 50 of them there, and half of them were wearing camo hunting gear.  They drove to Atlanta in 3-4 motor homes because most of them had never been on a plane before and won't fly.

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1 hour ago, formermav43 said:

I imagine they’re envisioning him in the rotation at the beginning of the year (barring something else like a Keuchel reunion I guess), but moving to the pen when Whitley is ready, assuming James sticks.

James is going to stick.  Don't you worry about that.

He's going to be revenge on the baseball world for James Rodney Richard being struck down so young. 

Get you some Mr. James.

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19 minutes ago, Fudge Nuggets said:

You never met Will Harris.

They're apparently best friends:

Quote

HOUSTON (AP) — Asked what attracted him to the Houston Astros, Wade Miley responded with a laugh and said: “Will Harris.”

The pair played together for Arizona in 2013 and 2014 and lived together on multiple occasions. They come small Louisiana towns north of New Orleans, about an hour apart. Miley grew up in Loranger and played college baseball at Southeastern Louisiana; Harris is from Slidell and went to LSU.

 

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1 hour ago, Beau Vine said:

ERA = 2.57, FIP = 3.59, xFIP = 4.30

Wow. I would literally bet that you can't find anyone else with numbers that divergent.   

Not quite as divergent on the xFIP, but here's a guy you may have heard of that's pretty close...  Blake Snell.

 

 

Edited by Fudge Nuggets
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42 minutes ago, Fudge Nuggets said:

That does not surprise me at all.  Matter of fact, once I heard of the signing I figured Harris would be happy to have someone he could talk to in his native language again.  Maybe this will get Harris some what decent again.

Harris’s FIP was 2.44 compared to 2.35 in 2016, his best season. His xFIP was actually better last year. His strikeout and walks per 9 have held pretty consistent for 3 years running.

Basically, I’m not sure what you mean.

Edited by formermav43
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https://blogs.fangraphs.com/instagraphs/astros-sign-poor-mans-dallas-keuchel/

Spoiler

A year ago, Wade Miley went to camp with the Brewers as a 31-year-old minor-league free agent. He was coming off a disastrous season that saw him finish with a 128 ERA- with the Orioles. In truth, Miley wasn’t quite that bad — he also finished with an xFIP- of 106. But even 106 is unspectacular, and going into the season, expectations were modest. It wasn’t even guaranteed Miley would ever find a spot.

He wound up making 16 starts in a Brewers uniform, plus four more (technically) in the playoffs. In one sense, the Brewers got what they might’ve expected. Once again, Miley finished with an xFIP- of 106. But then, his ERA- settled at a ridiculous 63. In other words, while his xFIP- stayed exactly the same, he cut his ERA- in half. Miley finished with a better park-adjusted ERA than Corey Kluber. He finished with a better park-adjusted ERA than Gerrit Cole. He finished with a better park-adjusted ERA than Clayton Kershaw. The best and worst thing about baseball is that it doesn’t always have to make sense. Through one lens, Miley pitched as the ace of his team.

And now he’s going to take his pitching to Houston. Miley has signed with the Astros for a year and $4.5 million, with another $0.5 million in incentives. The Astros are likely to lose Dallas Keuchel. In Miley, they’re hoping to find an approximation.

Like Keuchel, Miley is a ground-balling southpaw with an underwhelming fastball. He’s never really suffered a major arm injury, and he pitches more around the zone than inside of it. Miley isn’t a high-strikeout sort, and he throws almost everything down, looking to get weak contact off the bat. Miley just finished fourth among starters in expected wOBA on batted balls. Keuchel finished eighth. The parallels are numerous, even though Keuchel has the far more impressive track record.

As Miley pitched in 2018, he didn’t just end up with a lower ERA. The major change he made was that he leaned heavily — and primarily — on a new cutter:

miley-cutters.png

It’s a cutter he commanded well to the glove-side:

miley-cutters-location.png

The cutter just rescued Anibal Sanchez’s career. The year-to-year increase in Miley’s cutter rate is one of the very largest on record. If you look only at 2018, you might think the cutter has turned into a magical pitch. Check out how the cutter-heavy starters out-pitched their peripherals:

2018 Pitchers
Group ERA- FIP- xFIP-
All Starters 101 102 101
20%+ Cutters 88 101 101

On the other hand, 2017 wasn’t that long ago, and:

2017 Pitchers
Group ERA- FIP- xFIP-
All Starters 105 104 102
20%+ Cutters 108 107 101

So we don’t have anything conclusive. Just some anecdotal hints. Last season, armed with a new cutter, Miley was able to suppress quality contact. He also finished with the 14th-worst K-BB% among 179 starters with at least 50 innings. Miley was simultaneously easy to hit and hard to hit. It worked out well for him for as long as he pitched.

We might not need to overcomplicate things. Going back to 2002, there have been more than 2,000 starters with at least 50 innings in consecutive seasons. I wanted to focus on the guys with the biggest differences between ERA- and xFIP-, like what Miley just put up. In year one, the 50 guys with the biggest differences averaged an ERA- lower than their xFIP- by 41 points. In year two, the difference regressed to two points. In year one, the 25 guys with the biggest differences averaged an ERA- lower than their xFIP- by 48 points. In year two, the difference regressed to…zero points. Just nothing to be found. Historically, xFIP has won out. Historically, regression has happened. Just because it feels like old sabermetrics doesn’t mean the principles don’t still apply.

So even though Miley just maintained a low ERA, even though he just generated weak contact, the number to keep in mind is that xFIP- of 106. Perhaps the Astros will squeeze out a little bit more. I don’t know if they’ve put together a detailed pitching plan. If they have, I don’t know if it’ll be an effective one. The best-case scenario is that Miley really does pitch like another Keuchel. Perhaps he’ll pitch like another CC Sabathia. There’s also a great chance he pitches like Wade Miley. That is, like a fourth or fifth starter, who needs a good defense behind him.

Thankfully for the Astros, they’re already great. Miley isn’t someone they need, not all season long. He’ll eat some innings until Forrest Whitley can pitch. He’ll eat some innings when Joshua James needs a break. He’ll eat some innings when Collin McHugh needs a break. And so on and so forth. Maybe the Astros feel like they have the key to making Miley terrific. More likely, they’re just fond of a good cutter, thrown by a durable arm. Miley and Keuchel do enough of the same things that you can’t blame the ballclub for choosing this path.

 

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Miley might be the most country guy in MLB.  He's from a tiny little town in La. 


Yeah, he’s clearly a special kind of good ‘ol boy.
Good ‘ol boys have a can of snuff in their back pocket at their introductory press conference
Special kind of good ‘ol boys leave it in their front vest pocket
5dbaa35fd42cfd5f3983466bf7bdf9dd.jpg
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HOUSTON (AP) — Asked what attracted him to the Houston Astros, Wade Miley responded with a laugh and said: “Will Harris."

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Miley apparently also has a ranch outside of Austin.

 

 

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Team shep was at a charity event today and met Whitley, correa and White. Whitley put on some muscle since last year. Very nice young man. Seemed very eager to get year going and join the big club. CC just kept talking about how great he feels compared to last year. Side note Daryl Morey can play some ping pong.  Lil shep got a Pistolas autograph Jersey.  Need to frame it and it hang between roger and earl.

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Buster Onley predicting the Astros to win it all in 2019.

Spoiler

In the midst of the American League Championship Series the Houston Astroslost, Jose Altuve sat back in the chair in front of his locker and explained how his knee problem affected him and when the pain was most acute. In the midst of that conversation, Altuve paused and said, "I know who the MVP will be next year."

Really? Who?

"He will," Altuve said, gesturing toward shortstop Carlos Correa, who struggled through back trouble and the worst of his three full seasons in the big leagues in 2018. By Altuve's way of thinking, Correa was destined to charge into his offseason workouts, driven to have a bounce-back season, obsessed with getting back on track.

You could apply Altuve's theory to the rest of the Astros, as well. Early last season, when Justin Verlanderand Gerrit Cole kept generating zeroes, it looked like Houston might become the first team since the 1998-2000 Yankees to go back-to-back. But in mid-October, the Astros' inconsistent offense and injuries -- and the Boston Red Sox -- took them down.

Many Astros have a lot at stake: Verlander and Cole both will be eligible for free agency in the fall, and at a time when teams seem devoted to paying only for future performance rather than past production, both right-handers could use a catapult into the open market. The 29-year-old George Springer, two years from free agency, is a candidate for a long-term deal. Alex Bregman climbed into the upper echelon of players last season, and armed with his unwavering confidence, he probably believes he can overtake Mike Trout and Mookie Bettsfor the title of best player on the planet.

The Astros' rotation is going to be a concern, with three-fifths of the 2018 rotation yet to be filled. Lance McCullers Jr. is out for the year after having Tommy John surgery, Charlie Morton signed a two-year deal with the Rays, and Dallas Keuchel is a free agent and unlikely to return. Collin McHugh could move from the bullpen back to the rotation. Lefty Wade Miley signed for 2019, with the Astros intent on refining his cutter. Josh James, who turns 26 in a few days, impressed in his work for the Astros at the end of last season. Houston has high hopes for Forrest Whitley, but Whitley has just a handful of innings in pro ball, and like the Dodgers' Walker Buehler in 2018, he will be limited even if he reaches the big leagues.

The Astros will miss utility man Marwin Gonzalez undoubtedly. But the offense should be better, augmented by the signing of the left-handed-hitting Michael Brantley. The bullpen should be pretty good. And with Cole and Verlander nearing free agency, it seems likely that Astros leadership will do what it needs to do to fill holes with midseason deals, as Houston did with the addition of Verlander.

The Astros are already dangerous; heck, following their championship season of 2017, they won 103 games in the 2018 regular season. They're the pick from here to get back to the World Series -- and beat the Atlanta Braves.

 

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2 hours ago, HtownHorn said:

Buster Onley predicting the Astros to win it all in 2019.

  Reveal hidden contents

In the midst of the American League Championship Series the Houston Astroslost, Jose Altuve sat back in the chair in front of his locker and explained how his knee problem affected him and when the pain was most acute. In the midst of that conversation, Altuve paused and said, "I know who the MVP will be next year."

Really? Who?

"He will," Altuve said, gesturing toward shortstop Carlos Correa, who struggled through back trouble and the worst of his three full seasons in the big leagues in 2018. By Altuve's way of thinking, Correa was destined to charge into his offseason workouts, driven to have a bounce-back season, obsessed with getting back on track.

You could apply Altuve's theory to the rest of the Astros, as well. Early last season, when Justin Verlanderand Gerrit Cole kept generating zeroes, it looked like Houston might become the first team since the 1998-2000 Yankees to go back-to-back. But in mid-October, the Astros' inconsistent offense and injuries -- and the Boston Red Sox -- took them down.

Many Astros have a lot at stake: Verlander and Cole both will be eligible for free agency in the fall, and at a time when teams seem devoted to paying only for future performance rather than past production, both right-handers could use a catapult into the open market. The 29-year-old George Springer, two years from free agency, is a candidate for a long-term deal. Alex Bregman climbed into the upper echelon of players last season, and armed with his unwavering confidence, he probably believes he can overtake Mike Trout and Mookie Bettsfor the title of best player on the planet.

The Astros' rotation is going to be a concern, with three-fifths of the 2018 rotation yet to be filled. Lance McCullers Jr. is out for the year after having Tommy John surgery, Charlie Morton signed a two-year deal with the Rays, and Dallas Keuchel is a free agent and unlikely to return. Collin McHugh could move from the bullpen back to the rotation. Lefty Wade Miley signed for 2019, with the Astros intent on refining his cutter. Josh James, who turns 26 in a few days, impressed in his work for the Astros at the end of last season. Houston has high hopes for Forrest Whitley, but Whitley has just a handful of innings in pro ball, and like the Dodgers' Walker Buehler in 2018, he will be limited even if he reaches the big leagues.

The Astros will miss utility man Marwin Gonzalez undoubtedly. But the offense should be better, augmented by the signing of the left-handed-hitting Michael Brantley. The bullpen should be pretty good. And with Cole and Verlander nearing free agency, it seems likely that Astros leadership will do what it needs to do to fill holes with midseason deals, as Houston did with the addition of Verlander.

The Astros are already dangerous; heck, following their championship season of 2017, they won 103 games in the 2018 regular season. They're the pick from here to get back to the World Series -- and beat the Atlanta Braves.

 

As a lifer Astros fan who dealt with 90s losses. Id welcome redemption against them. 

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On 2/1/2019 at 7:19 PM, Fudge Nuggets said:

Not quite as divergent on the xFIP, but here's a guy you may have heard of that's pretty close...  Blake Snell.

 

 

And a few others closer to Miley in the divergence in their respective ERA/xFIP: Reynaldo Lopez and Trevor Williams.  Beasts. 

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On 2/1/2019 at 6:22 PM, Beau Vine said:

Miley might be the most country guy in MLB.  He's from a tiny little town in La.  I met a bunch of his family waiting for the players' pass window to open on the night he made his MLB debut.  There were about 50 of them there, and half of them were wearing camo hunting gear.  They drove to Atlanta in 3-4 motor homes because most of them had never been on a plane before and won't fly.

Houston was a great fit for he and his family since they won't fly.  He also doesn't own a suit as you can see from his press conference....he was told to get a blazer as the Stros have travel wardrobe rules.  Look forward to seeing him in a western jacket in the future.

 

i.jpg

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fuck - i can't wait for baseball to hurry up and start. was hoping someone could link buster's write up. still would like to see another move prior to ST but thinking we'll stay pat, reassess, and then dick thump as we get closer to trade deadline. 

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37 minutes ago, Mez2 said:

fuck - i can't wait for baseball to hurry up and start. was hoping someone could link buster's write up. still would like to see another move prior to ST but thinking we'll stay pat, reassess, and then dick thump as we get closer to trade deadline. 

What he means is who all is goin to Tampa for the opener with us and @mycox

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