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2019 Houston Astros Thread


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20 hours ago, formermav43 said:

I think too many people focus on hitting to the exclusion of everything else a player does. That’s more true for catchers than any other position. All Stassi did last year was be the best framer in MLB. He was the most valuable catcher in the entire AL per fWAR in only 250 plate appearances.

Yeah, he needs to hit better. If he continues at his earlier rate this year, that’s a problem. But with as well as Chirinos is playing, you could do a lot worse for a guy who will only play 1-2 times a week. The #2 catcher is never going to be a great offensive player, and he’s superb at his most important job.

Remember when we were having this discussion about Marisnick?

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13 hours ago, henrygandorf said:

ok, so here's the tuesday report:

with tonight's milwaukee win, we clinch (at worst) a split in the series.  it's june 11th, and the last series we lost started in april. 

that will also be true on june 15th, which is nutso.

current homestand is 3-1, halfway home.  verlander goes for a sweep of milwaukee and clinches at least a .500 homestand.  then we get toronto for 3.

in our 33 game stretch from when our injuries got nasty up thru the asb (when we hope everyone will be back), we are currently 9-2 with 22 remaining (a third of the way home).

that 9-2 stretch includes fairly minimal production from brantley and bregs, and some really shitty stretches from our best bullpen arms.  

this week (mon-fri) should be a solid rest for our pen.  they needed it.  no osuna tonight was nice.  so was limited pressly.

we started 2-5.  we're 44-17 since.  that's a .721 clip if you're scoring at home.  .721 gets you 117 wins, but our actual winning pct (.676) only projects to 109.5 wins.

my favorite word i've seen so far to describe yordan alvarez: "unfair".

let's go.

i'm starting to think those 3 100-loss seasons while we built this machine were worth the effort... but it wasn't just about the tanking, you know? It's everything since and continuing, a true dedication to always improving no matter what happened last year, month, or week.

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so on that trade target list, there were two lefty relievers - diekman and will smith.

i can't imagine either would cost much, but we could use a lefty.  (do we miss tony sipp?)

i like the idea of acquiring 1-2 relief pitchers and just letting them all use august/sept as a tryout for the playoff roster.

harris/rondon/pressly/osuna are in, but i don't think anyone else* has locked in a spot

 

*peacock has, if he ends up getting bumped to the pen, a move i'm in favor of

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Because we’re 46-22 and I’m bored.

Give me this in October

 

1. George Springer CF

2. José Altuve 2B

3. Alex Bregman 3B

4. Michael Brantley (L) LF

5. Carlos Correa SS

6. Yordan Alvarez (L) DH

7. Yuli Gurriel 1B

8. Robinson Chirinos C

9. Josh Reddick (L) RF

 

Bench: Diaz, Straw, Marisnick, Stassi

 

Pitching:

Verlander

Cole

SP3 (via trade)

Miley

Osuna

Pressly

7th or 8th inning guy (via trade)

Peacock

The most effective four out off:

McHugh

Rondon

James

Harris

Smith

 

 

Edit: just saw HG’s post. yeah, what he said

 

 

And lol at our catcher , who’s on pace for 20 HRs, batting 8th and a guy with a batting avg over .300 batting 9th in the postseason.

High times, my friends.

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43 minutes ago, UTexasFight said:

Because we’re 46-22 and I’m bored.

Give me this in October

 

1. George Springer CF

2. José Altuve 2B

3. Alex Bregman 3B

4. Michael Brantley (L) LF

5. Carlos Correa SS

6. Yordan Alvarez (L) DH

7. Yuli Gurriel 1B

8. Robinson Chirinos C

9. Josh Reddick (L) RF

The Astros finally have a legit cleanup hitter that can hit 40+ hrs. I wouldn't hesitate putting Alvarez in the 4 spot.

This lineup is better than the 2017 team. Reddick in the 9 spot is just unfair to the other teams. 

Edited by mycox
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59 minutes ago, UTexasFight said:

Because we’re 46-22 and I’m bored.

Give me this in October

 

1. George Springer CF

2. José Altuve 2B

3. Alex Bregman 3B

4. Michael Brantley (L) LF

5. Carlos Correa SS

6. Yordan Alvarez (L) DH

7. Yuli Gurriel 1B

8. Robinson Chirinos C

9. Josh Reddick (L) RF

 

Bench: Diaz, Straw, Marisnick, Stassi

 

Pitching:

Verlander

Cole

SP3 (via trade)

Miley

Osuna

Pressly

7th or 8th inning guy (via trade)

Peacock

The most effective four out off:

McHugh

Rondon

James

Harris

Smith

 

 

Edit: just saw HG’s post. yeah, what he said

 

 

And lol at our catcher , who’s on pace for 20 HRs, batting 8th and a guy with a batting avg over .300 batting 9th in the postseason.

High times, my friends.

there's a whole lot here that I agree with. like, all of it. 

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1 hour ago, UTexasFight said:

Because we’re 46-22 and I’m bored.

Give me this in October

 

1. George Springer CF

2. José Altuve 2B

3. Alex Bregman 3B

4. Michael Brantley (L) LF

5. Carlos Correa SS

6. Yordan Alvarez (L) DH

7. Yuli Gurriel 1B

8. Robinson Chirinos C

9. Josh Reddick (L) RF

 

Bench: Diaz, Straw, Marisnick, Stassi

 

Pitching:

Verlander

Cole

SP3 (via trade)

Miley

Osuna

Pressly

7th or 8th inning guy (via trade)

Peacock

The most effective four out off:

McHugh

Rondon

James

Harris

Smith

 

 

Edit: just saw HG’s post. yeah, what he said

 

 

And lol at our catcher , who’s on pace for 20 HRs, batting 8th and a guy with a batting avg over .300 batting 9th in the postseason.

High times, my friends.

that looks right.

i love our bench, but assuming jake is our late inning def replacement, which he should be, it just sucks because that would mean losing brantley or yordan's bat.  whatever, hopefully that's part of our 8/9th inning shut down and win plan, along with pressly and osuna.

i keep forgetting about joe smith.  if he looks good, that's almost like making a trade for free.

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1 hour ago, henrygandorf said:

so on that trade target list, there were two lefty relievers - diekman and will smith.

i can't imagine either would cost much, but we could use a lefty.  (do we miss tony sipp?)

i like the idea of acquiring 1-2 relief pitchers and just letting them all use august/sept as a tryout for the playoff roster.

harris/rondon/pressly/osuna are in, but i don't think anyone else* has locked in a spot

 

*peacock has, if he ends up getting bumped to the pen, a move i'm in favor of

I’m not saying they couldn’t use a lefty reliever-after all, the ones they’ve trotted out there have been underwhelming-but they statistically have the best bullpen against lefties this season despite that. I think Smith is a good acquisition in any case-he’s a free agent after this season, should come cheap, and while the bullpen has been much better than the doomsayers realize, it’s also an easy spot to upgrade. But I don’t think the Astros get hung up on handedness the way a lot of teams traditionally do. 

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3 minutes ago, formermav43 said:

I’m not saying they couldn’t use a lefty reliever-after all, the ones they’ve trotted out there have been underwhelming-but they statistically have the best bullpen against lefties this season despite that. I think Smith is a good acquisition in any case-he’s a free agent after this season, should come cheap, and while the bullpen has been much better than the doomsayers realize, it’s also an easy spot to upgrade. But I don’t think the Astros get hung up on handedness the way a lot of teams traditionally do. 

i actually don't mind the idea that some righties are just as tough (or tougher) vs lefties.  sucks that devo was one of them.  harris is solid too i think, if i'm remembering that right.

i'm not a huge subscriber of playing l/r matchups, and there aren't a ton of scary lefty bats we'd be facing in the postseason.

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28 minutes ago, henrygandorf said:

i actually don't mind the idea that some righties are just as tough (or tougher) vs lefties.  sucks that devo was one of them.  harris is solid too i think, if i'm remembering that right.

i'm not a huge subscriber of playing l/r matchups, and there aren't a ton of scary lefty bats we'd be facing in the postseason.

Just about every team currently in the playoffs minus the Yankees have 2-3 guys with an OPS over .800 that bat lefty. The Dodgers have 5.

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50 minutes ago, HtownHorn said:

Just about every team currently in the playoffs minus the Yankees have 2-3 guys with an OPS over .800 that bat lefty. The Dodgers have 5.

i was really just thinking about boston/nyy.  boston is as righty crazy as we are, but shit, right now the rangers are in front of them, so who really knows.

i would like to see us add a lefty just to switch it up, and i don't think they love what we have with our aaa guys.

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2 minutes ago, henrygandorf said:

i was really just thinking about boston/nyy.  boston is as righty crazy as we are, but shit, right now the rangers are in front of them, so who really knows.

i would like to see us add a lefty just to switch it up, and i don't think they love what we have with our aaa guys.

Boston will likely have 3 and Bradley owns us right now.

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4 minutes ago, HtownHorn said:

Boston will likely have 3 and Bradley owns us right now.

i'm completely unable to explain jackie bradley, so you definitely got me there.

that said, i wonder if modern analytics would eventually render l/r matchups relatively pointless.  i would trust certain righty relievers more against tough lefties than someone like diekman.  that shit is over in 2020 anyway.

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4 minutes ago, UTexasFight said:

Ho hum
 

 


I declare the 2000s the century of the Astros.
Ponder this. The Yankees won their first World Series in 1923. And proceeded to win 25 more by the end of 2000.
The Astros won their first World Series in 2017 and will proceed to win ___ more by the end of 2100.

 

81..

Edited by FondrenRoad
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Until MLB pitching adjusts/finds a hole in Alvarez’ swing, I’m loving Yuli slotted in between him and Brantley.



Some of you stats whiz guys have been calling out certain numbers that would indicate Yuli is due to perform better than he has anyway but putting him right between Uncle Mike and Air Yordan, he should see plenty of good pitches.

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12 minutes ago, UTexasFight said:

Until MLB pitching adjusts/finds a hole in Alvarez’ swing, I’m loving Yuli slotted in between him and Brantley.
 

 


Some of you stats whiz guys have been calling out certain numbers that would indicate Yuli is due to perform better than he has anyway but putting him right between Uncle Mike and Air Yordan, he should see plenty of good pitches.
 

 

Our cleanup hitter is slugging .402. That's less than ideal. 

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21 minutes ago, henrygandorf said:

that said, i wonder if modern analytics would eventually render l/r matchups relatively pointless.  i would trust certain righty relievers more against tough lefties than someone like diekman.  that shit is over in 2020 anyway.

Not only is handedness not as important as is often thought, but there’s a tendency to overestimate the usage of LOOGY’s. It’s not as much of a thing as people think. The season with the most 1 batter appearances, 2015, had 1410 total-that’s roughly 8 per team per month. Only 1 other season had over 1300. Bruce Bochy teams alone usually accounted for close to 10% of these, no joke.

Each of the last 3 seasons has seen fewer than 1200 1 batter appearances-on average, about 6 per team per month.

I don’t think the new rule will have much effect because I think teams are increasingly realizing the role isn’t that valuable. 

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16 minutes ago, TonyTexas said:

Oops. My bad. Forgot to include post season. Even so, he still only hit .200 that series. Unfortunately his 3 hits happened to be 2 HRs and a double.

Lulz, he had a OPS over a 1.000 in the series. Batting average, the 1980s called, they want their key hitting statistic back.

It's not like he was the ALCS MVP, oh wait he was.

Edited by HtownHorn
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Lulz, he had a OPS over a 1.000 in the series. Batting average, the 1980s called, they want their key hitting statistic back.
It's not like he was the ALCS MVP, oh wait he was.

Tyler White has an OPS of 1.121 over the last 3 games. You have to take sample size into account.
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2 hours ago, UTexasFight said:

Until MLB pitching adjusts/finds a hole in Alvarez’ swing, I’m loving Yuli slotted in between him and Brantley.
 

 


Some of you stats whiz guys have been calling out certain numbers that would indicate Yuli is due to perform better than he has anyway but putting him right between Uncle Mike and Air Yordan, he should see plenty of good pitches.
 

 

If we trot out a healthy lineup like you posted above, everyone in it will see really good pitches, or set a team walk record.

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1 minute ago, TonyTexas said:

Pretty cool interview by Julia with Jake and Yelich. They were roomies in the Marlins organization and were called up on the same day. Some good stories and off the field video when they were just pups. Yelich seems like a good dude.

Agree. That was well done. Both guys seem like pretty good guys.

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20 hours ago, UTexasFight said:


So we lose 1-0 in a Yelich HR, because if there are two things that are certain, JV won’t get run support and he’s going to give yo a solo HR.

🤘🏻

Just don’t need the loss part.

Edited by Wishbone
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