Hank Chinaski

I mean sure, but you don’t do that if you’re serious about winning in 2023. You’d be getting rid of your best CF and the 5th-best hitter on the team, which isn’t a great offensive team to begin with. If we want to start retooling for the future, sure. But in 2023, scoring runs has been difficult; trading Chas almost certainly makes it even harder.

Chas career wRC+: 112 Verdugo career wRC*: 110 I’d be fine acquiring Verdugo, but he’s not better than Chas. He’s the same hitter but probably isn’t a CF and has less team control.

Yeah, trading an above-average CF on a pre-arb deal, who is easily the second-best outfielder in the organization (if we’re considering Yordan a DH, which he should be) makes total sense. The fact that people think Julks and Meyers are just as good as Chas continues to baffle me.

Have they ever defined what makes us “arrogant?” I genuinely don’t know.

Yup. And this has been fairly obvious since April. I do think their pitching is going to regress a bit, but their lineup is legit.

I’ve been saying it all season, but everything about this club has been askew since the WS ended. I’m with you - why are we all ok with letting Dusty sit he good players and play the bad players? It really is that simple.

Just so we’re all clear here…Dusty is sitting Chas McCormick while starting Corey Julks and Bligh Madris. He plays Julks as frequently (if not more) as he plays Chas. Julks has a career 90 wRC+. Madris has a 92 wRC+ this year…in triple-motherfucking-A. He starts at DH. Read that all again. Meanwhile, Chas has a 120 wRC+ this year and 112 for his career. He sits today (and many days), for a team without its best hitter, which has been struggling to score runs. Dusty has to fucking go. We aren’t even trying to win. I’ve never seen this much effort devoted to ensuring that a bunch of quad-A players get significant playing time for what is supposed to be a good team.

Fuck Dusty.

Astros were 1 for 21 (.048) on balls in play last night.

Right - only makes sense if you’re getting a guy who may be that good later…meaning, if we’re ready to start remaking the roster (at least to a degree). (And honestly, if the front office can’t make Dusty play him every day, maybe you get more value this way. But I’d rather replace Dusty and hold onto the guy who is a known quantity.)

Wait, why would we trade Chas? For what? Offense is a problem. He’s one of our best offensive players. He’s cheap. Who could we realistically get for Chas that matches/exceeds the value of a 3.5-win player on a pre-arb contract?

Agreed, but I also want to note that he is not interchangeable with Chas. He’s a 4th OF. Chas should be an everyday guy. I know you know this. But Chas and Meyers have frequently been sort of lumped together as equal entities since the both came up around the same time. They shouldn’t be. Chas is a good everyday player (who inexplicably doesn’t get to play every day).

I mean…the “buying players” thing is kind of hilarious; isn’t that kind of baked into the entire recruiting process across the board now? And don’t they crow about how they invented the greatest NIL model the world has ever known? Wouldn’t any reasonable person assume that every high-end recruit is getting “paid” in 2023? But, just as the Aggies are undefeated in games that were never played, so too are they the best when it comes to conjuring unsubstantiated, untestable, and fantastic narratives that all conclude that Texas is just the worst (“Texas kills conferences,” “these kids don’t really want to be Longhorns, they’d much rather be Ags if not for the money,” etcetera and so forth).

The magnitude of their collective inferiority complex is incalculable. Also, they seem to know a whole lot more about UT rings than I do (which means they know something about UT rings).

Still milking that story for every drop he can get out of it.

Sure, but 6-9 is probably more likely.

For the love of god, can someone take this decision away from Dusty? What does anyone need to see to understand that Chas is a good starting CF?

@Wulaw Horn and his handsome co-host discussed concern for Javier in this week’s podcast. Those guys are pretty smart.

Disagree. This is a team with current and upcoming offensive uncertainties; Chas is a known quantity at this point - he’s 10-15% better than league average offensively and good defensively, with more years of team control. He has surplus value because he is an above-average starting CF making relative peanuts, even if Dusty treats him as though he isn’t. I mean, of course, it depends on who you get back; but seeking to trade Chas right now doesn’t make a ton of sense. Playing him in CF every day instead makes way more sense. I’d much rather see the FO tell Dusty to cut the shit and play him everyday than try to move him. Gilbert isn’t going to be in Houston until a year from now at the earliest. And he’s obviously not a sure thing. A very likely outcome for him is - basically Chas McCormick. And that would be good. A team that regularly starts a below-average hitter in the OF shouldn’t be trading an above-average starting OF unless it is punting on the rest of the season.

Chas: 115 wRC+ Dubon: 97 wRC+ Julks: 91 wRC+ just…why? This isn’t controversial. In 2023 we know how to assess a hitter’s value, and we know how to assemble lineups based on that value. It isn’t rocket science, and common sense dictates that you should structure your lineup in a way that maximizes the run-scoring probabilities of the team. We intentionally don’t do that. Think about that.

Reminder that Chas McCormick, for his career, averages 3.5 fWAR / 600 PAs, yet we still refuse to play him every day…so that we can keep running Corey Julks and his 85 wRC+ out there. Its getting difficult to care.

Some of both. Fewer injuries to deal with last year, so it was a bit more stable. But we still had things like Tucker hitting 6th, Dubon hitting 2nd, etc. Also it seems like someone told him to cut the shit when the postseason arrived.