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Hank Chinaski

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Everything posted by Hank Chinaski

  1. Hank Chinaski
    Jesus Christ, Taylor Doyle. I remember seeing his photo at the time thinking that he looked like the kid from Dawson’s Creek, which didn’t give me much confidence that he’d turn into some badass OL. And he was apparently in a wheel chair. Wtf Mack. Also, reading all of this has put me in a bad mood. Fuck you all.
  2. Hank Chinaski
    Yeah that’s narrative BS. There is not a single reason for anyone to believe that team was “soft.”
  3. Hank Chinaski
    Again, I think Kyle Tucker or any other player is interested in signing the best contract he can. Now, I assume what you’re actually asking is whether I really think the next 2 years of sunk cost on Abreu and Montero have a meaningful impact on what the Astros would be willing to offer him on a possible extension. To that, I have no idea, but I think the fact that that money is already spent doesn’t help.
  4. Hank Chinaski
    The bottom line is he parted ways with a GM without a plan to replace him. The Abreu deal appeared to be an overpay (and yes, a year too long) even before we knew he was finished as a productive player. Everyone thought the Montero deal was an overpay at the time. Brantley was injured. These were bad signings that may have been avoidable if he had had a plan for the off-season.
  5. Hank Chinaski
    It has an effect on payroll for the next two years, which has an effect on how money will be allocated, which has an effect on what you can offer to players, be it Kyle Tucker or whoever else could potentially be signed to fill out a better roster. I don’t purport to know what he or anybody else “wants to do,” but it’s a pretty good bet that what they want to do is sign the best contract they can.
  6. Hank Chinaski
    The point is that money was spent stupidly because someone decided he didn’t need a GM, and that will affect how future money is allocated.
  7. Hank Chinaski
    He actively decided to not have cohesive front office leadership and pretended to be a GM this past offseason. Every signing he made has been a fucking disaster in 2023 and the club will be worse off for them in future seasons as well. We’d be better off if he actually spent no money at all. When this team fizzles out in the wild card round and then we wonder why we aren’t extending Tucker or why we aren’t in on useful FAs in the off-season, it’ll be fun to remember that we’ve already spent that money - over $30 million - on 2 replacement-level players when Crane was playing GM.
  8. Hank Chinaski
    One would think…
  9. Hank Chinaski
    Meh. It’s a 7-game series. The Astros were probably better, but the degree to which they were better doesn’t really make much of a meaningful difference in a short series.
  10. Hank Chinaski
    I mean yeah, same, because the Astros will never have a better team than that one. But that WS wasn’t really some massive upset. WAS had the best record in baseball over the last 2/3 of that season, had very high-end offensive players (Soto, an actually healthy Rendon, Turner, etc.), and a HOF starter plus Strasburg healthy and pitching up to his potential for the only time in his career (don’t forget how elite he was as a prospect). Corbin was actually good at that point too. The rotations were basically a wash in 2019. If those teams played 100 times, I’d guess the Astros would have won a few more than 50, but probably not that many more.
  11. Hank Chinaski
    No sir…after yesterday, no way in hell I’m commenting positively about a lineup…
  12. Hank Chinaski
  13. Hank Chinaski
    Or…just play Chas in CF, with his team control and 111 career wRC+. Dubon is the backup IF.
  14. Hank Chinaski
    Look, I don’t hate Machete, and I tend to be less bothered by his PT than, say, @Wulaw Horn is. That said, he’s not suddenly a good hitter. He’s a 75-ish wRC+ guy, which is poor. Diaz probably would perform better than that, and he’s shown that he can handle C defensively. As such, I do think that Diaz should play more than 1 out of every 5 games. Machete’s bat isn’t a huge problem unless it’s in the lineup the same day you’re sitting Altuve and Chas and other regulars.
  15. Hank Chinaski
  16. Hank Chinaski
    I mean seriously what in the holy hell is the imbecile fucking manager doing? Fuck this bullshit. Professional fucking malpractice. Playing with a hand tied behind your back. There is no justification for this lineup. None. No rationalization. This is straight-up idiotic if your objective is to attempt to win.
  17. Hank Chinaski
    Winning is great, but we also just scored 10 runs in 3 games against a horrid A’s pitching staff. I’m just saying it makes sense to arrange the lineup in a way that is more conducive to scoring runs.
  18. Hank Chinaski
    I don’t follow the logic. Because we’re overpaying him and because we hope he’s not useless in the playoffs, we should continue to put him in the middle of the order now? He’s been worse than Maldy at the plate. It’s not bad luck: his expected stats are worse than Maldy’s. There is not a single reasonable explanation for slotting Abreu higher in the order than Tucker. In what universe would anyone want Abreu to come to bat more frequently than Tucker? Hell, he should probably bat behind Pena and Chas too, but that is less egregious. If Dusty insists, flip Yordan and Bregman and move Tucker to cleanup to get your r-l-r-l in the order. But for the love of god, stop deliberately handicapping your lineup every day. The FO needs to intervene if Dusty is truly too stubborn to see it.
  19. Hank Chinaski
    Right. But he’s going to get time to try to adjust to it. I’m just saying it is professional malpractice to bat him cleanup while there is no reason to believe he’s going to be productive any time soon. It’s not Dusty’s fault that Abreu has completely fallen off a cliff; it is Dusty’s fault that he continues to bat in one of the most important lineup slots every day.
  20. Hank Chinaski
    This has to happen at some point. You can’t just keep penciling in the literal worst everyday player in baseball into a critical spot just because he used to be good. We’re almost 30% of the way through the season; this isn’t a “slump,” there is something fundamentally wrong with him and there is no rationale for batting him 4th while he figures out how to fix it.
  21. Hank Chinaski
    Yeah, I’d expect Heim to regress. He may be good, but he’s not likely to suddenly be this much better than he’s ever been. Semien could keep this up, but probably comes back down a bit. Same with Garcia. Thing is, Seager hasn’t played much and just returned. They’re good IMO. Semien, Seager, Garcia, Lowe, Jung are all probably good hitters. Their rotation is good if it stays healthy, but they haven’t even gotten too much from deGrom yet. I think they’re a good team; probably not this good, but yeah - a 88-92 win team or so. Thing is - I don’t think the Astros are any better than that.
  22. Hank Chinaski
    Hmmm. “Direct correlation” can actually be quantified. I haven’t run the numbers, but I bet there isn’t any meaningful “correlation.”
  23. Hank Chinaski
    Oh I think he’s good, not saying otherwise or that it wouldn’t be disruptive. Just struck me as a weird set of dots for them to try to connect and to become giddy about. But, yeah, I suppose among the weird shit they’re always talking about, perhaps this isn’t remarkable.
  24. Hank Chinaski
    Wait, do they think CDC is some sort of transcendent, irreplaceable AD? I like him fine, and maybe I’m missing something, but their fantasizing that he may leave Texas seems weird. But I mean…given the source…
  25. Hank Chinaski
    Not really. “Last 30” is an arbitrary sample, which includes an off-season, an injury, a tournament, etc. The biggest portion of this sample is last postseason, which was contiguous with the best offensive season of his career (relative to the league) in 2022. I don’t expect a 160 wRC+ again, but I don’t see any reason not to expect something around his career average (130). Assuming his thumb doesn’t affect his swing, I don’t think we’re to the point yet where we might suspect that something has meaningfully changed with him.

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