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Hank Chinaski

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Everything posted by Hank Chinaski

  1. I mean, Dusty makes all kinds of asinine decisions, but this actually seems reasonable.
  2. Don’t be such a goddamned pessimist. They're going 85-77.
  3. Reminder that Crane decided it was a good idea to not have a GM this past off-season and he Jerry Jonsed his way to singing Abreu, Brantley and Montero.
  4. I assumed this was a joke, but the few here who have reviewed his other takes (I’ll abstain) indicate that it probably isn’t. Imagine thinking that Tom Herman had this program “set for a NC run” when he left his successor with a roster that had a total of zero players drafted. None. If one can genuinely believe this, I imagine that his thoughts about politics or anything else in life are equally asinine.
  5. I guess I don’t see it as pessimism? I’m saying that, objectively, half the lineup is made up of sub-average hitters and the rotation is two good starters, a promising rookie, and quad-A guys. That’s what mediocre teams look like. That’s reality, not pessimism. For example - I have zero doubt that Alex Bregman is still good and will end up with a good season, because the data tell me that he’s been the same guy so far in 2023 that he’s always been. The results are likely to follow. On the other hand, the data tell us that Jose Abreu is not the same guy he’s always been, and thus I expect him to have a poor season, in line with what the data suggest he is now. There’s reason to believe that Yordan and Tucker will be even better than they’ve been. There’s no reason to believe that Meyers or Maldanado or Dubon or Bielak will. None of these forecasts are optimistic or pessimistic; they’re simply the most likely outcomes.
  6. I don’t understand how anyone has been seeing anything other than a wholly mediocre, .500-ish team when you look at this roster. Jose Altuve alone isn’t fixing this. And there aren’t going to be any moves to be made at the deadline that are going to fix this, because the Astros don’t have much prospect capital and they’re more than a few patches away from being any kind of real contender. It didn’t have to go this way, but the owner wanted to play GM over the winter. Would Lunhow have signed Abreu to that deal? Montero? Is that how he would have allocated resources? Hell, would Click? Of course not. It was a negligent off-season coming off of a WS title. Hubris. This is what the owner deserves, frankly.
  7. The idea that there will ever be a world in which they won’t notice “every little thing that’s said about the sips”…
  8. Yup, the sample size isn’t that small anymore. He’s past the count of PAs and batted-ball event at which the K rate, BB rate and contact quality tend to stabilize and accurately describe who he is. These aren’t necessarily predictive per se, but they are real indicators. He’s a disaster and is unlikely to even come close to justifying the contract that Crane gave him.
  9. I didn’t love it. I thought it was one year and several million dollars too much. I don’t think I was the only one. That said, I did think Abreu would be better offensively than Yuli was in 2022, so I did expect that it would be an upgrade, even if it was too much money. But beyond what fans think, the problem is that there was reason to believe that Abreu’s ability was declining. A national writer said as much at the time - that his bat speed was slowing and his 2022 season showed it. This is the kind of stuff analytically-inclined front offices would be likely to detect. But the owner decided that we didn’t need anyone leading a coherent front office this past off-season. That’s the problem.
  10. Hells yes, my desk has always been a goddamned disaster; now it all makes sense.
  11. 10 K, 1 BB by the lineup today. Nice work, fellas. Crane’s hubris and nonchalance about having nobody run the organization this past winter is coming home to roost. Perhaps an analytically-inclined GM wouldn’t have outbid himself for the right to overpay an old 1B with diminished bat speed. (That this is the first year of his deal, not the last, is a sobering thought.)
  12. Haha why in the hell would anyone actually be upset about a representative of a future conference member attending a meeting? “They shouldn’t be allowed to attend a meeting until 2024!” What the holy fuck does it possibly matter? These imbeciles will bitch about absolutely anything Texas does, and feel victimized by it.
  13. Bregman’s expected wOBA is .358, right in line with his career mark. I realize that you get no points for this, but it basically tells you that his Ks and BBS are good and his contact quality is the same as always. It suggests some bad luck. No real reason to worry about him. Abreu is a different story. His expected wOBA is .278; his average exit velo is way down, his walks are down, his strikeouts are up. He is a mess. Definite cause for concern.
  14. What a weird thing to do. They were the Tennessee Oilers for what, 2 years? People in Nashville don’t give a shit about that name/logo. I’m all for the throwback thing, but that is usually because it celebrates a different era of the team. I can’t see a celebration of the 1997-98 Tennessee Oilers moving the needle for any fan of that franchise. Also, it this is done just to “troll” houstonians, I’d change the Texans uniforms to something as closely resembling the oilers as legally possible, including the logo.
  15. I mean, I said last year that the 2022 Astros reminded me of the 2006 Astros, so prepare to join the club.
  16. Altuve was the 4th best hitter in MLB last year, about 65% better than league average. Since 2016 he’s been 52%, 60%, 35%, 37%, 28% and 64% better than league average (2020 doesn’t count). It’s fair to say he should be around 30-40% better than average this year. Maricio Dubon currently is 2% worse than league average and has a slugging% of .385. In his career he has been 6%, 1%, 26%, and 42% worse than average. It’s generous to say that he should be 5-10% below average this year. Jose Altuve is a massive, massive, enormous offensive upgrade over Maricio Dubon.
  17. Tucker’s actual results are still pretty far behind his expected results (based on contact quality, BB and K), even though his expected numbers have dropped a bit in the last week or so. He’s had some bad luck, as has Bregman. Unfortunately, the rest of the crappy lineup cannot tolerate bad luck from the 3 good hitters.
  18. It should. Replacing Dubon with Altuve figures to be a massive upgrade. Replacing Quad A with Brantley should be an upgrade. McCormick will help. Though that offensive improvement will probably be offset by replacing 40% of the rotation with Bielak and whoever else.
  19. I think the issue is…they’re just not very good. We’re talking about a lineup featuring Dubon, Maldonado, Meyers, a washed-up Abreu, Hensley/Julks, and Pena almost every day. That’s 2/3 of the lineup made up of quad-A guys, an old 1B whose skill level has significantly declined, and a SS who struggles to recognize balls out of the zone. If that were any other team, we wouldn’t be expecting much from them. It’s just an objectively mediocre/bad lineup, totally dependent on Bregman/Alvarez/Tucker.
  20. 15 straight scoreless innings.
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