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Hank Chinaski

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Everything posted by Hank Chinaski

  1. Nah, he’ll get a shot. What you’re getting at is that he may not be drafted as highly as you might expect, and that prospect writers will not rate him highly because of these attributes. Their logic is that he’ll have to hit at a really high level to make it in MLB because he’s a righty 1B (and thus doesn’t offer a lot of value elsewhere). So he has less room for error. But he’ll still get a chance. Paul Goldschmidt wasn’t that highly regarded at one point either. He is, of course, an outlier.
  2. Texas went 52-11 from 2000-2004. That is objectively not mediocre. I know I know, losses to OU, a CCG meltdown and a bad bowl game. Regardless, this was not a mediocre 5-year span.
  3. The Astros won the AL pennant and were 2-5 against the Tigers last season. 3-3 against the 110-loss Orioles. Baseball is weird.
  4. Eh…I think you could at least make a case for the Lofton trade being just about as bad. Consider: (a) we got absolutely no value out of Lofton and got back absolutely no value in return; (b) Lofton would go on to be worth over 5 WAR per season over the next 8 years, playing a position at which those teams were never particularly strong. Then consider the teams Lofton would have played for. Prime Lofton, Biggio, Bagwell hitting 1-3 for the entire 90s…holy shit. Those were playoff teams and adding a guy like Lofton could have nudged them forward enough to get over the hump. He was the perfect complimentary player for those teams - elite defensive CF (in the Dome) who was on base 40% of the time and stealing bases better than anyone in the sport. Obviously Morgan was a better player than Lofton, but the circumstances make a difference, and at least the Astros did get some good years out of Morgan before they traded him. The Morgan trade is the worst in terms of the caliber of the player they traded, just saying that the Lofton trade was absolutely awful and isn’t far behind, all things considered.
  5. Saw this. The author writes: ”The assumption here is that every team, if it digs deep enough, could cobble together a group of players with enough future value to match the Nationals’ needs.” I disagree strongly with that assumption. And I don’t think the Astros are one of the very few teams who could. I’d be shocked if Soto gets traded this year. This article is a year too early.
  6. Bell is a realistic target - a good (not great) player nearing free agency on a horrid team who could be had at a reasonably low cost. He objectively appears to be an upgrade at the most glaring current problematic position. But, as discussed, it probably creates a practical roster issue and my guess is that we’ll roll with Yuli and hope he turns it around. I’m not optimistic that he will.
  7. This. I probably wouldn’t expect great offensive production from CF, even after Meyers returns, but overall I don’t think that CF is some kind of black hole. They’re good defenders (important with Brantley or Yordan in LF), good on the bases, and average-ish hitters. That’s ok. The biggest offensive problem right now, by far, is 1B. That’s obviously an offense-first position and Yuli currently has a 82 wRC+, and the underlying metrics don’t indicate that it’s bad luck. I don’t see any organizational solutions here. Josh Bell seems like a potential target, but given Yuli’s stature in the org/clubhouse (it’s hard to see him being DFA’d), I don’t know how that would work. (I don’t think Bell would be all that prospect-expensive.)
  8. Holy shit that’s spectacular. How have I never seen this before?
  9. 1. Astros - grew up going to games at the Dome; my first real sports heartbreak was the ‘86 NLCS against the Mets (Craig Reynolds was fucking safe at first); loved those Bagwell/Biggio teams that couldn’t quite get over the hump (and I am still sick about trading Kenny Lofton); loved the Lunhow rebuild every step of the way (and no, I don’t give a flying fuck about sign-stealing, everyone did it and everyone has done it since baseball started). Baseball is my favorite sport. [HUGE gap] 2. Longhorns football - this was #1 a while back, but college football has become pro football except with worse players and no rules related to roster construction. Recruiting is no longer interesting. Every player is a free agent after every season. I am finding it difficult to care much when the entire game has become centered around which team can come up with the best NIL strategy to sign players. The sport is broken. I’m sure one of these years we will have the best team because we paid the most. Great? Thats pretty much it. After the Oilers left I haven’t really had any specific NFL team I care about, though I’ll still watch games because I like the sport. Not much of an NBA fan since the Jordan/Olajuwon/Barkley/Ewing era ended in the late 90s. College basketball has been what college football has become for decades; I just don’t care.
  10. Damn, Carlos Delgado hit 473 HR. I’d have guessed he was around 400 without looking it up. I know he was a one-dimensional player in a heavy offense era, but that’s strong. .280/.383/.546 career line.
  11. Meyers had a 111 wRC+ in MLB last year. Leon has a 116 wRC+ in AAA right now. I’d give Meyers a look first. I agree that he’s no sure thing, but neither is Leon, who is still striking out at an alarming rate in the minors.
  12. Apparently we’re in one of those stretches where they just play like shit. Reminiscent of getting their asses kicked by the Tigers and Orioles last year.
  13. Most of his value so far this year, yeah; he’s slugging at the lowest rate of his career. My guess is that he’ll be better from here out. His expected stats and BABIP indicate he’s had some bad luck.
  14. To me, Bregman and Yuli will determine whether the offense is just good or great. We pretty much know what we’ll get from Altuve, Brantley, Yordan and Tucker. Pena probably won’t sustain this pace (although there is nothing fluky about his start based on the statcast data), but I think he’ll be a good offensive player. I doubt we’ll see the ‘18-‘19 Bregman again (maybe the deadened balls are to blame), but I think he’ll continue to be a good hitter. Yuli, I'm not so sure. There are some bad signs underlying his poor performance that aren’t there for Bregman (Ks are up, BB are down, not hitting the ball hard, etc.). Age may be catching up with him. And the Astros haven’t had a 9-deep lineup throughout this 2015-present era of dominant offenses. There hasn’t been production from C. Most of those years the OF only started 2 good offensive players (Reddick wasn’t a very good hitter), and before 2019 (Yordan/Brantley), DH wasn’t particularly strong. They aren’t going to be anything like 2019, but if Yuli can pick it up and be mostly what he’s been the last few seasons, the offense will be one of the best in MLB.
  15. He’s not as good as Ted Williams.
  16. They’re tied for 6th in MLB in team wRC+. And that’s with Yordan and Tucker both being fairly unlucky so far (contact quality versus results). We’ve all become accustomed to them leading MLB (and being historically good) in this category, and Bregman doesn’t seem quite right, but they haven’t been terrible (like they were for about the first two weeks of the season), they’ve actually been good offensively. We’re just used to great.
  17. I agree with all of this, except I’d argue that college football less interesting than the NFL…and the NFL isn’t that interesting. Yeah yeah, part of that is that Texas has been boringly bad for years, but mostly it’s because of all the other points being made in this page.
  18. Here are Bregman’s expected wOBA numbers for his career: 2016: .305 2017: .337 2018: .369 2019: .373 2020: 332 2021: .332 2022: .357 In 2018 and 2019 his actual wOBA outperformed his expected - by a lot (.396 and .418, respectively); this year, his actual is underperforming (he’s at .344). One thought - Alex hit a lot of HRs in 18-19, but he wasn’t posting elite xWOBA numbers (based on his contact quality) and it’s not like he was ever hitting tape-measure Yordan-esque shots. He knows how to hit in MMP. If the balls are really deadened, I could see that impacting Bregman more than others. My guess: he’s been a tad unlucky so far this season; his contact quality hasn’t been bad, but it hasn’t been as good as it was in 18-19 (it’s been mostly in line with all his other seasons). He’ll end up with solid numbers. He doesn’t suck, obviously, but he is probably more “all-star-ish” than “MVP-ish.” Which is who I thought he’d be before 2018-2019 happened.
  19. (well, 2, but this is what came to mind when I looked at the box score just now.)
  20. It really, really is. Why would you intentionally reduce your run production probabilities, even if the reduction is slight? It just doesn’t make any sense and isn’t justifiable.
  21. Of the three, I’d guess that Brown is most likely to get meaningful MLB time. Service time considerations are probably not all that important, as none of the 3 are particularly young (by prospect standards) or project to be superstars. Leon in striking out in 1 out of every 3 plate appearances in AAA. I’m not sure he’ll be ready to contribute in 2022. Lee is hitting .216/.264/.425 and striking out almost as frequently as Leon. I wouldn’t count on either of them for much of anything this year. Brown could be a bullpen arm or spot starter later in the season. Based on his BB%, he still has some control/command issues.
  22. I’d say Alvarez. His bat is elite and has been since he entered the league. Tucker’s bat is very good, his defense is good, his base running is good, etc. But I’d take the elite hitter over the very good all-around player.
  23. 0-13, 4 K, 2 BB for the 3-6 hitters. Those games are often difficult to win.
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