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Mez2

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Posts posted by Mez2

  1. On 2/22/2021 at 5:38 PM, Wulaw Horn said:

    I’d do 10/250. He can be an Astro for life. He’s set up for generations. Be interesting to see what he wants though. 

    what more could he want - he's got a WS ring AND he gets to plow Daniella every night....maybe two Daniellas? 

    ok, just give him more money, he's back in my good graces after embracing his leadership last year. anytime you can tell cody bellinger to shut the fuck up on the record, you are good in my book.

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  2. Agreed, it's probably a tad overpriced but as great as service and how much those guys take care of us everytime we go there, that's a small hike to pay

  3. Zack Greinke has thrown 2,939 regular season innings in his career, second among active pitchers behind only his teammate, Justin Verlander (2,988). He’s eclipsed 200 innings in nine seasons, including the last full-length MLB season that was played. While his velocity has diminished over the years, durability hasn’t been a significant concern.

    Greinke’s ability to make his starts every five or six days and rack up innings over the six-month season will be crucial to the Astros in 2021. While the rest of their starters have the talent to be above average or better, none of them has carried a major league starter’s workload for a 162-game season.

    After the 60-game season in 2020, pitcher workloads will be a hot topic around the game this year. For the Astros, starter depth is a major question coming into spring training. Greinke being a workhorse (in his age-37 season) might be more important to them in the regular season than him pitching like a frontline starter.

    Framber Valdez was the Astros’ workhorse in the abbreviated 2020 season, but the reality is he’s never thrown more than the 140 innings he logged in 2018 between the majors and minors. Lance McCullers Jr.’s career high in innings is his 164 as a rookie in 2015 between the majors and minors and including the postseason. For José Urquidy, it’s his 154 from 2019. Cristian Javier? The 113 2/3 he logged in 2019 across three levels of the minors.

    Luis Garcia, their top depth piece, has a career-high workload of 108 2/3 innings in 2019 in the low minors. Top prospect Forrest Whitley’s 92 1/3 innings in the minors from his breakout 2017 still represents his highest total, and he didn’t log any official innings in 2020 because he was shut down with an injury at the team’s alternate training site. Austin Pruitt and Josh James are each coming off surgery and won’t be ready for the start of the season, presuming it begins on time.

    PLAYER INNINGS IN 2020
    81.2
    94.2
    69.2
    45.1
    63.2

    Past innings are admittedly an imperfect way to forecast what a pitcher is capable of in the coming season. Not all innings are created equal in terms of the stress and strain they put on a pitcher’s arm and body. Teams have sports science departments that can more accurately measure players’ workloads. Yet the pertinent question remains: where will all the Astros’ innings come from this season?

    Time will tell how pitchers will be impacted in 2021 by the shortened nature of last season. Regarding the impending workload increase, Astros pitching coach Brent Strom is actually less concerned about the starters than he is the relievers.

    “I think the starters, being on a regular schedule, once they get into the routine it becomes kind of normal,” Strom said. “I think probably the top guy in the league threw what 80 innings maybe? So now you’re asking somebody like that to jack it up to 180. It’s a big jump. There’s no question about it. But I think once they start getting into the rhythm and the routine of it, it’s OK. For the relievers, it might be a little more difficult in the sense that last year we were very cognizant of their rest, which was somewhat easy to do in a 60-game schedule. Only one time did we ask somebody to go three days in a row, and that was (Ryan) Pressly in Games 4, 5 and 6 of the ALCS.”

    Deepening their bullpen was a priority for the Astros this offseason, and it’s probably the position group they’ve improved the most from the end of last season. They’ve added Pedro Báez and Ryne Stanek on major league contracts and Steve Cishek on a minor league deal. Joe Smith, who opted out of last season, will be back.

    But the only starting pitchers the Astros have added to the roster this offseason are prospects who needed protection from December’s Rule 5 Draft: Whitley, Peter Solomon, Jairo Solis and Tyler Ivey. The team has excelled at developing pitchers, and the front office is essentially betting that its development infrastructure will help it extract more contributions this season from young pitchers who have the tools but not the experience.

    The Astros beefed up their major league coaching staff on the pitching side ahead of Dusty Baker’s second season as manager, too. Bill Murphy, the wunderkind minor league pitching coordinator who helped to develop many of their current major league arms, will be with the team as the assistant pitching coach. He’ll work under Strom and Josh Miller, whose title was recently elevated from bullpen coach to pitching coach.

    Murphy, 31, has worked in professional baseball for only five seasons but team officials past and present rave about his analytics savvy, communication skills and drive. He shot through their system after being hired away from the baseball staff at Brown University to be a rookie-ball pitching coach ahead of the 2016 season. He has a degree in psychology from Rutgers University, where he pitched, and a masters in business management from Wagner College (N.Y.). He was promoted to the minor league coordinator role only two years ago. At least in the short term, he’ll retain those duties while working on the major league staff.

    Miller, 42, was the Astros’ minor league pitching coordinator before Murphy and was viewed as a future major league pitching coach long before his recent promotion. Murphy falls into that category, too, and the Astros think his familiarity with all of their young pitchers who have already debuted as well as those who will soon debut will be greatly beneficial. Strom described his and Miller’s new assistant as “brilliant” and “a big-time asset.”

    “I think I’m very blessed to have two very good young guys with me who are really sharp and really get after it,” said Strom, 72, and in the final year of his contract. “They’re going to hold me accountable. I’ll hold them accountable. And as I told Murph, he’s got one job. His only job I want to make sure he does is he has to go to the mound when Greinke’s pitching.”

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