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2022 Houston Astros Thread

Planet Houston

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DallasGatr

DallasGatr 216

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Since getting called up to AAA Sugar Land on June 7th, infielder Enmanuel Valdez has slashed .311/.365/.600 with 9 HR and 29 RBI in 32 games. He's kinda come out of nowhere and gone from a relative nobody to a prospect with promise and will be Rule 5 eligible this winter so it will be interesting to see what the Astros do with him. Is he a potential trade piece or do the Astros see him as injury insurance in case one of Aledmys Diaz or Dubon gets injured? Regardless, his ascent is remarkable and imo a testament to the Astros developmental system. 

Looks like he started coming on last year. .879 OPS at AA as a 22 year old is more than solid.
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This postseason has become more sentimental for me and my wife's family.  My father in law is the biggest Astros fan I know.  He watches every game without fail, even DVRing them if he can't watch liv

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Gourmand

Gourmand 7774

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19 minutes ago, LCHorn said:

Do you mind posting the article?  Disney/ESPN isn’t exactly a starving artist that’ll miss the revenue.  

Justin Verlander. Alex Bregman. Jose Altuve. Yordan Alvarez. Those are the names largely associated with the Houston Astros' continuing run of dominance, one that has taken them into five consecutive American League Championship Series and currently trends toward a sixth.

But there are four other, far-less-heralded names who have become just as important to their sustainability. Four pitchers who deepened what has evolved into an impressive rotation. Four young players who contributed critical value to a top-heavy payroll. Four homegrown guys who emerged from an international market that typically ignores them.

It's Luis Garcia, Cristian Javier, Jose Urquidy and Framber Valdez -- and that even one of them emerged to become a major league starting pitcher borders on a miracle.

"Not one, not two, not three -- four," Bill Murphy, one of the Astros' pitching coaches, said. "Hopefully I coach for a number of years more. I may never see that again. Four is probably never gonna be seen again, for myself personally. But that's pretty cool."

The Astros begin the second half with a nine-game lead in the AL West, representing the third-largest divisional cushion in the sport, while trailing only the New York Yankees and the Los Angeles Dodgers in both winning percentage and run differential.

Pitching has been the key.

Verlander is putting together a Cy Young season as a 39-year-old coming off Tommy John surgery, and a collection of recent bullpen additions -- Rafael Montero, Hector Neris, Ryne Stanek -- have consistently shortened games. But Garcia, Javier, Urquidy and Valdez -- the first two of whom will start today's doubleheader against the Yankees -- have elevated the staff to a different level, combining to post a 3.37 ERA in 376 2/3 innings while accumulating six FanGraphs wins above replacement.

None of them was supposed to be here.

Latin players -- excluding those hailing from Puerto Rico and Cuba -- can officially sign with major league organizations through the international signing period at the age of 16, at which point the best of them secure six- and seven-figure bonuses. But the international market has long been plagued by teams striking pre-arranged deals with players as young as 13, a wide-ranging issue that has exacerbated Major League Baseball's long-held desire for an international draft.

 

The Astros went the other way, bolstering their pitching depth and extending their contention window by signing international players at older ages for pennies on the dollar. Javier signed for $10,000 one week before his 18th birthday, Garcia signed for $20,000 at the age of 20, Valdez signed for $10,000 at 21 and Urquidy was acquired from his Mexican League team -- an exchange that ultimately netted him $100,000 -- two months before he turned 20.

"We weren't anchored to age being the driver of whether the player was good or not," said Oz Ocampo, who ran the Astros' international department for five years and has since returned to the organization as an international crosschecker. "The driver was the talent and the ability and the player and the person."

Of the 91 major league pitchers with at least 75 innings this season, 14 of them were plucked from the international market. Other than Garcia, Javier, Urquidy and Valdez, only four (Sandy Alcantara, Luis Severino, Ranger Suarez and Luis Castillo) signed when they were older than 16, and only four obtained signing bonuses of $100,000 or less (Castillo, Suarez, Frankie Montas, Jose Quintana and Ranger Suarez).

 

The Astros are far from alone in prioritizing the international market. Teams have increasingly committed resources in baseball-rich countries like the Dominican Republic and, when politics allow, Venezuela because the acquisition cost is so low and the upside is so high. Only the top prospects secure seven-figure bonuses and get written about in national publications, but teams annually sign dozens of players to five- and six-figure bonuses and funnel them into their system largely to fill out their minor league affiliates. If somebody evolves into a trade asset, or even develops enough to earn a spot on the 40-man roster -- let alone emerges to become a consistent major league contributor -- it's a massive win.

But nobody expects to build out the majority of a rotation that way -- and yet the Astros somehow have.

"It's pretty amazing," said Murphy, who previously spent five years in the Astros' minor league system, coaching in the lower levels before becoming the organization's pitching coordinator from 2019 to 2020. "I think back to when I was evaluating, when I was watching them, thinking of what I thought they were gonna be and what they turned into -- it just goes to show you that you can think all you want about how good a person is gonna be, and most of the time you're probably gonna be wrong. That's ultimately what it's gonna show you. It's a special thing."

Murphy, in his second year with the major league coaching staff, worked with Garcia, Javier, Urquidy and Valdez at critical junctures in their development. Ocampo, the Astros' international director from 2012 to 2017, is credited with signing them (Valdez, Javier and Urquidy all signed in 2015; Garcia followed in 2017).

But the likelihood of turning five-figure signees from foreign countries into consistent major leaguers is almost nothing. Their success is an organization-wide triumph. It's a credit to area scouts and strength-and-conditioning coaches and English teachers and an assortment of pitching coaches. It's Andy Nunez, the team psychologist who helped Valdez maintain a positive mindset after struggling through the 2019 season. It's former All-Star third baseman Melvin Mora, who opened the doors to his Venezuela academy to Garcia when he was no longer a teenager and still searching for a team. It's Todd Naskedov, the former rehab pitching coordinator who navigated Urquidy through the final steps of his recovery from Tommy John surgery in 2018. It's Leocadio Guevara, the Dominican scout who hails from Javier's Dominican hometown of La Victoria and has followed him since he was a child.

 

The Astros signed Javier (3.22 ERA in 78 1/3 innings this season) in 2015 because his mid-80s fastball was impossible to hit, then watched him continually increase velocity with a diligent weight-training regimen. Urquidy (4.09 ERA in 94 2/3 innings) had advanced pitchability at an early age, then added the sweeping slider that took his arsenal to another level. Valdez (2.66 ERA in 115 innings) initially wowed the Astros' scouts with his curveball, then later developed the sinker that helped make him an All-Star this season. Garcia (3.65 ERA in 88 2/3 innings) displayed impressive feel for his curveball and changeup at an early age, then experienced a velocity spike that made him a legitimate strikeout pitcher.

"I think it just goes to show you that with the right resources, anybody can be good," Murphy said. "You should never give up on anybody, because you could be shocked. It just goes to show you if you get good people who work hard and wanna get better, those are the people who are successful."

Garcia, Javier, Urquidy and Valdez hit at the perfect time. In the early 2010s, the Astros, under exiled general manager Jeff Luhnow, had become the poster franchise for tanking, when three consecutive triple-digit-loss seasons helped to secure the core that produced a juggernaut. What followed were the typical obstacles that threaten sustainability -- bloated payrolls as their best players became more expensive, later draft picks because their winning percentages annually fell among the best in the sport.

The Astros faced even greater difficulty when the sign-stealing scandal stripped them of two first- and second-round picks -- but their international success has overcome most of it.

Houston produced an industry-leading 20 major league players from the international market from 2013 to 2017, according to internal numbers kept by the team. Eleven of those players signed for $25,000 or less. The only other team to produce even 11 major leaguers during that stretch was the Dodgers, and their list is composed of multiple players who attained seven-figure bonuses. In other words: The Astros could have been restricted to $25,000 bonuses, and still no team would have produced more major league players during that four-year period -- quite possibly the most defining stretch in their franchise's history.

Garcia, Javier, Urquidy and Valdez developed to help them directly on the field. But there was also Franklin Perez, a pitcher who signed for $1 million out of Venezuela and became the key piece in the Verlander trade of 2017. And Dominican outfielder Gilberto Celestino, who signed for $2.25 million and later helped secure closer Ryan Pressly from the Minnesota Twins in 2018.

The Astros aren't the only team to take chances on bargain talent; every year, somewhere in the neighborhood of 400 players are signed to five-figure bonuses. They just seem to hit on them at a much higher rate, as evidenced by the way Garcia, Javier, Urquidy and Valdez developed. Ocampo, 39, believes it's because they place just as much importance on the five-figure signee as they do the high-priced, seven-figure splurge. He credits a concept he learned at Georgetown University, where he secured a bachelor's degree in political economy: cura personalis, Latin for "care for the entire person."

"That is a critical piece which gets overlooked," Ocampo said. "But if you look at, one, the brotherhood that exists between those players, and then others that moved up the minor league system, as well both former and current Astros staff and players that have helped along the way, that's been a critical piece. And I think it's really hard to replicate."

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UTPhil2006

UTPhil2006 3790

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Someone needs to do a a version with the Astros logo for that guys face and whatever opponent we play when Framber gets a W. 
 

per request from @Ldogg53 we need Framber being the angry marine and the mariners being the guy saying “call the FRAMBERLAMPS”

12 minutes ago, tx 3 putt said:

 

fuck, now the surly threadfor valdez to be called up

Edited by UTPhil2006
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HtownHorn

HtownHorn 14446

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3 hours ago, LebongJames said:

If Brantley is pretty hurt what about Ian Happ? Batting .280 this year and has an OPS over .800. I don’t know anything about his defense.

Happ can also play 1B. His defense in LF isn't the best, but it is much better than Brantley's. If Brantley comes back, then Happ can play CF. Happ is a better hitter than Meyers, Gurriel, and likely Brantley. So, he would fit in a number of different ways. Happ is also crushing LHP. I agree with Wulaw though, Happ and Bell should both be added to the offense. Why take a chance when you are an injury away from rolling out the lineup we have today in the playoffs. This team's floor is the ALCS, and with the pitching staff we should be eyeing our 2nd WS title in this window.

 

I don't think he would like it, but I would also try to get Smyly from the Cubs to be the LH bullpen guy we will likely need in the playoffs.

Edited by HtownHorn
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Pimphand

Pimphand 5587

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1 minute ago, Gourmand said:

Not to trigger yall but Ben in right

 

Baker has done a good job but he was close to fucking around and finding out in the MFY DH.

Game 1 he got bailed out by Boone's idiocy and Game 2 was much closer than it should have been when he still had a few fresh arms to go get 3 outs with a 5 run lead.

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Gourmand

Gourmand 7774

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5 minutes ago, Pimphand said:

when he still had a few fresh arms to go get 3 outs with a 5 run lead.

the fresh arms that stayed fresh and pitched flawlessly to help start another streak for Seattle? 

yeah that is kinda the point of the tweet.

Edited by Gourmand
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HtownHorn

HtownHorn 14446

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2 hours ago, Gourmand said:

Good article on the Astros international development pipeline.....

https://www.espn.com/mlb/insider/insider/story/_/id/34263423/inside-unlikely-rise-houston-astros-miracle-starting-pitcher-quartet

I am happy to hear Oz has rejoined the organization. We need to pay that dude to retire as an Astro.

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tx 3 putt

tx 3 putt 76158

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11 minutes ago, Pimphand said:

Baker has done a good job but he was close to fucking around and finding out in the MFY DH.

Game 1 he got bailed out by Boone's idiocy and Game 2 was much closer than it should have been when he still had a few fresh arms to go get 3 outs with a 5 run lead.

 

and if grandma had a dick, she'd be grandpa !!!

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HtownHorn

HtownHorn 14446

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9 minutes ago, Pimphand said:

Baker has done a good job but he was close to fucking around and finding out in the MFY DH.

Game 1 he got bailed out by Boone's idiocy and Game 2 was much closer than it should have been when he still had a few fresh arms to go get 3 outs with a 5 run lead.

This is what made no sense. He didn't pitch Mushinski or Abreu with a 5-run lead needing 3 outs, but pitched both with 1-2 run lead on the road needing 6 outs. 

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Pimphand

Pimphand 5587

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7 minutes ago, HtownHorn said:

They would have still been fresh 2 days later.

This..... is the right answer it wasn't like we were asking them to throw up a 4-5 inning spot get 3 outs up 5 very low pressure.

Again I'm not mad at Dusty it just put us more in harms way and made the situation high leverage when it could have been avoided.

Getting 9 outs of shutout baseball from Bielak was gusty and badass.  Trying to get the 4th inning out of him was borderline insane.

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Wulaw Horn

Wulaw Horn 18963

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3 minutes ago, Gourmand said:

That I do not like. 

Is he gonna need surgery? If so, do it now plz.

The thing about the playoffs is that you never play more than 3 in a row, so… if rest really does help… but yeah- they claim everything is structurally sound. Although they are notoriously closed mouthed about injuries I can’t remember them lying in the past. 

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Pimphand

Pimphand 5587

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3 minutes ago, tx 3 putt said:

‘bodies have to heal themselves’

ha 

You actually have to be asleep for the body to do any healing.  If you are awake then there is actually no active healing going on so maybe they need to get Yordan loaded up on Pure Sleep.

Pure-Sleep-Refill-Bag-5_2048x.png?v=1653324149

 

It has the added benefit of having HGH precursors so you know he can mash more too because we all need that.

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