2022 Houston Astros Thread

[tx 3 putt 76,887]

Will smith makes 3 CS rosters, probably a healthy Maton too 

Edited October 19, 2022 by tx 3 putt

[Scraps 13,561]

Smith would've made ours if we played Cleveland. For the Yankees it is pointless, they only have Rizzo pretty much

[Gut Wagon 8,065]

No one will be happier than I if Mancini is series MVP. And no one will be more shocked. If he plays, I hope it's sparingly. 

[Seasick Sailor 3,747]

Any word yet on the rotation other than JV tonight? I think I'd go with JV, LMJ, Javier, Framber. Sets JV up to start what could be a critical Game 5 in NY and LMJ to close it out in 6 if need be. And keeps Framber to one start against the RHB heavy NYY lineup. 

[Gourmand 7,774]

16 minutes ago, Seasick Sailor said:

Any word yet on the rotation other than JV tonight? I think I'd go with JV, LMJ, Javier, Framber. Sets JV up to start what could be a critical Game 5 in NY and LMJ to close it out in 6 if need be. And keeps Framber to one start against the RHB heavy NYY lineup. 

Gm 2 starter to be announced very soon. 

[tx 3 putt 76,887]

[henrygandorf 29,189]

the season starts tonight.

[Chuckie Finster 22,694]

12 minutes ago, tx 3 putt said:

It's a shame we aren't able to have more day games with the roof open.  Such a good look.

[Gut Wagon 8,065]

21 minutes ago, Seasick Sailor said:

Any word yet on the rotation other than JV tonight? I think I'd go with JV, LMJ, Javier, Framber. Sets JV up to start what could be a critical Game 5 in NY and LMJ to close it out in 6 if need be. And keeps Framber to one start against the RHB heavy NYY lineup. 

Valdez has interesting splits. He certainly has been great against lefties this year, at a BA of .192...but even against righties he's at .229. So I'm not sure we try to minimize his NY usage for that reason.

On the other hand, he's pitched better overall on the road than at home, based on nothing more than his ERA of 2.27 vs. 3.54, respectively. I haven't tried to dig deeper than that, but I'm sure someone else on here has. 

[texashorne 1,177]

I hope we see Dubon every freaking game; as he is our defensive CF when we are trying to preserve a lead in the 9th. And Martinez will pitch when we're up by 6 or more, so I hope we see a lot of him too. 

 

[Gourmand 7,774]

 

Edited October 19, 2022 by Gourmand

[Guadaloopy 10,960]

3 minutes ago, Gourmand said:

 

Good.  I understand why people consider fiddling around with the order to keep LMJ starting at home and Framber on the road, but Framber is the man this year.  Let's run out our bug guns and roll into Yankee stadium with a 2-0 series lead.

[Seasick Sailor 3,747]

So LMJ on short rest for Game 7, or he only pitches once this series? Fuck it. Astros in 6 will make it a moot point. 

[runthebone 7,967]

I am so

 

[TonyTexas 10,509]

No Dubon. No Mancini. LFG!!!

 

[formermav43 4,606]

Dubon is only there as a defensive replacement. He didn’t start in the DS when Verlander pitched, he wasn’t going to start today.

[Seasick Sailor 3,747]

Breaking Down Jose Altuve's ALDS Struggles:

Quote

The Division Series between the Astros and Mariners only went three games, but it wasn’t short on drama. Overlooked amid the extra innings madness and the late game heroics was the performance of Jose Altuve. That might be for the best, as the Astros second baseman struggled mightily:

 

Jose Altuve Batting – 2022

Season	BB%	K%	AVG	OBP	SLG	wRC+
Regular Season	5.9%	35.3%	.300	.387	.533	164
ALDS	10.9%	14.4%	.000	.059	.000	-88

Going 0-for-16 with six strikeouts is, to use a technical term, real bad. What was going on? Let’s start with Altuve’s plate discipline:

 

Jose Altuve Plate Discipline – 2022

Season	O-Swing%	Z-Swing%	Swing%	O-Contact%	Z-Contact%	Contact%	Zone%
Regular Season	31.4%	65.0%	43.8%	76.8%	91.0%	84.6%	44.2%
ALDS	56.2%	84.0%	68.4%	66.7%	81.0%	74.4%	43.9%

Oh no. Altuve swung at absolutely everything. Altuve has elite contact skills, so even though his contact percentage dropped by 10 points across the board, his numbers were still reasonable. As it turns out, that wasn’t a good thing:

 

Jose Altuve Batted Ball – 2022

Season	LD%	GB%	FB%	IFFB%	EV	LA	wOBA	xwOBA
Regular Season	20.4%	41.0%	38.7%	12.0%	85.9	16.1	.397	.354
ALDS	0.0%	30.0%	70.0%	50.0%	79.4	40.8	.041	.099

SOURCE: Baseball Savant

Looks like I used my “Oh no” too soon. Altuve didn’t hit a single line drive against the Mariners. He only hit two balls out of the infield and his exit velocity cratered. Half of his balls in play were popups. He also fouled off a third of the pitches he saw, nearly double his season average.

Before we panic too much, let’s remember that we’re talking about three games (though one of them went 18 innings, so you could argue it’s more like four). Altuve had just 17 plate appearances and 10 balls in play. It might also be helpful to check whether Altuve has struggled like this before. To the three-game rolling averages!

Twice this year, Altuve has had three-game stretches of the hyper-aggression he displayed in the ALDS. In fact, between July 26-28, he saw 10 strikes and swung at all of them. Not coincidentally, his wRC+ over that period was -46:

I won’t make you look at another graph, but Altuve has also had a couple three-game popup-paloozas this season. It seems safe to say that while the last three games were very bad, they were not necessarily unprecedented. He’s still Jose Altuve, and the Astros are not about to sit him during the ALCS.

Something else happened during the series against Seattle. The Mariners were targeting a specific spot against Altuve. On the left is how the league pitched him this year, in the middle is how the Mariners pitched him during the regular season, and on the right is how the Mariners pitched him in the ALDS. (Since Altuve only faced righties in the ALDS, these charts exclude lefties.):

During the regular season, 44.2% of the pitches Altuve saw were in the strike zone, third-lowest in the league. That’s not because he has a high chase rate (at 28.7%, he’s middle of the pack), but because pitchers are scared of his .969 OPS in the zone. Aside from that, there’s nothing unusual about the way teams pitched him this year. They threw hard stuff in and soft stuff away. When they were looking for chases, they threw four-seamers up, changeups down, and breaking balls low and away. When they came into the zone, they attacked him middle away. During the regular season, the Mariners largely followed that script as well. However, they clearly believed they could beat Altuve inside. In the ALDS, they went all in on that strategy, hammering Altuve inside and off the plate and largely ignoring the area where the rest of the league (and they themselves) had concentrated their stuff during the regular season.

This morning, R.J. Anderson posited that the Mariners, “wanted to test Altuve’s ability to get his barrel around to hard stuff in and around his hands — and he didn’t pass.” Anderson’s article is definitely worth reading, but Altuve had a wOBA of .405 on pitches 97 mph and higher this year, so I’m a bit skeptical that he’s getting beat with velocity all of a sudden. Here are the pitches Altuve saw, broken down by result. Take a look at the pink dots that indicate swings and misses:

Altuve did swing and miss at three four-seam fastballs up and in, but they were all chase pitches when he was behind in the count, standard against any batter. The only whiff that’s actually on the inside edge is a changeup at the bottom of the zone from Luis Castillo. Most of the dots on the inside edge are green, meaning Altuve fouled them off. He often yanked his fouls the third base side like this one:

The purple dots on the inside edge are balls in play. Altuve was definitely behind on some of them, popping up badly, but he also pulled some for grounders and a fly out. Maybe he was ahead of so many pitches because he was cheating on fastballs, but it seemed to me less like Altuve couldn’t catch up with the inside fastball and more like his timing was just plain off.

The other factor to consider here is that the Mariners changed their pitch mix against Altuve. The regular season is on the left, and the ALDS is on the right:

During the regular season, they threw most of their sinkers in the middle or middle-in. The pitches on the inside edge were largely four-seamers. In the ALDS, however, they switched to sinkers as they pounded Altuve inside. Some of the change comes from the addition of sinkerballer Castillo, but George Kirby definitely went out of his way to throw sinkers to Altuve. During Game 3, he threw his four-seamer and his sinker 43 times each, but against Altuve he threw eight sinkers and just two four-seamers. Breaking down Altuve’s performance against specific pitch types offers some explanation:

 

Jose Altuve Pitch Types – 2022

Pitch	Number	Percentage	wOBA	xwOBA	Exit Velocity	ISO
Knuckle Curve	50	2.2	.717	.348	85.4	.333
Four-Seam	682	29.5	.470	.427	89.3	.368
Sinker	329	14.3	.451	.389	81.9	.298
Changeup	276	12	.386	.359	85.8	.232
Slider	586	25.4	.315	.276	83.3	.115
Curveball	163	7.1	.294	.276	79.9	.105
Cutter	189	8.2	.283	.305	81.7	.079
Split-Finger	33	1.4	.196	.188	76.9	.000
Total	2,308	100	.397	.354	84.8	.233

SOURCE: Baseball Savant

It’s certainly not a bad idea to throw fewer four-seamers to Jose Altuve, as he absolutely destroys them. It’s possible that he’s been lucky on sinkers, given the larger difference between his wOBA and xwOBA. Regardless, his exit velocity is considerably lower versus the pitch. If your goal is to keep Altuve in the ballpark, it would make sense to swap four-seamers for sinkers.

It’s worth noting that going after Altuve on the inside edge is not exactly a new approach. I went through the heat maps of the sinkers that he saw each season. Most looked like this year’s, which is to say a big blob of red in the middle of the zone, with maybe a tendril of pink sneaking toward the inside edge. Take a look at the heat map for 2020:

Teams were definitely targeting the inner half with their sinkers, just like the Mariners did in the ALDS. We should take this with a grain of salt, as the season was only 60 games long, but Altuve put up a 74 wRC+ in 2020, the worst of his career. It’s hard to know whether there’s causality here. It strikes me as unlikely that the league figured out how to pitch Altuve in 2020 and then collectively forgot about it.

I went looking for pitches in that spot, up and on the inside edge. If you’re searching on Baseball Savant, it’s Attack Zone 11, which is somehow not the title of a Steven Seagal movie:

It’s not a bad idea to pitch Altuve there. He’s had a .310 wOBA against pitches there since 2015, better than the league wOBA of .283 in that spot, but still way down from his .372 wOBA against all pitches. Here are Altuve’s numbers in that zone, broken down by year:

 

Jose Altuve in Attack Zone 11

Year	Pitches	wOBA	xwOBA
2022	60	.177	.153
2021	55	.386	.307
2020	24	.100	.189
2019	39	.285	.264
2018	52	.155	.154
2017	46	.350	.360
2016	47	.634	.528
2015	45	.407	.282

SOURCE: Baseball Savant

Keep in mind that these are small samples, especially since this spot is off the plate. Altuve has only swung at 201 of these pitches since 2015, and he’s only put 98 of them in play. That said, he did fare worse against them this year, just as he did in 2020.

It could be that the Mariners decided to try the strategy that seemed to work against Altuve when he was at his worst. Maybe they just decided not get beat throwing four-seamers to a guy who crushes them. I think it’s more likely that they realized early on that he’d lost his plate discipline and decided not to throw anything in the zone. In Game 1, Logan Gilbert didn’t try to come inside until Altuve’s third plate appearance. The one inside pitch he threw in Altuve’s first two plate appearances was a miss on a pitch where catcher Cal Raleigh was set up outside.

It’s not a good idea to overreact to three games. The good news for the Astros is that, as we just saw, they’re good enough to win even if Altuve doesn’t produce at all. I’m sure they noticed how the Mariners were pitching them and I’m sure Altuve is working on getting his timing back. If were the Yankees, I would absolutely follow the blueprint that the Mariners laid out, but I wouldn’t be shocked if it no longer works.

 

 

[Scraps 13,561]

All that matters, and will continue to matter, is Pena batting 2nd

[runthebone 7,967]

It's going to be fucking hilarious when he parks the first pitch sinker onto the train tracks.

[Guadaloopy 10,960]

There is no freaking way Taillon gives Altuve something to hit first pitch today unless it is a mistake.

[Gourmand 7,774]

There is no freaking way Taillon gives Altuve something to hit first pitch today unless it is a mistake.

First pitch fastball for sure to get ahead in the count, just a matter of whether Altuve fouls it off or not. He will be up there swinging.

[henrygandorf 29,189]

50 minutes ago, Seasick Sailor said:

So LMJ on short rest for Game 7, or he only pitches once this series? Fuck it. Astros in 6 will make it a moot point. 

if it goes to 7, everyone with an arm will be available (with the exception of jv and framber who will have just pitched).

[BornOrange 1,441]

Instead of asking if it will go to 7, ask if it will go to 5.

[tx 3 putt 76,887]

3 minutes ago, BornOrange said:

Instead of asking if it will go to 7, ask if it will go to 5.

This 

we have arms, just get runs 

[Seasick Sailor 3,747]

Wouldn't this mean he should start game 3:

 

[Gut Wagon 8,065]

6 minutes ago, Seasick Sailor said:

Wouldn't this mean he should start game 3:

 

Guess I'm confused. Tomorrow will be eight days since Valdez's last start. Is this about starter options for games after tomorrow? 

[Seasick Sailor 3,747]

4 minutes ago, Gut Wagon said:

Guess I'm confused. Tomorrow will be eight days since Valdez's last start. Is this about starter options for games after tomorrow? 

It is, but the game 2 starter shouldn't have to pitch on short rest at all. The schedule is 1, 2, off, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, so the game 2 starter would pitch game 6 on regular rest. JV has game 5, so why would the game 2 starter's ability to pitch on short rest matter?

[Pimphand 5,735]

1 minute ago, Seasick Sailor said:

It is, but the game 2 starter shouldn't have to pitch on short rest at all. The schedule is 1, 2, off, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, so the game 2 starter would pitch game 6 on regular rest. JV has game 5, so why would the game 2 starter's ability to pitch on short rest matter?

Pretty sure Dusty is confused.

[runthebone 7,967]

You guys think you're so smart with your "date +4" and "date +5" analytics.

Well, maybe you're not.

[Dondrysdale1 363]

27 minutes ago, Seasick Sailor said:

Wouldn't this mean he should start game 3:

 

I believe he is referring to later in the series if needed so starting him earlier allows him a little more rest by maybe the ability to pitch again in the series

[Seasick Sailor 3,747]

6 minutes ago, Dondrysdale1 said:

I believe he is referring to later in the series if needed so starting him earlier allows him a little more rest by maybe the ability to pitch again in the series

Unless you pitch him on two days' rest in game 4, which there should be no need to do, or skip JV in game 5, the game 2 starter gets his second start of the series in game 6 on regular rest. 

I suppose we could pitch Framber on short rest in game 5 and pitch JV in game 6 on five day's rest, which would be in line with how we used him when we used a six-man rotation. 

Edited October 19, 2022 by Seasick Sailor

[patrickdrinksbeer 788]

anyone looking for discounted tickets for tonight? i bought a couple off WuLaw but have been offered some free field boxes. have section 418, $150 for the pair.

[wood 11,225]

5 hours ago, Scraps said:

 

Better tag Helobious on that so he can add it to his excuse list, pronto!

[WBT 20,561]

Another mediocre NL east team is well on their way to the WS.  Doomed.

Edited October 19, 2022 by WBT

[runthebone 7,967]

Their lineup is pretty good and is hot.  Let's just take care of the Yankees and worry about it in a few days.  Ideally, we won't get no-hit in the World Series, either.

[Js1 85,301]

5 minutes ago, WBT said:

Another mediocre NL east team is well on their way to the WS.  Doomed.

Just texted someone “congrats to the Phillies on their future WS title” but it is also an even year so 

Edited October 19, 2022 by Js1

[UTexasFight 9,431]

3 minutes ago, Js1 said:

 but it is also an even year so 

Thankfully the Giants aren’t walking through that door 

[Wulaw Horn 19,068]

2 hours ago, formermav43 said:

Dubon is only there as a defensive replacement. He didn’t start in the DS when Verlander pitched, he wasn’t going to start today.

I know this. But I still hold my breath every time. 

[Pimphand 5,735]

7 minutes ago, Js1 said:

Just texted someone “congrats to the Phillies on their future WS title” but it is also an even year so 

2020 LAD
2018 BOS
2016 CHC
2014 SFG
2012 SFG
2010 SFG
2008 PHI (doomed)

[Wulaw Horn 19,068]

13 minutes ago, patrickdrinksbeer said:

anyone looking for discounted tickets for tonight? i bought a couple off WuLaw but have been offered some free field boxes. have section 418, $150 for the pair.

Congrats dude. 

[Rockethorn1978 6,077]

Astros in 5.

fuck the yankoffs.

fuck Bob costas if he’s calling our games.

[tx 3 putt 76,887]

JV needs to bounce back tonight. 
 

is Stanton an auto walk ?

[Scraps 13,561]

JV needs to bounce back tonight. 
 
is Stanton an auto walk ?

Wut

He is an easy K if you aren't retarded

[WBT 20,561]

15 minutes ago, tx 3 putt said:

is Stanton an auto walk ?

auto K imo

[TonyTexas 10,509]

15 minutes ago, tx 3 putt said:

JV needs to bounce back tonight. 
 

is Stanton an auto walk ?

Stanton only has 2 hits against Verlander. Granted, both were homers. But he’s also struck out 8 times out of the 14 ABs. 

[tx 3 putt 76,887]

1.028 OPS in the postseason 

[Scraps 13,561]

1.028 OPS in the postseason 

I mean if you are scared say you're scared

[tx 3 putt 76,887]

 

[WBT 20,561]

Damn.  Do it for the Windmill!

1 hour ago, WBT said:

Another mediocre NL east team is well on their way to the WS.  Doomed.

[HtownHorn 14,674]

Fuck Bob Costas. The worst part of the AL being on TBS.