2023 Official Astros World Champs Offseason Thread

[rvm96 1643]

18 hours ago, Chuckie Finster said:

If you ignore his 43 starts in the minors, sure.

Well shit.  Guess there are a lot of Keith Laws out there that need to reevaluate their ranking systems.

 

The Astros try the majority of their pitchers as starters in the minors. Most projections didn't see it panning lut for him or that it would take a while. Also if you seriously think Chas should have been a top 100 prospect you can't be helped.

Edited February 2, 2023 by rvm96

[Guest]

Sure, there's something to be said for player development; but if that's what the Astros are doing with 'non-descript' pitchers, the league is gonna be fucked until they come up with a better scandal.

[Wulaw Horn 18963]

4 hours ago, rvm96 said:

The Astros try the majority of their pitchers as starters in the minors. Most projections didn't see it panning lut for him or that it would take a while. Also if you seriously think Chas should have been a top 100 prospect you can't be helped.

I wonder if you took a snap shot at any point in time of a top 100 list how many of those guys on average would never play in the majors?  Is it 5?  25? 50?  
I wonder how many would never get to a pretty low total of 2 WAR?  Maybe 5 WAR which would be a respectable number. Prospect rankings are sort of lotto ticket ratings go me- how likely is a guy to be a stud. I think there should be something to be said for “is the organization going to get any value out of this guy?”  Because that’s important too in filling out spots 15-25 on your roster. If the Angels were better at that Mike Trout and Ohtani might have combined for at least 2 more playoff hits in their career than I have. 
the Astros have developed their stars but they’ve also done a really good job in developing their Chas’s and Urquidy’s. 

[patrickdrinksbeer 788]

Olympic stadium is rare one to have on your list 

had friends in grad school in boston and new haven back in 2003. flew into boston and the 3 of us road tripped to montreal to catch the astros. saw bagwell’s 2,000th hit. place was a huge shit hole.

[Soliver465 398]

Retired - Polo Grounds, Shea Stadium, Astrodome

Current - MMP, Busch Stadium, Wrigley Field

 

Note: I'm old but not that old, went to the Polo Grounds when I was 5.

[WBT 20397]

Giants or Mets?

 

 

[Seasick Sailor 3747]

Hunter Brown is Framber Valdez in a Justin Verlander-Shaped Container

By Michael Baumann

https://blogs.fangraphs.com/hunter-brown-is-framber-valdez-in-a-justin-verlander-shaped-container/

Quote

James A. Pittman-USA TODAY Sports

Sportswriters are a miserable bunch. We slog through box scores and transcripts of quotes from practice and write about games that will be forgotten in hours. Then Hunter Brown falls out of the sky.

The Astros’ new starting pitcher not only has a windup like Justin Verlander’s, he grew up outside of Detroit and idolized Verlander as a kid! Can you believe it? That’s a human interest story fit to make J. Jonah Jameson spit out his stogie and forget all about those pictures of Spider-Man.

 

Even their repertoires look similar: An upper-90s four-seamer thrown about half the time, accompanied by a slider and a curveball. It’s the meat-and-two-sides combo you’ll find at most barbecue joints. There are differences, of course. Verlander throws his slider more than his curve, while Brown is the opposite. Brown also throws everything harder than Verlander does; his secondaries clock in about 6 mph faster than the three-time Cy Young winner’s.

Regardless, people look at Brown and say the baseball equivalent of “he has his mother’s eyes.” So why does Brown perform more like Framber Valdez?

By any standard, Verlander is one of the best pitchers of his generation and a surefire Hall of Famer. But as a matter of personal aesthetic preference, I find Valdez more fun to watch. I’ve always loved sinkerballers, pitchers who use multiple fastball shapes to keep hitters just confused enough that they can’t square the ball up. Power pitchers beat batters up. Sinkerballers tell batters to stop hitting themselves. There’s an archness to this method of pitching, which Valdez embodies as well as anyone in the game.

Which is not to say that brisket, beans, and cornbread can’t be effective. I find a repertoire without heavy changeup usage to be kind of meager. Brown might disagree.

 

Brisket (Fastball):

Beans (Curveball):

Cornbread (Slider):

 

In order to understand the difference between Verlander and Valdez, let’s start with an extremely obvious point about pitching. Pitchers want to go up there and strike everyone out. That’s not really an attainable goal for anyone not named Edwin Díaz, but it’s something to aspire to.

Failing a swing-and-miss, pitchers can also influence the kind of contact hitters make. If a hitter guesses timing and vertical location correctly, he’s going to crush the ball. If the hitter times it right but gets vertical location wrong, he’ll make contact but at a launch angle inhospitable to hard contact.

Verlander and Valdez are among the league’s best at inducing weak contact, though they do so by different means. Verlander leans heavily on a four-seam fastball that he uses up in the zone, so when batters miss, they tend to get under the ball. Valdez’s tentpole pitch is a sinker that, come on, let’s not always see the same hands… Yes, that’s correct, it sinks, causing batters to hit the top half of the ball. If you can’t get a swing-and-miss, a pop up or a weak groundball is the next-best thing.

The nature of the contact Verlander and Valdez induce is quite different, but their quality of contact ends up being similar:

 

Verlander vs. Valdez on Batted Balls, Part I

Pitcher	Topped%	Under%	Barrel%	wOBACON	xwOBACON
Justin Verlander	36th	5th	13th	1st	7th
Framber Valdez	1st	45th	9th	6th	6th

SOURCE: Baseball Savant

Rank Among Qualified Starters (45 pitchers)

And while the results generated by such contact shouldn’t surprise anyone, here are the effects of what Verlander and Valdez did in 2022:

 

Verlander vs. Valdez on Batted Balls, Part 2

Pitcher	LD%	LD% Rank	GB%	GB% Rank	IFFB%	IFFB% Rank
Justin Verlander	18.5	30th	37.9	107th	19.7	1st
Framber Valdez	17.5	14th	66.5	1st	9.1	74th

Minimum 100 IP in 2022 (140 pitchers)

I do worry that simply calling Valdez the best groundball pitcher in baseball understates things. He is an outlier of historic proportions, as Justin Choi wrote back in May of last year. Valdez led the majors in GB/FB ratio last season. In second place was Giants right-hander Logan Webb. Remember that guy? In the 2021 playoffs he got so many Dodgers to beat pitches into the grass the mole people who live under the stadium thought they were being bombed.

 

Webb’s GB/FB ratio last season was 2.38. Valdez’s was 4.16. In 2021, Valdez’s GB/FB ratio was 4.73, though he came up about four starts short of qualifying for the ERA title and doesn’t appear on the leaderboard as a result.

Even getting over 3.00 takes some doing. Valdez appeared in his first major league game in 2018. Here’s a complete list of qualified starters who have posted a GB/FB of 3.00 or higher since then:

 

A Complete List of Qualified Starters With a GB/FB Ratio of 3.00 or Higher, Since 2018

Pitcher	Year	GB/FB
Framber Valdez	2022	4.16
Framber Valdez	2020	3.08

Back to Brown, the Verlander acolyte. Because they have similar deliveries and at least nominally similar repertoires, they should produce similar outcomes. But they don’t.

In his brief major league experience in 2022, Brown posted a GB/FB ratio of 3.09 and a GB% of 68%. That’s more instructive than looking at something like his ERA, or even his strikeout rate, but it’s important to remember that even including the playoffs, Brown only pitched 24 innings in the majors, only faced 94 batters. That’s not a huge sample.

But if Brown’s high groundball rate is a fluke, it’s one that’s followed him his entire professional career, which comprises 240 1/3 regular-season innings over four years. Brown has never posted a GB/FB ratio under 1.75 in a minor league stop of any length, and counting parts of three minor league seasons and his major league stint, his GB/FB as a professional is 2.21. That would’ve beaten any qualified starter in the majors last season apart from Valdez and Webb.

So what gives?

 

Let’s start with the fastball. Last season, Brown’s came in 1.6 mph harder than Verlander’s on average, with slightly less spin. Some of the velocity discrepancy is probably down to Brown pitching out of the bullpen, but the two pitches have similar movement profiles. Verlander gets a little more arm-side run on his heater, but the difference isn’t huge.

The fastball location, however, is wildly different between the two pitches. Verlander pounds the top of the strike zone with his fastball to lefties, up and away to righties:

Brown doesn’t do that. He works lower in the zone, and toward two different spots. His fastball usage heat map is probably a little wonky based on his only having thrown 164 last year, but it looks like a pair of lungs:

Just by working lower in the zone, Brown is probably going to induce a few more grounders. And sure enough, he had a groundball rate of 52.4% on his four-seamer, compared to 32.5% for Verlander.

 

The other difference between Brown and Verlander illustrates the limitations in pitch nomenclature, because it’s truly wild how many different velocities and shapes of pitch fall under the “slider” umbrella. Maybe this can’t be helped, because you know how a hybrid slider-curveball gets called a “slurve?” If you do that with “slider” and “cutter” you get a bad word. So instead, we call two different pitches with hugely different characteristics by the same name. Look at this chart. Does Brown’s slider have more in common with Verlander’s slider, or with Valdez’s sinker?

 

What Even Is A Slider Anyway?

Pitch	Velocity	Vertical Drop	Horizontal Break	Whiff%	GB%
Verlander Slider	87.4 mph	31.0 in.	4.0 in.	34.6	39.5
Brown Slider	93.2 mph	24.8 in.	2.8 in.	21.1	77.8
Valdez Sinker	93.9 mph	24.2 in.	14.4 in.	12.1	68.6

SOURCE: Baseball Savant

Brown’s slider is as hard as Valdez’s sinker, with equal vertical break but a horizontal movement profile more similar to Verlander’s slider. The difference is that when Verlander throws a slider, hitters see something with a huge difference to his fastball in terms of vertical break and velocity, enough to swing and miss entirely. With Brown, the velocity gap between the fastball and slider isn’t big enough to generate a whiff, and the vertical drop isn’t great enough to generate consistent swings and misses. Merely the next-best thing: hitters just pound the slider into the ground.

We’ll see how Brown adjusts to a full season in the majors, and likely out of the rotation, and whether his usage patterns or pitch characteristics change. But his case, at least so far, illustrates the limits of making player comparisons based on appearance. Not to wave away the Verlander-Brown story, of course, because it’s a delightful anecdote. But while he might look like Verlander, he pitches more like Valdez.

 

Edited February 2, 2023 by Seasick Sailor

[n64ra 1075]

On 1/31/2023 at 12:43 PM, Seasick Sailor said:

Now get me that in magnet form for the fridge!

[tx 3 putt 76159]

8 minutes ago, n64ra said:

Now get me that in magnet form for the fridge!

That’s the best reason to go to opening day !

[Fudge Nuggets 19118]

2 hours ago, tx 3 putt said:

That’s the best reason to go to opening day !

It’s a reason but probably not in the top five reasons. 

[tx 3 putt 76159]

20 minutes ago, Fudge Nuggets said:

It’s a reason but probably not in the top five reasons. 

Opening day is like game 1 of the World Series, 1. full of people that don’t goto games and 2. go because a sales rep got them free tickets and to say that they went 

see y’all opening day for sure, have to raise that flag !

[Guadaloopy 10903]

14 hours ago, tx 3 putt said:

Olympic stadium is rare one to have on your list 

 

6 hours ago, patrickdrinksbeer said:

had friends in grad school in boston and new haven back in 2003. flew into boston and the 3 of us road tripped to montreal to catch the astros. saw bagwell’s 2,000th hit. place was a huge shit hole.

Similar tale for me.  I was in Navy Department Head School in Newport, RI and a group of us did a weekend road trip to Montreal.  Had fun in Montreal, but the stadium itself was really rough.  The concourses were super narrow and the concessions and bathrooms were like you would find under the stands in an old high school football stadium.  Also learned on that road trip that there isn't shit in Vermont.  That state was just a big green void.   

[Guadaloopy 10903]

Not MLB, but my most unique baseball game experience was attending a Japanese League game between the Yomiuri Giants and the Nippon Ham Fighters at the Tokyo Dome aka "The Big Egg."  Food was awesome.  If you hate the drums in Oakland, do NOT attend a Japanese baseball game.  I did get to see Hideki Matsui in the prime of his Japan career.  

[Wulaw Horn 18963]

1 hour ago, tx 3 putt said:

Opening day is like game 1 of the World Series, 1. full of people that don’t goto games and 2. go because a sales rep got them free tickets and to say that they went 

see y’all opening day for sure, have to raise that flag !

If we are doing similes I will go with “opening day is like a vagina- it’s totally awesome.”  
no offense intended to @Js1

[Soliver465 398]

6 hours ago, WBT said:

Giants or Mets?

 

 

 Mets,  first season.

[Hank Chinaski 6310]

53 minutes ago, Wulaw Horn said:

If we are doing similes I will go with “opening day is like a vagina- it’s totally awesome.”  
no offense intended to @Js1

Man, I like some aspects of vaginas, to be sure, but “totally” awesome? Not sold my man. Nothings perfect.

Edited February 2, 2023 by Hank Chinaski

[The Dog 43771]

 

[UTPhil2006 3790]

3 hours ago, tx 3 putt said:

Opening day is like game 1 of the World Series, 1. full of people that don’t goto games and 2. go because a sales rep got them free tickets and to say that they went 

see y’all opening day for sure, have to raise that flag !

I go to see @Mez2 dance and to see @Jshep34 at Biggios before 

[Wulaw Horn 18963]

1 hour ago, Hank Chinaski said:

Man, I like some aspects of vaginas, to be sure, but “totally” awesome? Not sold my man. Nothings perfect.

I like everything about your mothers anyway. 

[Saint Tacky 1609]

20 hours ago, tx 3 putt said:

well damn I went before the current updated version, around 87 or so 

Me too. The only trip I made to the "Big A" was the night Don Sutton won his 300th game. It was against the Rangers and I was wearing a longhorn t-shirt with "TEXAS" across the front. At some point during the game a drunken, regarded Angels fan tossed an entire beer on me while screaming "Fuck Texas!"  

[henrygandorf 29174]

re: the margot robbie gag - yesterday i was running around and listening to mlbn on sirius and they interviewed nate lowe.  in the interview, they asked about the rumors that he's dating margot robbie.  he said he wasn't but a lot of people had been texting him and sending him screenshots.

it took what i would describe as an uncomfortable amount of time before somebody said out loud that it was a running gag on social media and that she'd been linked to dozens of players.  sigh. 

[Dutchrudder 11103]

3m is pretty cheap, but yeah, there isn't a roster spot for him at this point. Shame, I'd like to have him around for one last season, he's a good dude.

[Guest]

It may not be perfect, but it's undefeated.

[tx 3 putt 76159]

His locker room / bench presence is worth $3mil a year 

Yankees / blue jays / mariners / oriels should take a hard look 

[Guest]

I could stomach him playing for the Jays with George or even providing leadership for the O's.  Fuck that Yankee bullshit.

[huge 3788]

Oriels eh?

[closetojumping 62132]

On 2/1/2023 at 10:57 PM, tx 3 putt said:

Forgot PNC, great stadium 

the trop - cheap flight, Dali museum, sandwich shop by the stadium that’s a 10/10. Lot of bars around there. Cheap seats, has a different feel. Beaches close by and don’t forget the Dali museum. I’ve been 3 times  

You should also go to the original Hooters. I had to deal with a call center in Clearwater for a couple of years and we'd make a point of going there each time. The Hooters was fun because, at the time, at least, it was a source of pride for ownership to have the hottest Hooters chicks ever working there. Most of them were trying to get on the calendar or some kind of tour. They were quite earnest, as well. Haven't been in 15 years, so that might have changed, but I doubt it. I don't think I've been to a Hooters since, either, but would still rec that one.

17 hours ago, The Dog said:

 

Resigning Gurriel would be a sentimental mistake and it would open the door for Baker doing sentimental shit too. Roll with youth and flexibility, and let someone else be saddled with an anchor of a good teammate and plummeting numbers. 

[huge 3788]

1 minute ago, closetojumping said:

Resigning Gurriel would be a sentimental mistake and it would open the door for Baker doing sentimental shit too. Roll with youth and flexibility, and let someone else be saddled with an anchor of a good teammate and plummeting numbers. 

For these Astros:

Profar >>> Yuli

[RGBIII 22798]

17 minutes ago, huge said:

For these Astros:

Profar >>> Yuli

Surprised Profar hasnt been mentioned more, he would be a great fit. Can play 2 OF spots and all IF spots adequately plus has a plus bat from both sides of the plate. Its damn near the exact thing the astros need at this point, super utility with a better bat than Diaz

[huge 3788]

1 minute ago, RGBIII said:

Surprised Profar hasnt been mentioned more, he would be a great fit. Can play 2 OF spots and all IF spots adequately plus has a plus bat from both sides of the plate. Its damn near the exact thing the astros need at this point, super utility with a better bat than Diaz

I dont know about the bat being better than anything.  Last year might have been a dead cat bounce.

[runthebone 7929]

I doubt Dana Brown wants his first move to be resigning the carcass of Yuli Gurriel.  Whom I love, by the way.

[tx 3 putt 76159]

I’m not sold on profar as a locker room / bench fit for this team. We don’t need a wanna be cancer 

[HtownHorn 14446]

14 hours ago, tx 3 putt said:

His locker room / bench presence is worth $3mil a year 

Yankees / blue jays / mariners / oriels should take a hard look 

Yet none are, I wonder why? Even the shitty Marlins, who have one of the worst offenses in baseball, said no thanks. This isn't some charity. Gurriel's done as a player.

[HtownHorn 14446]

12 minutes ago, tx 3 putt said:

I’m not sold on profar as a locker room / bench fit for this team. We don’t need a wanna be cancer 

Where has it been reported that Profar is a cancer? He's a much better than the only Honduran to ever win a WS. Removing Dubon for Profar would be a great move, because batting Profar 2nd actually is defensible for a game or two.

[Saint Tacky 1609]

2 hours ago, closetojumping said:

You should also go to the original Hooters. I had to deal with a call center in Clearwater for a couple of years and we'd make a point of going there each time. The Hooters was fun because, at the time, at least, it was a source of pride for ownership to have the hottest Hooters chicks ever working there. Most of them were trying to get on the calendar or some kind of tour. They were quite earnest, as well. Haven't been in 15 years, so that might have changed, but I doubt it. I don't think I've been to a Hooters since, either, but would still rec that one.

We'd go in there if the Astros were in Clearwater for Spring Training.  I always think of Darren Dalton (RIP) anytime it comes up. Glamor Couple is Calling it Quits

[Scraps 13531]

I’m not sold on profar as a locker room / bench fit for this team. We don’t need a wanna be cancer 

Profar isn't a cancer he just does dumb shit in the field. We got a lot of people who do dumb shit on the bases so might as well get one who does it in LF to bring the lulz

I posted at beginning of offseason i would have signed Profar over Brantley anyway. I think Brantley is going to end up practically useless this season when it is all said and done, but hope I am wrong.

[kevwun 15595]

Yeah, I think the injury is going to take away the rest of his already diminished pop.  He's gonna be a slap hitter this season I bet.

Edited February 3, 2023 by kevwun

[tx 3 putt 76159]

Who’s your #2 choice after profar ? 

[RGBIII 22798]

35 minutes ago, kevwun said:

Yeah, I think the injury is going to take away the rest of his already diminished pop.  He's gonna be a slap hitter this season I bet.

Without question but he can still get on base and the shift rules will definitely help him

[RGBIII 22798]

3 hours ago, huge said:

I dont know about the bat being better than anything.  Last year might have been a dead cat bounce.

Maybe but a 2.9 oWAR last year is a big jump and Profar has had a higher oWAR than Diaz every single year he was in Houston. I think hes a strong bat with defensive utility, and even some upside at 29, he was the #1 overall prospect in baseball before fucking up his shoulders

[TonyTexas 10478]

2 hours ago, HtownHorn said:

 

2 hours ago, HtownHorn said:

Edited February 3, 2023 by TonyTexas

[Wulaw Horn 18963]

45 minutes ago, RGBIII said:

Maybe but a 2.9 oWAR last year is a big jump and Profar has had a higher oWAR than Diaz every single year he was in Houston. I think hes a strong bat with defensive utility, and even some upside at 29, he was the #1 overall prospect in baseball before fucking up his shoulders

You don’t post much in this thread but when you do it’s smart. 

[tx 3 putt 76159]

[RGBIII 22798]

1 hour ago, Wulaw Horn said:

You don’t post much in this thread but when you do it’s smart. 

Stros are my first love, ill start posting more so yall can see how truly incompetent I can be

[Scraps 13531]

That 4/5 is gonna buttfuck the league. Abreu may get 130 RBIs

[tx 3 putt 76159]

5 minutes ago, RGBIII said:

Stros are my first love, ill start posting more so yall can see how truly incompetent I can be

What are your thoughts on dubon hitting second ?

[Jshep34 2303]

If you put Pena batting 2nd, how would that change line up.
Altuve
Pena
Brantley
Yordan
Abreu
Bregs
Tucker
Chaz
Maldy

Heck of a problem dusty has. 1 thru 7 no easy outs.

[tx 3 putt 76159]

It’s a long season, lot of line ups will be used. I start caring about it, game 1 of the playoffs 

Edited February 3, 2023 by tx 3 putt

[Wulaw Horn 18963]

19 minutes ago, Jshep34 said:

If you put Pena batting 2nd, how would that change line up.
Altuve
Pena
Brantley
Yordan
Abreu
Bregs
Tucker
Chaz
Maldy

Heck of a problem dusty has. 1 thru 7 no easy outs.

You can’t have Brantley and Peña both hitting in the top 3. They should hit 6th and 7th bc that’s their talent level but if you must put one at 2 the other one needs to hit 7. They can’t both get 100 more AB’s than Bregman  and Tucker. 

[runthebone 7929]

44 minutes ago, Jshep34 said:

If you put Pena batting 2nd, how would that change line up.
Altuve
Pena
Brantley
Yordan
Abreu
Bregs
Tucker
Chaz
Maldy

Heck of a problem dusty has. 1 thru 7 no easy outs.

I respectfully disagree.  I would go:

 

1) Maldonado leadoff--the larger bases are going to help him a lot when it comes to stealing bags (he'll be thrown out by 11 feet 7.5 inches instead of 12 feet)

2) Chazzz--loves hitting to right, Maldonado and Chazz are going to be on the corners a lot for...

3) Pena--assume his ALCS and World Series performance continues without change into the regular season; it's stupid not to assume this because if he could do this against the best teams in baseball, he should be able to do this against the field

4-9) Tucker-Bregman-Abreu-Yordan-Brantley-Altuve:  change it up each day--could be by height, by birthday, by number, by age, whatever.  You want to make sure you have the strongest 4-9 in baseball.  Everyone has a good 1-2-3, but you differentiate yourself with lineup depth.

This checks out analytically as well as logically.