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2023 Houston Astros Thread

Planet Houston

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henrygandorf
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FartingDreamer
FartingDreamer

Am I the only one that can't stand the sight of Altuve, Bregman or Tucker?  Something about each one of them just pisses me off.  

The Dog
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Snake Diggity

Snake Diggity 4620

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Obviously depends on price, but if Verlander, Cease, Eduardo Rodriguez, Snell, Stroman, and Logan Gilbert are not reasonably obtainable, Michael Kopech and Mitch Keller would be 2 guys I hope Houston checks in on, as I think they fit the mold of the type of pitcher Houston can help unlock another level up.  Otherwise, they should focus on multiyear difference-making relievers like Barlow, Sewald, Bednar, Carlos Hernandez, Raley, Halsley, Gallegos, Bummer, and Santos.  In the playoffs, 2 elite RP are nearly as valuable as one elite SP.

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Hank Chinaski

Hank Chinaski 6314

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33 minutes ago, David Dennison said:

The front office allows this to continue.

I don't blame Dusty for being Dusty.

Yup. Dusty has been actively costing the club games all season and everyone seems OK with it.

Also, it’s difficult to believe that Dusty is this fucking clueless about Maldy and Diaz. I’m sure he disregards plenty of meaningful metrics, but literally any metric or just simple observation obviously demonstrates the chasm between the two. He can’t possibly be this dumb. 

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Wulaw Horn

Wulaw Horn 19068

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35 minutes ago, Hank Chinaski said:

Yup. Dusty has been actively costing the club games all season and everyone seems OK with it.

Also, it’s difficult to believe that Dusty is this fucking clueless about Maldy and Diaz. I’m sure he disregards plenty of meaningful metrics, but literally any metric or just simple observation obviously demonstrates the chasm between the two. He can’t possibly be this dumb. 

Narrators voice- he is. 

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Wulaw Horn

Wulaw Horn 19068

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1 hour ago, henrygandorf said:

they are exactly the same. 

This is what I meant when I say the team deserves to lose every game with that fat fuck catching because it’s so stupid and self destructive. Seriously, it’s really hard to fathom they let this dude make decisions about the team. 

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David Dennison

David Dennison 18851

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13 minutes ago, Wulaw Horn said:

This is what I meant when I say the team deserves to lose every game with that fat fuck catching because it’s so stupid and self destructive. Seriously, it’s really hard to fathom they let this dude make decisions about the team. 

I'm guessing the two AL pennants and one world championship have something to do with it.

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Wulaw Horn

Wulaw Horn 19068

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8 hours ago, David Dennison said:

I'm guessing the two AL pennants and one world championship have something to do with it.

With like perfect teams. My 10 year old could manage them. It’s really really really silly to confuse those achievements with him deserving credit. Literally, you saw with your own eyes what he said right?  And you are trying to justify it?  It cannot be justified. Like, at all. He just compared a 550 ops guy to an 800 ops guy and said that their production was more or less the same. Go read it again. It’s absurd. 

Edited by Wulaw Horn
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David Dennison

David Dennison 18851

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54 minutes ago, Wulaw Horn said:

With like perfect teams. My 10 year old could manage them. It’s really really really silly to confuse those achievements with him deserving credit. Literally, you saw with your own eyes what he said right?  And you are trying to justify it?  It cannot be justified. Like, at all. He just compared a 550 ops guy to an 800 ops guy and said that their production was more or less the same. Go read it again. It’s absurd. 

I'm not trying to justify anything. I'm trying to explain it.

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Chuckie Finster

Chuckie Finster 22694

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Dusty is such a conundrum.  His regular season lineups are criminal and some of the shit he says should have him closer to a mental institution than a major league dugout.  But it cannot be denied that he has been masterful in the playoffs these last three seasons. Brushing that aside as "anyone could do it!!" is an oversimplification of baseball, and a complete erasure of some OTHER recent Astros teams where it could/should have applied.

2020 was the worst roster we've had since 2014 and somehow we were one win away from the asterisk World Series.

2021 had a rotation held together by duct tape (Urquidy, Garcia, and the corpse of Zack Greinke started 4 of the 6 games in the World Series) and yet we had the fourth most successful season in franchise history

2022 may be the best bullpen management in the history of the playoffs.  Just about every single move he made ended up working out.

I have no idea how or why this is the case, but he generally pushes all the right buttons in the playoffs.  I hate that his buffoonery in the regular season erases most of this goodwill.

(That being said, this better be his last year.)

Edited by Chuckie Finster
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Wulaw Horn

Wulaw Horn 19068

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32 minutes ago, Chuckie Finster said:

Dusty is such a conundrum.  His regular season lineups are criminal and some of the shit he says should have him closer to a mental institution than a major league dugout.  But it cannot be denied that he has been masterful in the playoffs these last three seasons. Brushing that aside as "anyone could do it!!" is an oversimplification of baseball, and a complete erasure of some OTHER recent Astros teams where it could/should have applied.

2020 was the worst roster we've had since 2014 and somehow we were one win away from the asterisk World Series.

2021 had a rotation held together by duct tape (Urquidy, Garcia, and the corpse of Zack Greinke started 4 of the 6 games in the World Series) and yet we had the fourth most successful season in franchise history

2022 may be the best bullpen management in the history of the playoffs.  Just about every single move he made ended up working out.

I have no idea how or why this is the case, but he generally pushes all the right buttons in the playoffs.  I hate that his buffoonery in the regular season erases most of this goodwill.

(That being said, this better be his last year.)

The rumor has always been (and he’s even confirmed this to some extent) that he doesn’t have a free hand in the playoffs and isn’t allowed to put his dumb ass preferences into play. That’s a really simple explanation that backs up all observable facts. 

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Scraps

Scraps 13561

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Posted
Get Urquidy back will help. I would love a bat but I’m not expecting anything
Alright so I’m fully expecting a move today. Mainly because I don’t want to be nervous heading into the deadline timeframe. 
Make up your mind woman. Are you expecting nothing or fully expecting everything?
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uoftorange

uoftorange 1386

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The Dusty situation reminds me so much of the Cowboys Switzer years.  Jimmy had that team made in his image and set up for a long future with some smart moves.  Barry won with his talent then drove it into the ground.  Now Barry was an asshole that cheated every step of the way but had some coaching smarts, as opposed to Dusty who is a wonderful human being that simply has never been a good manager, but has had bursts of decent at times.  Don't get me wrong, I'd much rather have Dusty than a Barry type, but it still has many of the same team altering effects.  

The right move for the Astros was to tell the league to fuck off and keep Luhnow and Hinch after their suspensions.  Of course they were never going to do that.  

It's one reason I was happy about the Click to Brown move.  I think Brown has way more ability to be a great GM than Click did.  Time will tell.  But this Dusty/Switzer shit has to stop.  

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tx 3 putt

tx 3 putt 76880

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1 hour ago, Chuckie Finster said:

 

2022 may be the best bullpen management in the history of the playoffs.  Just about every single move he made ended up working out.

 


when players produce, every manager looks great and all the moves look wonderful. 2022 Was the best post season bullpen performance I’ve seen. 

all that matter is the post season. Do you remember the lineup from July 31, 2022 or July 31, 2021, or July 31, 2020 …. ?

We’re two game back from the first round bye. Per the surly thread this is mostly a AAA roster. That record doesn’t just happen, ask the Mets, padres, Yankees, Red Sox, Phillies.

The bigger issue is crane and company totally fucked up the off-season. Over paid for montero and abreu, and no legit back up utility man after dubon. If dubon hadn’t stepped up along with the rookie pitchers, we’d be chasing that last wild card spot with the angels. Crane was fine with grae / Bligh / hensely / Mayer, so you go out and play the cards you’re dealt. 

there’s been some weird line ups,  but not enough to tank the season. we’re the #4 mlb team by record. Also, Hind sight is always undefeated. 

two months to go, maybe we make a move. We need a good urquidy back, asap. 

 

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tx 3 putt

tx 3 putt 76880

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Diaz should be catching half the games. You give him Brown and Bielak, they split France 

maldy catches framber and Javier

This will trigger some of you, but maldy has to likely suggest this or at least feel like he’s suggesting it. He’s the clubhouse leader, he needs to man up and see that Diaz is the future but you just can’t go and make this move without him being 110% on board. That Latino machismo is strong

I don’t think we trade for another bay. We’ll have 3 catchers on the playoff roster and Diaz can dh most games, which means Yordan plays all games in LF 

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henrygandorf

henrygandorf 29189

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4 hours ago, Wulaw Horn said:

With like perfect teams. My 10 year old could manage them. It’s really really really silly to confuse those achievements with him deserving credit. Literally, you saw with your own eyes what he said right?  And you are trying to justify it?  It cannot be justified. Like, at all. He just compared a 550 ops guy to an 800 ops guy and said that their production was more or less the same. Go read it again. It’s absurd. 

and it's not just an either/or in the c spot situation. 

when he plays yainer at c, then we can play whomever we want at dh.  when he plays yainer at dh, then maldonado has to catch, and it's never ideal to have two catchers hitting in your lineup.  i know we're not bursting at the seams with great hitters, but yainer at c solves two problems.  also he's really good at it.

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Gourmand

Gourmand 7774

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50 minutes ago, Wulaw Horn said:

Dusty had the most (or second behind the dodgers) most talented roster in the league. 

Yet that roster didn't come close to the 2019 team. One could make a reasonable argument in hindsight that the Astros win the 2019 WS with Dusty Baker as manager over AJ Hinch. 

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Hank Chinaski

Hank Chinaski 6314

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41 minutes ago, tx 3 putt said:

all that matter is the post season. Do you remember the lineup from July 31, 2022 or July 31, 2021, or July 31, 2020 …. ?

We’re two game back from the first round bye.

Every regular season game matters because there is an enormous difference between having to win 3 playoff series versus 2. The bye matters a lot, and thus the regular season matters. If we are edged out by the Rangers by a game or two and have to play an extra series - well, you can reasonably conclude that Dusty’s insistence on playing Maldy so much more than Diaz (and all the games he sat Chas for no reason) was the difference. And that’s not hindsight, as most on this thread have been screaming this all season long.   

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uoftorange

uoftorange 1386

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38 minutes ago, tx 3 putt said:

Diaz should be catching half the games. You give him Brown and Bielak, they split France 

maldy catches framber and Javier

Diaz is 24 and in great physical shape.  Maldy is, well, not.  He has shown he is better at every facet of actually playing the position.  At the very least he should do 3/5, but really should be at 4/5 with Maldy getting spot starts with any of the guys (except for Hunter because he has no idea what to call for him).  

Framber and Javier really need a change of scenery with catcher more than the other guys.  Maldy's a wonderful game planner and researcher of hitter tendencies.  He's shown this year that he has very little feel for what his pitcher can actually execute in the moment, something he was great at previously. He can do all the things is good at from the bench with Diaz and the pitchers pre-game and in between innings.  He should be a coach of ours next year and I'd be very happy with that. 

Asking aging players in any sport to admit they don't have it is just not happening.  It's been proven over and over again.  They know what to do, but physically can't do it.  Part of being a great player is having irrational confidence.  And that never goes away, no matter what your physical ability devolves to. 

Edited by uoftorange
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uoftorange

uoftorange 1386

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27 minutes ago, Gourmand said:

Yet that roster didn't come close to the 2019 team. One could make a reasonable argument in hindsight that the Astros win the 2019 WS with Dusty Baker as manager over AJ Hinch. 

It's not really fair to compare those.  That 2019 team was one of the 10 best teams ever constructed.  It could have been the best or 2nd best based on your criteria.  

I also contend we lost to the Nationals because the team knew they were getting investigated for 2017 and it mentally stunted them.

Edited by uoftorange
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WBT

WBT 20561

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Et tu, UTPress?

https://utpress.utexas.edu/9781477327432

9781477327432.jpg?auto=format&w=198&dpr=

Spoiler

An in-depth and multiperspectival look at the Astros’ sign-stealing scandal and its roots in the culture of baseball fandom.

In 2017 the Houston Astros won their first World Series title, a particularly uplifting victory for the city following Hurricane Harvey. But two years later, the feel-good energy was gone after The Athletic revealed that the Astros had stolen signs from opposing catchers during their championship season, perhaps even during the playoffs and World Series. Their methods were at once high-tech and crude: staff took video of opponents’ pitching signals and transmitted the footage in real time to the Astros’ dugout, where players banged on trash cans to signal to their teammates at bat which pitches were coming their way. Wry observers labeled them the Asterisks, pointing to the title that no longer seemed so earned.

Astros and Asterisks examines the scandal from historical, journalistic, legal, ethical, and cultural perspectives. Authors delve into the Astros’ winning-above-all attitude, cultivated by a former McKinsey consultant; the significance of hiring a pitcher recently suspended for domestic abuse; the career-ending effects of the Astros’ transgression on opposing players; and the ethically fraught choices necessary to participate in sign-stealing. Ultimately, it links the Astros’ choices to the sporting world’s obsession with analytics. What emerges is a sobering tale about the impact of new technology on a game whose romanticized image feels increasingly incongruous with its reality in the era of big data and video.

Spoiler

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Timeline

Part I. Histories of Cheating in Baseball

Chapter 1. Baseball, Hot Dogs, Apple Pie, and Cheating: Blame It on the Pitchers (Steven Gietschier)

Chapter 2. Cheating versus Gamesmanship: Ethical Relativism in Baseball? (George Gmelch)

Chapter 3. “This Is Not a Cultural Issue”: The Astros’ (and Baseball’s) Willingness to Overlook Domestic Violence (Katherine Murray)

Chapter 4. Round Up the Usual Suspects: Cheating in Baseball (Richard Crepeau)

Part II. The Scandal Unfolds

Chapter 5. Finally, a Fun Baseball Scandal (Will Leitch)

Chapter 6. What Is the Sound of One Bat Slapping? Reading the Houston Astros’ Trash Can (Roberta Newman)

Chapter 7. Blame Is a Tangled Mess in Astros Sign-Stealing Scandal (Evan Drellich)

Part III. Fans and the Scandal

Chapter 8. Interview with a Bang Counter: A Q&A with Tony Adams (

Chapter 9. Reckoning with Tainted Love: What the Astros Scandal Reveals of Sports Fandom (Matthew Klugman)

Chapter 10. “To Learn Baseball”: A Transatlantic Dialogue on the Astros and the American Ways of Winning (Michael Hinds and Joseph Rivera)

Part IV. The Scandal and Its Ethical Dilemmas

Chapter 11. Baseball Has No Love for Truth Tellers (Mitchell Nathanson)

Chapter 12. Bad Apples or Bad Astros? Collective Responsibility and the Perils of Team Loyalty (Erin Tarver)

Chapter 13. From Protector to Whistleblower: Being a “Good” Teammate When Cheating Occurs (Allison R. Levin and Matthew Staker)

Part V. Technology and the Scandal

Chapter 14. Stealing Signs: Technology, Surveillance and Policing inside and outside the Game (Dain TePoel and Eileen Narcotta-Welp)

Chapter 15. The Spreadsheet in the Garden: Analytics and the Sign-Stealing Scandal (Jonathan Silverman)

Appendix: “Defendant Houston Astros”: Michael Bolsinger vs. The Houston Astros

Contributors

Index

 

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uoftorange

uoftorange 1386

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Posted
3 minutes ago, Mez2 said:

That 2019 team was unbelievable, it still hurts losing that WS. Best Astros team ever assembled, IMO

When that list of best teams that didn't win was going around, the idiocy that 2019 wasn't 1/2&3 was crazy.  By far the best team to not win.  Like I said earlier, it could be the best team assembled ever, much less team that didn't win.  

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Hank Chinaski

Hank Chinaski 6314

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10 minutes ago, uoftorange said:

When that list of best teams that didn't win was going around, the idiocy that 2019 wasn't 1/2&3 was crazy.  By far the best team to not win.  Like I said earlier, it could be the best team assembled ever, much less team that didn't win.  

Yeah, that is almost certainly the best roster we’ll ever have.

It goes to show that short postseason series are essentially coin flips because it’s baseball and sometimes Howie Kendricks hits a home run on a pitch located in a spot where he never hits home runs.

Which illustrates the importance of playing as few series as possible to maximize your odds of advancing. Which in turn illustrates why you should maximize your odds of winning every game, at least within reason. 

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