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2023 Houston Astros Thread

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henrygandorf
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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.  

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Hank Chinaski

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5 hours ago, henrygandorf said:

circling back...

1. altuve is the greatest astro of all time already.  better than biggio and bagwell.  yes, already.  postseason homers > career war.  but he'll get where he needs to with career war, unless helo is right and he's slowing down and about to fall off a cliff.

He almost certainly will not approach Bagwell in career WAR. If that’s not how you would define “greatest,” that’s fine, but there will likely end up being about a 10-15 WAR gap between he and Bagwell.

6 hours ago, henrygandorf said:

2. "would he make the hall of fame right now" is a ridiculous question rooted in confusion.  if he retired at the end of this season, said it's been fun, but he wants to go build houses in venezuela, he would get elected to the hof, though there would be some drama because of the limited number of years removed from what is seen as a "tainted" season.  straight performance-wise, he's in.  guys with short careers don't have to hit big counting numbers, they just need to show their excellence during their career, which jose has already done.  reference the postseason homers again.  kirby puckett is a good recent comp here.  koufax is an older one, but he was one of the best to ever do it.

*now if the question is "are his numbers good enough right now to get him in during a full career where he plays until he's 38-40 years old?"  well that's a different question not based in reality.  sure, if he plays another 6-7 seasons and hits .210 every year with 6 bombs and 33 rbi and becomes an anchor on the team, yeah, he's probably not a hall-of-famer.  but that's not what the question is.  when people say, "has he already done enough and is he a hall-of-famer", the presumption is that he'll continue his pace with the usual human decline, and retire when great players retire.  if that's what happens, he's a hall-of-famer.  and the greatest astro of all time.

Disagree that he’d get into the HOF if he retired after this season. Not arguing that he shouldn’t, mind you - just that he wouldn’t. The Hall favors big counting numbers, and the more contemporary voters who are less concerned about them place extra emphasis on high WAR/value peak numbers. There just aren’t that many short career guys in the Hall. Puckett is a good example, but I seriously doubt he’d get in had his career ended recently (I don’t think modern voters would vote him in).

The exciting part is that last season was maybe his best (along with 2017) and he’s actually been better this year, albeit in limited time. The last two years, his walk have increased, moving his OBP up; it looks like it may be the next phase of his continued evolution as a hitter. If he has a couple more healthy seasons in which he performs at the level of 2022-23, he will be just about there.

There is of course the asinine sign stealing bullshit, but I think as more time passes and more people objectively acknowledge that the entire thing was less a “scandal” than it was a sensationalized story about what amounts to a baseball tradition, as more evidence mounts that it made absolutely zero detectable difference in his performance, as evidence that he didn’t even really participate anyway is reinforced, I doubt it keeps him out of the Hall. 

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Guadaloopy

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2 minutes ago, Hank Chinaski said:

He almost certainly will not approach Bagwell in career WAR. If that’s not how you would define “greatest,” that’s fine, but there will likely end up being about a 10-15 WAR gap between he and Bagwell.

Disagree that he’d get into the HOF if he retired after this season. Not arguing that he shouldn’t, mind you - just that he wouldn’t. The Hall favors big counting numbers, and the more contemporary voters who are less concerned about them place extra emphasis on high WAR/value peak numbers. There just aren’t that many short career guys in the Hall. Puckett is a good example, but I seriously doubt he’d get in had his career ended recently (I don’t think modern voters would vote him in).

The exciting part is that last season was maybe his best (along with 2017) and he’s actually been better this year, albeit in limited time. The last two years, his walk have increased, moving his OBP up; it looks like it may be the next phase of his continued evolution as a hitter. If he has a couple more healthy seasons in which he performs at the level of 2022-23, he will be just about there.

There is of course the asinine sign stealing bullshit, but I think as more time passes and more people objectively acknowledge that the entire thing was less a “scandal” than it was a sensationalized story about what amounts to a baseball tradition, as more evidence mounts that it made absolutely zero detectable difference in his performance, as evidence that he didn’t even really participate anyway is reinforced, I doubt it keeps him out of the Hall. 

2X WS champ.  MVP.  3X batting champ.  2nd all-time in post-season HRs.  His career stats are the nuts on the sundae.  He's in if he's done tomorrow, and it's not close.  

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tx 3 putt

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9 hours ago, Gourmand said:

Some of y'all didn't learn shit the last time we all felt great and were giving each other high fives and reach arounds...

Have you ding-dongs not looked at the upcoming schedule? We're playing a weekend series against the wayward Padres IN HOUSTON while the Mariners travel to Tampa for three and the Rangers get to playOakland at home.

What could possibly go wrong?


in-was feeling pretty damn good after that Braves and Tampa series 

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Hank Chinaski

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43 minutes ago, Guadaloopy said:

2X WS champ.  MVP.  3X batting champ.  2nd all-time in post-season HRs.  His career stats are the nuts on the sundae.  He's in if he's done tomorrow, and it's not close.  

I think it’s the other way around - career stats are the sundae (foundation), the other things are the nuts. Seems like voters need to see a baseline of career stats. I’m not saying that’s how it should be necessarily, but that’s my perception of how candidates are evaluated. I think he’s close but not quite there yet. 

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Bagwell's greatest moments are in the regular season.

Altuve's last 48 hours would be the high water mark for Bagwell, stats-wise.  They don't even really make Altuve's  Top10 moments if the post-season matters.  It's just a nice run against the fucking Rangers.

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Guadaloopy

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4 minutes ago, slorch said:

Bagwell's greatest moments are in the regular season.

Altuve's last 48 hours would be the high water mark for Bagwell, stats-wise.  They don't even really make Altuve's  Top10 moments if the post-season matters.  It's just a nice run against the fucking Rangers.

I love Bagwell.  He was far and way my favorite Astro for the better part of three decades, but you hit it on the head with the reason Altuve has eclipsed Bags as Astro #1.  It's the moments.  Altuve far surpasses Bagwell in big franchise moments, with most being in the postseason.  Stats, schmats.  Give me moments to remember.

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Rimbo

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2 hours ago, TexArcher said:

I'd bet 95% of them have quit watching and moved on to the This is the Cowboys' Year roller coaster of doom.

Hey, at least they HAVE a roller coaster to be on.

Texans' trajectory be more like Houston geography. Low and flat. 🤬

Glad I'm a longtime Denver fan...

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henrygandorf

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15 minutes ago, slorch said:

Bagwell's greatest moments are in the regular season.

Altuve's last 48 hours would be the high water mark for Bagwell, stats-wise.  They don't even really make Altuve's  Top10 moments if the post-season matters.  It's just a nice run against the fucking Rangers.

you could sum up altuve's career dominance with one sentence they said last night: "this is altuve's first career regular season game with three homers, of course you'll remember he had a 3-homer game in the playoffs against chris sale and the red sox."  yeah, that's reggie jackson territory and october is what makes you great.  i used to deny that, because of biggio and bagwell, but it's true.

i loved the 1980's astros, i loved the 1990's astros.  i loved the killer b's.  even derek bell.  i loved how mike hampton could hit, and i loved that moises alou washed his hands in piss.  i loved all that shit.  but this era is different.  these guys are bigtime.  they don't fold in rough matchups in the playoffs or wilt against tough pitchers.  we punish tough pitchers and ruin top closers.  we wreck dreams.

and yeah, the scandal maybe bonded us fans closer to the team, and maybe i have some bias towards altuve because he not only wore it, but thrived off it.  and i'm ok with that.  the article in the ny post last year hit the nail - "it's time to stop blaming altuve for the cheating scandal.  (1) he didn't use it, (2) the booing makes him better and he's kicking our ass. (3) please stop."

by all accounts, they are all great players and all great ambassadors of the game and especially great representatives of the houston astros.  who knows how the next several years go, but i have altuve as the goat, and biggio/bagwell on astros mount rushmore.  and everywhere we go, people will continue to boo altuve while he poses for pictures with your kids and signs all their autographs and tosses them batting gloves and jerseys.  that's just who he is, before and after the nonsense.

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Gourmand

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4 minutes ago, henrygandorf said:

you could sum up altuve's career dominance with one sentence they said last night: "this is altuve's first career regular season game with three homers, of course you'll remember he had a 3-homer game in the playoffs against chris sale and the red sox."  yeah, that's reggie jackson territory and october is what makes you great.  i used to deny that, because of biggio and bagwell, but it's true.

i loved the 1980's astros, i loved the 1990's astros.  i loved the killer b's.  even derek bell.  i loved how mike hampton could hit, and i loved that moises alou washed his hands in piss.  i loved all that shit.  but this era is different.  these guys are bigtime.  they don't fold in rough matchups in the playoffs or wilt against tough pitchers.  we punish tough pitchers and ruin top closers.  we wreck dreams.

and yeah, the scandal maybe bonded us fans closer to the team, and maybe i have some bias towards altuve because he not only wore it, but thrived off it.  and i'm ok with that.  the article in the ny post last year hit the nail - "it's time to stop blaming altuve for the cheating scandal.  (1) he didn't use it, (2) the booing makes him better and he's kicking our ass. (3) please stop."

by all accounts, they are all great players and all great ambassadors of the game and especially great representatives of the houston astros.  who knows how the next several years go, but i have altuve as the goat, and biggio/bagwell on astros mount rushmore.  and everywhere we go, people will continue to boo altuve while he poses for pictures with your kids and signs all their autographs and tosses them batting gloves and jerseys.  that's just who he is, before and after the nonsense.

It's Altuve and Dream and nobody else is even close

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14 minutes ago, henrygandorf said:

you could sum up altuve's career dominance with one sentence they said last night: "this is altuve's first career regular season game with three homers, of course you'll remember he had a 3-homer game in the playoffs against chris sale and the red sox."  yeah, that's reggie jackson territory and october is what makes you great.  i used to deny that, because of biggio and bagwell, but it's true.

i loved the 1980's astros, i loved the 1990's astros.  i loved the killer b's.  even derek bell.  i loved how mike hampton could hit, and i loved that moises alou washed his hands in piss.  i loved all that shit.  but this era is different.  these guys are bigtime.  they don't fold in rough matchups in the playoffs or wilt against tough pitchers.  we punish tough pitchers and ruin top closers.  we wreck dreams.

and yeah, the scandal maybe bonded us fans closer to the team, and maybe i have some bias towards altuve because he not only wore it, but thrived off it.  and i'm ok with that.  the article in the ny post last year hit the nail - "it's time to stop blaming altuve for the cheating scandal.  (1) he didn't use it, (2) the booing makes him better and he's kicking our ass. (3) please stop."

by all accounts, they are all great players and all great ambassadors of the game and especially great representatives of the houston astros.  who knows how the next several years go, but i have altuve as the goat, and biggio/bagwell on astros mount rushmore.  and everywhere we go, people will continue to boo altuve while he poses for pictures with your kids and signs all their autographs and tosses them batting gloves and jerseys.  that's just who he is, before and after the nonsense.

I wholeheartedly agree with all the things you said about Altuve and love him. It’s ok to disagree (at present) about who the greatest Astro is of all time when one has great post season moments and the other is 30% more valuable over the course of a career. Right now it’s arguing over whether you prefer sunrise to sunset. 
I suspect in 3-5 years there will be unanimous consent that it’s Altuve. Hope so at least. 

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Dnaguy

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9 minutes ago, Gourmand said:

It's Altuve and Dream and nobody else is even close

 

I have a beautiful mental image of the statues of those two men side by side in some sort of Houston HOF.

 

That shit would be hilarious and impressive all at the same time. 

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Gourmand

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4 minutes ago, slorch said:

Earl and Nolan might be welcome in the foyer…

on a tshirt, yeah. 

Don't get me wrong, I love Earl forever, he literally made me into an Htown sports fan lifer when I was just a little kid, and Nolan was a baseball giant. 

But as eloquently said upthread, it's THE MOMENTS that Altuve has given us that cements his legendary status. With all the heartbreak I suffered as a kid with the Oilers, Astros, Rockets and Phi Slama Jama Coogs, you learned to always expect the worst to happen when you were most exuberant and anticipating great things to happen.

Altuve changed all of that. Dream did too, but he had Elie and Horry and Sam Cassell delivering alongside him whereas Altuve has had soooo many huge individual moments on the biggest stage. 
 

In my mind, the greatest moment ever is ALTUVE HAS JUST SENT THE ASTROS TO THE WORLD SERIES!!!! because that moment made us all little kids again.

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Seasick Sailor

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1 hour ago, Gourmand said:

In my mind, the greatest moment ever is ALTUVE HAS JUST SENT THE ASTROS TO THE WORLD SERIES!!!! because that moment made us all little kids again.

I tend to agree, and this is maybe why losing the 2019 series was, and still is, so painful for me. That moment deserved to be the biggest moment in a playoff run that culminated in a World Series victory. Instead, every time I see the clip or read about it, in addition to remembering how great that moment was, I remember that we lost the World Series. Even with that tarnish, it's still one of the greatest moments ever. 

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UTHornFan014

UTHornFan014 710

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1 minute ago, Seasick Sailor said:

I tend to agree, and this is maybe why losing the 2019 series was, and still is, so painful for me. That moment deserved to be the biggest moment in a playoff run that culminated in a World Series victory. Instead, every time I see the clip or read about it, in addition to remembering how great that moment was, I remember that we lost the World Series. Even with that tarnish, it's still one of the greatest moments ever. 

The 2019 World Series still hurts my soul. Fucking Howie Kendrick. 

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Rimbo

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1 hour ago, henrygandorf said:

we wreck dreams.

This sentence right here is what it's about. It's not just about the 2 WS wins and other appearances. It's not just about the HOFers. It's not just that the ALCS has basically become the Houston Invitational.

It's that we will ruin your team's season, and it's no longer a big deal for us that we do.

i-don't-think-about-you-at-all.jpg

 

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Rimbo

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7 minutes ago, Seasick Sailor said:

I tend to agree, and this is maybe why losing the 2019 series was, and still is, so painful for me. That moment deserved to be the biggest moment in a playoff run that culminated in a World Series victory. Instead, every time I see the clip or read about it, in addition to remembering how great that moment was, I remember that we lost the World Series. Even with that tarnish, it's still one of the greatest moments ever. 

2019 Astros was basically the 2007 Patriots. Strasburg is Eli.

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