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Houston Astros 2024 Season Thread

Planet Houston

By Planet Houston
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Etexhorn13
Etexhorn13

Pretty perfect game to take a three year old to. Was over before he got too bored and got to see a couple homers. Thanks @UTPhil2006 for the suggestion about the first game certificate, had plenty of

Guadaloopy
Guadaloopy
Planet Houston
Planet Houston

I’m just glad I survived another season of being the official thread starter. Thank you all for your continued support in this emotional time.   In more ways than one with tonight’s result:

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Snake Diggity

Snake Diggity 4614

Posted
Posted
23 minutes ago, Limp Brisket said:

Who would you want as manager, based on availability, if Espada was gone today?

Only 2 guys I can think of who are available midseason would be Buck Showalter and Mark DeRosa.  Fuck no to Ausmus.  After the season they could look at Don Mattingly, Steven Vogt, or Clayton McCullough.  None of those guys make me all that excited, but I thought Espada was the right choice so wtf do I know.

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LCHorn

LCHorn 2582

Posted
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2 hours ago, Snake Diggity said:

Buck Showalter

I liked Buck Showalter 20 years ago when he was an early analytics adopter and his  peers were playing catch-up or getting fired.  He also seems like an asshole and maybe that’s what THIS version of the Astros needs.  

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Wulaw Horn

Wulaw Horn 18963

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I was on record as not caring for the Joe Espada hire and thinking it was odd to turn over a WA team to a new guy, but I didn’t think he would be this over his head. 
I’d fire him and bring in Joe Maddon- he can grate on players and wear out his welcome- but that’s a thought for a later day. Also- any idea what scrap iron is up to these days?  Is he dead?  Bobby Valentine- is he still kicking it? Can he coach every game in disguise?  
this team probably doesn’t suck and the back end of the bullpen probably isn’t going to be hammered dogshit all year. The Abreu problem will resolve itself (if he wants Dubon in the lineup so badly why doesn’t he just go with him at first- or Diaz at first Dubon at 2B and Altuve DH some. It’s not like the Astros have any unmanageable or unfixable problems/ they just have to- you know- manage them and fix them. And hope the back of the bullpen becomes the strength that everyone thought it would be instead of horrific. 
we are 7/16. We are 2 for 8 in save opportunities. 
a more realistic 7 for 8 would have us at 12-11 even with all the starters being hurt and Abreu and the other mess, against probably the toughest opening schedule in baseball. 
I guess I just can’t believe those guys are going to continue to be so bad. I won’t believe it until Memorial Day- too much positive track record to throw that away after 4 weeks. 

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Wulaw Horn

Wulaw Horn 18963

Posted
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12 minutes ago, tx 3 putt said:

Espada, Dusty, your dream manager - their hands are tied with the make up of this roster. 
 

this didn’t age well ….

 

That's just not true. There are answers on this roster.  It's one guy that can't hit and one guy that isn't hitting (bregman) and that's it.


OPS plus:

Diaz- 125

Altuve- 196

Pena- 146

Bregman- 73

Chas- 98

Meyers- 100

Tucker- 162

Alvarez-152

Dubon- 115

Caratini- 110

 

That's 10 dudes with 8 of them average or above average- Chas 2% below and Bregman off to his typical slow start.  

You could play either Caratini, Diaz or Dubon at 1B and have a lineup that's basically average or above at every position- unless you somehow believe that Bregman is below average as opposed to just starting slowly as he always does. 

 

 

 

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Wulaw Horn

Wulaw Horn 18963

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Our FIP is 4.31, our actual ERA is 5.1.  We've had an insane amount of bad luck in babip both ways.  Our top 3 pitchers have all been on the IL, and our back end of the bullpen who was supposed to be awesome and has been totally awful- beyond that- all is well, all is well. 

Seriously, it's really unlikely that this shit keeps up- it's not plausible and weird stuff can happen over any 20 game sample in a 162 game season.  

All that being said- our manager is a dipshit- he's pitching the bullpen too much and in the wrong situations, he's running out Abreu when he doesn't have to, he's running out Singleton when he doesn't have to, and he's fucking around with Meyers for reasons I don't understand.  I'd rather have a gold glove CF with an average bat in the lineup vs the desecrated carcass of Jose Abreu- which is what the decision to play dubon at CF instead of 1B or 2b (with altuve doing some DH.  

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YChang

YChang 3430

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3 minutes ago, UTexasFight said:

Reading Dana’s comments yesterday, Abreu is about to get a whole lot of pine time the rest of this month. 

Lol, my mind auto-filled in rest of the month with rest of the year

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hornmpa96

hornmpa96 2598

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Espada’a not the issue. The only change he could make is benching Abreu. He’s moved him down in the order. He’s played Singleton more. I would have played Caratini at first instead of Singleton. 

It’s truly a crime that Singleton was still on this roster at the start of the season. Abreu provided fool’s gold with his performance after coming back from the IL. He was always going to be here in 2024. Sticking with Singleton as the primary backup was not a defensible decision. 
 

The back of the bullpen has been absolutely terrible to this point. You have to assume Hader and Pressly will get better at some point this year. If that doesn’t happen, the season’s over anyway.

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Wulaw Horn

Wulaw Horn 18963

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6 minutes ago, hornmpa96 said:

Espada’a not the issue. The only change he could make is benching Abreu. He’s moved him down in the order. He’s played Singleton more. I would have played Caratini at first instead of Singleton. 

It’s truly a crime that Singleton was still on this roster at the start of the season. Abreu provided fool’s gold with his performance after coming back from the IL. He was always going to be here in 2024. Sticking with Singleton as the primary backup was not a defensible decision. 
 

The back of the bullpen has been absolutely terrible to this point. You have to assume Hader and Pressly will get better at some point this year. If that doesn’t happen, the season’s over anyway.

Yep.  They are the difference (back of the pen) from us being worst in the league and in 1st place in the division if they had done their job. 

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Pimphand

Pimphand 5587

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1 hour ago, Wulaw Horn said:

I was on record as not caring for the Joe Espada hire and thinking it was odd to turn over a WA team to a new guy, but I didn’t think he would be this over his head. 
I’d fire him and bring in Joe Maddon- he can grate on players and wear out his welcome- but that’s a thought for a later day. Also- any idea what scrap iron is up to these days?  Is he dead?  Bobby Valentine- is he still kicking it? Can he coach every game in disguise?  
this team probably doesn’t suck and the back end of the bullpen probably isn’t going to be hammered dogshit all year. The Abreu problem will resolve itself (if he wants Dubon in the lineup so badly why doesn’t he just go with him at first- or Diaz at first Dubon at 2B and Altuve DH some. It’s not like the Astros have any unmanageable or unfixable problems/ they just have to- you know- manage them and fix them. And hope the back of the bullpen becomes the strength that everyone thought it would be instead of horrific. 
we are 7/16. We are 2 for 8 in save opportunities. 
a more realistic 7 for 8 would have us at 12-11 even with all the starters being hurt and Abreu and the other mess, against probably the toughest opening schedule in baseball. 
I guess I just can’t believe those guys are going to continue to be so bad. I won’t believe it until Memorial Day- too much positive track record to throw that away after 4 weeks. 

Scrap Iron is still alive and he is my favorite Astros manager but he's 2 months older than Dusty even.  We saw how well the Tony LaRussa fiasco went in Chicago.

 

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UTexasFight

UTexasFight 9369

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50 minutes ago, UTPhil2006 said:

We’re not firing Espada anytime soon. 

I don’t think anyone is expecting him gone in the next few weeks.

But if we’re close to a .333 clip come the all-star break? ….

 

But for those glass half fullers, friendly reminder the team that just took 2 of 3 from us started 19-31 in 2019 and ended up ok 

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LCHorn

LCHorn 2582

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1 hour ago, Wulaw Horn said:

All that being said- our manager is a dipshit- he's pitching the bullpen too much and in the wrong situations, he's running out Abreu when he doesn't have to, he's running out Singleton when he doesn't have to, and he's fucking around with Meyers for reasons I don't understand.

If I might rebut, if I was hiring a manager with no previous experience, and he was replacing a seasoned and somewhat independently minded employee, I’d want someone who made very plain he would work as part of a collaborative team and would follow best practices as set by the general manager’s office.  
 

I also would think that some messiness is just a by-product of it being April and wanting/needing to experiment.  What’s unfortunate is that they are losing and that’s not giving them much cover.

TL:DR It ain’t Joe, it’s Dana (or just the front office).  
 

 

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uoftorange

uoftorange 1386

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Unless the players come out and say "we hate Espada he's the reason we're losing"  There is a literal zero chance he gets fired outside of gross insubordination.  

Managers mean almost dick in baseball as long as they are doing the obvious things.  They can mean something if they are intuitive in the 50/50 situations.  But come on, Espada is doing pretty much what everyone wanted Dusty to do except the Meyers/Dubon issues. 

Alvarez in the 2 hole (I think he fits the team better at 3 but it's mathematically the right move) - Check
He has zero choice but to play Abreu with that contract and every other manager in baseball would be in the same position.  But he isn't smashing in the top 5 all season - Check
He's getting guys spots.  when they need it but not really overplaying anyone that shouldn't play (outside of Abreu where he has no choice) - Check

What legitimately in his power do you want him to do?  Abreu is about to get benched.  They've been trying all kinds of guys at first.  We just don't have a backup there.  Dubon likely ends up being the guy and that would make the Astros a pretty formidable offense and defense if he plays well there which I think he would.  

Our pitching woes are brutal.  Brent Strom is a golden god

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LCHorn

LCHorn 2582

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Aside from just terrible, terrible luck, I think the main issues are:

1.  We are still in the Abreu experimentation stage.  Singleton was retained as a cheap back-up option (cheaper than Belt) with Cabbage as a candidate if his 2023 performance had carryover.  They are trying to ready Loperfido, I.e., they have options and they are working though them.  
 

2.  Relying on Hunter Brown and JP France to be core members of the rotation hasn’t worked out.  Brown looks like he’s on the failed starter track and and France is basically a sixth or seventh starter on a good team.  
 

I think #2 is more ripe for criticism and a total organizational break-down, i.e., they needed a veteran starter BEFORE Valdez and Javier showed poor health.  The pitching coaches shouldn’t be shielded from blame on this, either, if they were communicating to the front office that they would be fine without adding a starter.  Can you imagine how shitty our record would be without Blanco selling his soul to the devil?

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Wulaw Horn

Wulaw Horn 18963

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2 hours ago, LCHorn said:

If I might rebut, if I was hiring a manager with no previous experience, and he was replacing a seasoned and somewhat independently minded employee, I’d want someone who made very plain he would work as part of a collaborative team and would follow best practices as set by the general manager’s office.  
 

I also would think that some messiness is just a by-product of it being April and wanting/needing to experiment.  What’s unfortunate is that they are losing and that’s not giving them much cover.

TL:DR It ain’t Joe, it’s Dana (or just the front office).  
 

 

Yeah, I get what you are saying. And I don’t have a problem really with the decisions being made at 4.30 which is where Dusty was the absolute worst, but I think he’s screwing up in game on his own. 
 

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WBT

WBT 20397

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5 hours ago, Wulaw Horn said:

I won’t believe it until Memorial Day- too much positive track record to throw that away after 4 weeks. 

Same.  It's still too early to get worked up.  We haven't been much fun to watch though.

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WBT

WBT 20397

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4 hours ago, UTexasFight said:

Reading Dana’s comments yesterday, Abreu is about to get a whole lot of pine time the rest of this month. 

Since when does Dana have any say in playing time.  We need him to pull a Click and take the bad players away when the manager keeps playing them

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LCHorn

LCHorn 2582

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3 minutes ago, WBT said:

Since when does Dana have any say in playing time.  We need him to pull a Click and take the bad players away when the manager keeps playing them

I could be wrong but I suspect Abreu is injured, anyway.  Otherwise, whoever observed him coming off the spring (coaches/Brown/scouts) and didn't raise the red flag should be fired. 

Someone should rename a .100 batting average the Abreu line. 

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Pablo

Pablo 494

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47 minutes ago, Seasick Sailor said:

 

most of us agreed right around 5/27 was the time to panic.  that article confirms we statistically are likely to be out of the playoffs by then if the we continue winning 3 out of 10 

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smwhorn

smwhorn 481

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2 minutes ago, tx 3 putt said:

American League team leaders in runners LOB:

Astros - 181
Tigers - 159
Yankees - 158
Mariners - 158

Pretty hard to blame that on our pitching (which as admittedly sucked ass).

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tx 3 putt

tx 3 putt 76158

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15 minutes ago, Pablo said:

most of us agreed right around 5/27 was the time to panic.  that article confirms we statistically are likely to be out of the playoffs by then if the we continue winning 3 out of 10 


Memorial Day is the breaking point

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