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2018 Houston Astros Season Thread

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tx 3 putt

tx 3 putt 77237

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reed / white / rodgers / fisher / giles are all available to be traded. no way would I give up anything close to a top prospect for britton. 

 

who gets sent down if we acquire a reliever ?

who gets sent down when the playoffs start and LMJ moves to the bullpen ?

Edited by tx 3 putt
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TexArcher
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Bregs is going Crawford Boxes right here.

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thetruth

thetruth 149

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7 minutes ago, tx 3 putt said:

reed / white / rodgers / fisher / giles are all available to be traded. no way would I give up anything close to a top prospect for britton. 

 

who gets sent down if we acquire a reliever ?

who gets sent down when the playoffs start and LMJ moves to the bullpen ?

Just looked up Britton's contract and he's a rental. This year and done. (Not to mention his agent is Boras, and he's coming off of surgery recently). I'd hate to give up Fisher who could still figure it out for a guy that's going to be looking for more than we can spend next year in free agency. 

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HtownHorn

HtownHorn 14755

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1 hour ago, Seasick Sailor said:

If Reed, White, and Rodgers will get us Britton, I'm for it. No way in hell I'm giving up Whitley, Tucker, or Alvarez for a possibly broken rental. Any chance the O's would package Britton and Jones? 

Yep, I'd take Jones as well. We need another OF bat that has proven they are a capable MLB hitter. Jones, Springer, and Reddick with Kemp on the bench as the 4th OF. Tucker can go back to AAA.

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henrygandorf

henrygandorf 29194

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1 hour ago, Seasick Sailor said:

If Reed, White, and Rodgers will get us Britton, I'm for it. No way in hell I'm giving up Whitley, Tucker, or Alvarez for a possibly broken rental. Any chance the O's would package Britton and Jones? 

i could be wrong, but i don't see us making any type of deal for any player under any contract involving whitley or tucker (or likely alvarez), especially just having won a world series.  even if it's for a great haul that favors us, i just don't see it happening under this regime.  they seem pretty much set on that.

a couple of shitty (mostly minor) deals notwithstanding, i have full trust in our front office to do what's right and not injure the system.  just because some other teams are in desperation mode, doesn't mean we'll get caught up in that.

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BornOrange

BornOrange 1441

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NY Times article : If the Astros Stop Underachieving, They Could Be Terrifying

Best part of the article:

Quote

The danger is that the starters are so good now, they will not be rested for October. Hinch understood that fear and pointed to a schedule poster on his office wall. There were lots of dates shaded in gray, indicating no game.

“We only have two starts, between the beginning of the second half and the end of August, on regular rest,” Hinch said. “And we have a good enough rotation where I don’t even have the flirtation of skipping guys or trying to bring guys back early. That’s essentially like a six-man rotation, with the sixth man being an off-day, so I feel good about that.”

Luhnow said the team would be most cautious with McCullers, who is the team’s youngest starter, at 24. Morton, 34, has never reached 175 innings in an 11-year career. Cole has never pitched past the first round of the playoffs.

Ideally, the Astros could get to September and manage everyone’s rest however they want, plugging a few games with call-ups or long relievers. To do that, though, they must shake the Seattle Mariners and the Oakland Athletics from a division race that is closer than expected.

 

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rtchorn

rtchorn 15

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18 hours ago, henrygandorf said:

or it's a smokescreen and we have other targets.

luhnow doesn't seem to be the type to get burned by the orioles bullshit then go right back to barking up that same tree the following year.

Really? Luhnow seems like the kind of guy that gets the best possible deal for his team regardless of past circumstances.

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BornOrange

BornOrange 1441

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3 hours ago, rtchorn said:

Really? Luhnow seems like the kind of guy that gets the best possible deal for his team regardless of past circumstances.

Yeah, I don't think Luhnow is going to let his ego or the past get in the way of making a deal he thinks would help the team. If the Orioles are willing to make a deal, and their owner doesn't fuck it up this time, Luhnow won't hesitate to negotiate with them.

On the other hand, Luhnow has already proven he will walk away from the table if the Orioles (or any team) insist on a trade Luhnow doesn't like.

Luhnow is going into trade deals with an open mind and with open eyes.

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henrygandorf

henrygandorf 29194

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i can just see a scenario where we engage the o's along with other teams, and we make the trade that makes sense and actually goes smoothly.  he took heat last year for putting all our eggs in the britton basket, and there's no way that happens this year.  they have a tendency to stretch shit out as it goes up the flagpole, and i don't see luhnow having patience for that bullshit again.

at no time did i say he wouldn't get the best deal that made the most sense (in fact, i just said basically the opposite in a later post).  but i don't really believe we are "all-in" on britton (whatever the hell that means anyway).  i think we have multiple relievers on our radar, or potential liriano types (starters we would put in the pen) - like eovaldi that i mentioned.

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BornOrange

BornOrange 1441

Posted
Posted (edited)

The Britton trade that did not happen and the Verlander trade that obviously worked out may both factor into any dealing Luhnow does this year before the deadline.

Last year the Orioles owner vetoed the trade at the last minute, and the Astros weren't able to get a top end closer. The Verlander deal literally came down to the last minute. The trade was turned into the league office seconds before the deadline. Without Verlander who knows how things would have ended last year?

So maybe Luhnow will not want to be put in that situation again, running against the clock. That could be a reason the Astros don't get Britton, since there are a lot of teams said to be interested in him. The Orioles could hold everyone hostage while trying to get the best possible deal for Britton, and the Astros might decide to pull the trigger on another deal instead of waiting up to the deadline on Britton.

EDIT - Gandorf basically said the same thing.

Edited by BornOrange
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Chuckie Finster

Chuckie Finster 22702

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50 minutes ago, kevwun said:

A one year rental reliever who is not having a good season combined with an owner who is a pain in the ass to deal with is not a good recipe for a trade.

I don't disagree that Britton, being a rental and coming off of injury, will most likely require more than he is worth, but his demise in 2018 has been greatly exaggerated.

He has pitched in 16 games this season: 14 times he gave up 0 runs.  10 times he gave up 0 hits.  His entire season stats have been derailed by one game against the Braves a month ago where he gave up 4 runs in 1/3 of an inning.  Take out that performance, and he has a 1.17 ERA and has only given up 6 hits with 13 Ks in 15.2 innings.

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UTexasFight

UTexasFight 9517

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For anyone going to the Red Sox series in September, green monster seats are on sale at 11 central today.

Not cheap but HIGHLY recommended if you’ve never watched a game from there.

 

For grins, I checked the prices on this... row 1 for the Saturday game, Sep 8? $450 before fees.

That’s approaching what I paid for a ticket to game 6 of the World Series last year.

Yankees tickets are more... $650-$750 for row 1 for their season ending series

 

Just absurd.

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henrygandorf

henrygandorf 29194

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42 minutes ago, Chuckie Finster said:

I don't disagree that Britton, being a rental and coming off of injury, will most likely require more than he is worth, but his demise in 2018 has been greatly exaggerated.

He has pitched in 16 games this season: 14 times he gave up 0 runs.  10 times he gave up 0 hits.  His entire season stats have been derailed by one game against the Braves a month ago where he gave up 4 runs in 1/3 of an inning.  Take out that performance, and he has a 1.17 ERA and has only given up 6 hits with 13 Ks in 15.2 innings.

agreed.  i like britton, and am not worried about anything other than injury concerns (and coming back from them).  durability for a reliever with a playoff schedule shouldn't be an issue though.

fwiw, ken rosenthal said this morning on mlbn that the orioles are trying to get something done soon, in the next few days.  hopefully they learned from past mistakes as well.  the only upside to last minute deals is that some gms probably lose their shit under pressure and i don't think luhnow is one of them, which could give us the advantage.

and as weird as it sounded (was it in the nyt piece?) having a bunch of ex-stros playing in the asg is a nice selling point for our system.  hey look, when you trade with us, we give you quality guys.  i'm sure quality of scouting is almost as good as quality of prospect.

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Seasick Sailor

Seasick Sailor 3747

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The Trade Deadline's Most Interesting Lefty

by Jeff Sullivan

All morning long, on Twitter, I found myself wading through

 Zach Brittonrumors. At seemingly any moment, Britton could be off for one of the top contenders, looking to stabilize the back of the bullpen. It’s not hard to explain Britton’s appeal — though his performance hasn’t been outstanding since returning from the disabled list, he still throws hard, and the sinker still sinks, so he looks close enough to the guy he used to be. Britton is good. If he’s healthy, he’ll get a lot of outs.

Britton’s a lefty. Of course, we just saw another prominent lefty reliever get moved last week, when the Indians added Brad Hand. I want to make it clear now that there’s a difference between “most interesting” and “best.” There’s a great chance that Hand will be the trade deadline’s best lefty. I just can’t help but search off the radar, and, to get to the point, I’d like to talk about Adam Conley. I don’t know if he’ll actually get moved by the Marlins, since he’s under club control through 2021, but I’ve seen enough rumors about Kyle Barraclough and Drew Steckenrider to believe it’s a possibility. A team in the Marlins’ position shouldn’t be hoarding relievers. And if a contender is looking for a bullpen southpaw, Conley deserves a serious look.

 

 

What we have here is a case of a bullpen transition. Conley once drew notice as an interesting starter, but his stuff and his numbers went backward. Over eight starts this year in Triple-A, Conley struck out just 14% of his opponents. The Marlins brought him up and made him a reliever. That strikeout rate has more than doubled, and there’s even more to keep your attention.

Consider, for example, that compared to last year, Conley’s average fastball has gotten faster by five and a half ticks. It’s by no means uncommon for a pitcher’s stuff to play up when he gets to work in shorter outings, but out of everyone with at least ten innings pitched in each of the last two seasons, Conley’s velocity boost is the biggest in the game, by a couple miles per hour. Just right there, Conley’s development is encouraging — where his fastball recently hovered around 90 or so, now it’s getting up to 95 and 96. You can’t always predict whose stuff will play up the most. Conley has taken to the one-inning stints.

So the fastball is better. Everything is harder, really. As a consequence, Conley’s contact rate allowed has dropped by 11 percentage points. Via Brooks Baseball, let’s focus for a moment on Conley’s fastball/changeup combination. Here’s how his career velocities have looked:

 

conley-velo.png

The changeup comes in almost ten ticks slower than the fastball. That gap hasn’t eroded. Yet there’s something else, something more promising. Look at these horizontal movements. It should be easy to spot the take-home message.

conley-horizontal.png

Conley throws one kind of fastball and one kind of changeup. In the past, it used to be that the changeup moved laterally a little more. Now, thanks to some kind of tweak, the average horizontal movements are virtually identical. As noted, the changeup is slower, and it drops about two or three inches more than the fastball, but with identical lateral movements, the pitches better disguise one another. The arm action is the same. The spin must look just about the same. Few pitchers are able to make their fastballs and changeups look so alike, and, related to this, Conley’s changeup already has a run value of +6.0. That’s currently one of the higher marks in baseball, even though Conley hasn’t even reached 30 innings. He’s only barely behind Chris Devenski.

Let’s say you’re not convinced by the run-value measures. Totally fair; those numbers can be noisy. I can tell you that, when Conley has thrown a changeup this season, opposing batters have whiffed 34% of the time. There have been more than 1300 different individual pitch types thrown by pitchers this year at least 100 times. That changeup whiff rate for Conley is tied for the highest for any pitch type in either league. It’s been one of the very most unhittable pitches. Rather unsurprisingly, Conley is coming to trust the pitch more and more:

conley-usage.png

That plot folds in the slider. Conley is indeed a three-pitch pitcher, and the slider is fine. I’m just most enchanted by how the fastball and changeup work together. Here are some clips from earlier today. Conley throwing a 1-and-1 fastball:

Conley following that with a putaway changeup:

Conley later throwing a 1-and-0 changeup:

And then a 2-and-2 changeup for an inning-ending double play:

Conley’s numbers are already good, as they are. He’s a lefty reliever who can retire both lefties and righties, and there’s no doubting the quality of his stuff, now that his velocity is surging. There’s just one more piece here that I think adds to the intrigue. What’s happened these last few months is that Conley has moved to the bullpen, which has allowed him to throw much harder. His changeup looks the best it’s ever looked, now that it’s effectively mirroring his mid-90s heater. But take a glance at how Conley has used his pitches, by count. You might see an adjustment that ought to be made:

conley-counts.png

Earlier, you saw a clip of Conley throwing a changeup in a 1-and-0 count. That’s something he hasn’t done very often. Nearly every pitcher throws a higher rate of fastballs when behind in the count, and nearly every pitcher throws a higher rate of secondary stuff when ahead in the count, but, for Conley, this looks like something to work on. He’s throwing his changeup with more confidence, and his slider is looking good, too. Conley could stand to be less predictable. He could presumably benefit from throwing fewer fastballs in classic fastball situations. Not only would batters have trouble keeping up; Conley’s fastball could become more effective. The changeup looks great. The slider also works. If Conley were to better randomize his sequences, he could look even better than he has.

Put it all together and you could have an impact pitcher. Already, Conley is a good bullpen southpaw, but there’s reason to believe he could be even better. Furthermore, he’s under club control for a while, and you could even make the argument that he’ll deserve another opportunity in the rotation next spring. He wouldn’t be the first failed starter to do better in a second chance. Maybe the bullpen gains would carry over. That’s for another day. There’s a good chance the Marlins wouldn’t be enthusiastic about trading Conley away — they might be thinking about him as a starter again, themselves. Alternatively, they could want to see where his bullpen development goes. Current contenders should want to see the same thing. Trading for Conley might not happen, and it’s not likely something that would happen for cheap, but anyone looking for help should at least think about it. Conley’s tapping into a massive chamber of potential.

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TonyTexas

TonyTexas 10519

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Posted
 

Pisses me off. They don’t even need him.

Besides Severino, their starters are very mediocre so they need all the bullpen help they can get.

 

Edit: supposedly for Dillon Tate as centerpiece and other pitching prospects. Tate is the #9 rated prospect in the Yankee system.

 

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