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2018 Houston Astros Season Thread

Planet Houston

By Planet Houston
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TexArcher
TexArcher

Bregs is going Crawford Boxes right here.

ERhine
ERhine

Prior to the footage being edited by Bender:

wesleywest
wesleywest

Two Diamond Club tickets available for the Sunday night game.  Free.  Need to pick them up from me in 77027. Rules: Poster must be a big contributor to this thread/last years shag thread.  No gue

SimonBolivar

SimonBolivar 10,958

Posted
Posted (edited)

Went to the game in Arlington yesterday and had a great time. 

29572785_10210720897768797_8641043003723

 

29594391_10210720897728796_1488822183834

29790675_10210720897688795_4050481724321

We were well represented and pretty loud. I thought the attendance was lousy for the first homestand against their main rival WS champs on a holiday, but we didn't have any problems with any Rangers fans.

Edited by SimonBolivar
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Ldogg53

Ldogg53 514

Posted
Posted


I only played 1 year.. loved the game but never had much ability.
6’2” and left-handed. Complete waste

Tragic!

And in related news, according to my dad, Brent is the son of my grandfather’s cousin. So in some distant way we’re related. I was pissed when he gave up #53 when the team signed Giles.
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WBT

WBT 20,640

Posted
Posted

Rosenthal:

Quote

 

Rosenthal: Complacency? Not for Altuve and Correa, who are working hard to improve their defense

GettyImages-802171102-1024x819.jpg
By Ken Rosenthal 4h agocomment-icon.png 6 save-icon.png

ARLINGTON, Tex. – “Whatcha got?” Jose Altuve asked the Houston Astros’ new bench coach, Joe Espada, at the start of spring training. When a major leaguer utters those words to a coach, a teammate, even a reporter, he is seeking information. Altuve, the reigning American League MVP, wanted to know how Espada, the New York Yankees’ former infield instructor and third-base coach, might help him improve defensively.

Espada, one of four newcomers to manager A.J. Hinch’s staff, had something for Altuve, a few things in fact. The Astros’ coaches, at the urging of Hinch, had been brainstorming for ways to improve since November, just weeks after the team won its first World Series. The beauty of the Astros is that the players were thinking exactly the same way.

Ace right-hander Justin Verlander was taken aback by his teammates’ intensity in his first spring training with the club, saying that if he had just joined the Astros knowing nothing about them, he never would have guessed they had won the Series. There was no sense of complacency; for all of their accomplishments, players such as Altuve, shortstop Carlos Correa and center fielder George Springer remained insatiably hungry. “These guys are always working to get better,” Verlander said. “They love being great at baseball.”

That is the spirit in which Altuve approached Espada, at a time when he was in discussions with the Astros for what turned out to be a five-year, $151 million extension. Altuve, 27, and Correa, 23, were offensive dynamos as the Astros won three of four games in their opening series against Texas Rangers, going a combined 16-for-32 with five extra-base hits and three walks. But both grew most animated talking about the defensive adjustments they made with Espada in spring training, about the mere possibility of incremental growth.

As Altuve put it, “You can learn something from everybody. You never know.” Espada studied hours of video of the Astros’ infielders before spring training, thinking, These guys are too good not to be turning more double plays. The Astros ranked 15th among the 30 clubs last season in a metric Fangraphs calls “double-play runs”—the number of runs above or below average an infield or infielder is at turning double plays, taking into account the speed and location of the ball and the handedness of the batter. Among second basemen the past three seasons, Altuve ranked 15th out of 18 qualifiers in DPR, the worst of his three main components in the calculation of his Ultimate Zone Rating.

Name RngR ErrR DPR
Brian Dozier -9.4 12.8 -3.3
Brandon Phillips 1.7 0.9 -3.0
Jed Lowrie -8.6 3.5 -2.1
Jose Altuve -1.1 1.0 -2.1
Dustin Pedroia 14.1 7.3 -0.6

The table above shows the five worst qualified second basemen by double play runs (DPR) in the last three years. The two other major components of Ultimate Zone Rating—Range Runs (RngR) and Error Runs (ErrR), which attempt to capture their ability to get to balls outside their zone and turn sure plays into outs, respectively—are also shown.

Here, then, was something to attack—and sure enough, Espada detected a flaw in the way Altuve turned his glove for his exchange when he was the pivot man on double plays. Instead of absorbing the throw and allowing the speed of the ball to turn his glove, Altuve would hold his glove almost vertically and drop the ball into his hand. “It wasn’t clean,” Espada said. “He never had a good grip. And he would occasionally fumble the ball.”

Altuve, after initially questioning Espada’s suggested correction, quickly bought in. “He gave me little things that look stupid. But when you try them, they're big,” Altuve said. “It’s putting your glove like this (horizontal) instead of like this (vertical). I was like, ‘That’s not going to make me better.’ But when I did it, it was way better. When I tried a couple of double plays like that, I was like, ‘Oh my God, this is a new me.’”

Espada set up a pitching machine between second and third base during spring training, feeding ball after ball to Altuve, who focused on keeping his hands closer to his body and making his exchanges clean. Yet, that was not the only change Altuve incorporated. According to Hinch, Altuve had a habit of “playing on the run” when turning double plays, timing his arrival at second to coincide with the arrival of the throw. Espada, describing Altuve as “quick but not efficient,” wanted him to get to the bag quicker so his body would be in better position for him to see the ball and adjust.

Altuve agreed with that suggestion, too—“I didn’t have rhythm,” he said. “Now it’s get to the bag, exchange, boom!” He also worked on his follow-through, making his throws stronger. But Altuve alone could not improve the Astros’ double-play efficiency; the team needed a coordinated effort. Estrada instructed Correa and third baseman Alex Bregman to start feeding Altuve behind the bag, enabling him to use the base as protection.

“Every flip has got to be hard so he has more time to make the throw,” Correa said. “And when I go to my right side, he wants everything behind the bag, in the chest. I’ve been working on giving him better throws hard—everything hard, fast, turn every double play we can. All spring, I worked on that—early work, early work, early work, working with Altuve on double plays.”

People forget, but the AL MVP race might have turned out differently last season if Correa had not been out from July 18 to Sept. 3 after undergoing surgery to repair a torn ligament in his left thumb. Correa again figures to be a leading contender for MVP this season, and if he wins the award it likely will be due to his extraordinary offensive production at a premium defensive position. Still, Correa is well aware he is not a top defender at short according to the advanced metrics. It is not a stretch to say he is obsessed with improving his defense.

Espada had something to offer Correa, too, advising him to stay lower in his pre-pitch position to become more explosive with his first-step quickness. “He came to me because of the front-office people—they showed me (Andrelton) Simmons’ metrics, how he covered so much ground,” Correa said. “So I tried looking at the video every single day of what he did pre-pitch. He pretty much stays in the same place (physically). When the ball is hit, he gets into an athletic position. And then he reacts, staying low to the ball.”

In the first four games, an admittedly minuscule sample, the results were encouraging. Correa charged a slow roller and made an athletic play on the run to throw out the Rangers’ speedy Carlos Tocci for the final out of the Astros’ 9-3 victory on Saturday. He also combined with Altuve for a gorgeous 6-4-3 double play in the first inning on Friday night, ranging up the middle to field a one-hopper by Elvis Andrus, then delivering a back-hand flip to Altuve, who completed the play by making a leaping, sidearm throw to first.

World Series hangover? The Astros already have sweated it out, thank you very much. The front office continues to look for the next edge, as evidenced by the four-man outfield the Rangers’ Joey Gallo occasionally faced in the opening series. Hinch takes pride in his attention to detail, encouraging his coaches to pursue specific areas of improvement, no matter how small. Altuve and Correa, two of the team’s biggest stars, also are among its hungriest players, setting a positive example for all.

“We want to take our game to the next level,” Correa said. “We know what we can do offensively if we stay with our approach. But if we can be as good defensively as we are offensively, it’s going to be a different ballgame.”

As if the last ballgame wasn’t good enough.

 

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runthebone

runthebone 8,024

Posted
Posted
43 minutes ago, SimonBolivar said:

Went to the game in Arlington yesterday and had a great time. 

We were well represented and pretty loud. I thought the attendance was lousy for the first homestand against their main rival WS champs on a holiday, but we didn't have any problems with any Rangers fans.

So it must have felt like...a home game.

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DeadArmadillo

DeadArmadillo 907

Posted
Posted
57 minutes ago, SimonBolivar said:

Went to the game in Arlington yesterday and had a great time. 

29572785_10210720897768797_8641043003723

 

29594391_10210720897728796_1488822183834

29790675_10210720897688795_4050481724321

We were well represented and pretty loud. I thought the attendance was lousy for the first homestand against their main rival WS champs on a holiday, but we didn't have any problems with any Rangers fans.

Bitches know better than to talk shit to an Astro

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Gut Wagon

Gut Wagon 8,083

Posted
Posted
1 minute ago, Kyrie Eleison said:

mechanical poetry...

 

 

Even after so many years of watching, I find two things about MLB remain almost incomprehensible to me:

(1) that so many pitchers can throw the ball as hard as they do, with reasonably pinpoint control, even though the fate of western civilization seems to hang on every throw; and 

(2) that so many hitters can pick up the pitch, swing as hard as they do and still have enough control to put the ball in play most of the time.

 

 

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UTexasFight

UTexasFight 9,515

Posted
Posted
this was probably covered upthread, but how do you watch the at&t sw stream?  i give it location access and it just sits on a loading screen with the at&t logo looping.
 
edit: on PC

At home or Work?
If Work, some sort of network/firewall settings in the way? (also, I didn’t stay at a holiday inn express last night and also know next to nothing about computers)
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elfenix

elfenix 34,330

Posted
Posted
12 minutes ago, UTexasFight said:


At home or Work?
If Work, some sort of network/firewall settings in the way? (also, I didn’t stay at a holiday inn express last night and also know next to nothing about computers)

tried it from both home and work.  neither works. 

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