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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

UDontKnow

UDontKnow 10450

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, AtticusFinch said:

I dont think it matters.  I prefer the Yankees only bc home field, bigger national interest, and they strike out a lot and we have a lot of strikeout pitchers 

Well the Yankees are proceeding to blow their newfound homefield advantage in royal fashion. Good God, Severino picked quite a day to go full retard.

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Stros

Stros 153

Posted
Posted
I'm trying to decide who I'd rather face in the ALCS.  Looking at their team stats, I honestly think it doesn't matter.  After Severino, none of the Yankee starters scare me at all.  And the Red Sox have a potent 1-2 in Sale and Price, except that Price is a nuclear meltdown in playoff games.
It don't make a shit?

I want the best team possible.
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UTexasFight

UTexasFight 9528

Posted
Posted

STARK!!!!

 

The Astros are back in October, and even better than you realize.

CLEVELAND – It probably hasn’t dawned on you yet what you’re watching. That might be because you haven’t been watching the 2018 Houston Astros at all.

They just played their Division Series games at lunchtime, so TV could get them out of the way so they wouldn’t upstage (ahem) The Main Event. Because they’re not the Yankees. They’re not the Red Sox. They’re not the Dodgers.

They’re just the defending World Series champions. That’s all. But really, it’s not. If that’s all you think the 2018 Astros are, Alex Bregman would like a word.

How good is this team? How potentially historically great is this team?

“To be honest with you?” the Astros’ effervescent third baseman said Monday, after his team had finished decimating the Indians, 11-3, to finish off an ALDS sweep. “Think about it, OK? [José] Altuve goes down. [George] Springer goes down. [Carlos] Correa goes down. And we won 103 games, OK?

“If those three don’t go down and [they] play a full season,” Bregman said, staring three members of the media right in the eyeballs, “we’re looking at the most wins in the history of the game.”

It’s hard to say what reaction Bregman expected. Maybe enthusiastic agreement. At the very least the sight of his audience’s heads nodding up and down.

Instead, however, he got laughter. Not acceptable.

“No. Honestly,” he said, emphatically. “I’m being honest here.”

More laughs. So he glanced around the room. He caught the eye of the Astros’ director of pro scouting, Kevin Goldstein, who had just wandered into the conversation.

“Am I wrong?” Bregman asked Goldstein, and everyone else within earshot, before he literally began shouting. “AM I WRONG?”

More laughs.

“You’re wrong,” Goldstein told him, finally. “But I love you.”

“Nobody says right,” Bregman muttered, then turned to Goldstein yet again. “Would we have the most wins in the history of the game if those three don’t go down?”

“Whatever you say is right,” Goldstein conceded, not totally seriously, with the knowledge he was dealing with a man it’s very hard to say no to.

“So it would be the most,” Bregman said, once he had that opening, “since when – the 1927 [freaking] Yankees?”

All right, let’s introduce some quick facts here. It would not have been the most wins since the 1927 [freaking] Yankees. They “only” won 110. The correct answer would have been the 2001 [freaking] Mariners and 1906 [freaking] Cubs. Who won 116 each.

But now that we have that out of the way, we’re not sure he’s wrong in concept. Because the 2018 Astros are special. And here’s where we point out how special they are, with the assistance of The Athletic’s stats-and-info guru, Katie Sharp.

—These Astros finished the regular season with a plus-263 run differential. Amazing. That’s the third-best differential in the 58-year era of 162-game schedules – behind only the 1998 [freaking] Yankees (plus-299) and 2001 [freaking] Mariners (plus-300).

—But wait. We mentioned the Astros are the defending World Series champions, right? So that run differential also happens to be the greatest by a defending champion in over seven decades – since Joe DiMaggio’s 1942 [freaking] Yankees put up a plus-294.

—Finally, speaking of defending champions, the Astros won 101 games last year on the way to the World Series parade, then came back and won more games this year (103). That, ladies and gentlemen, is incredibly rare and incredibly difficult. In fact, only two other teams have ever done that (i.e., win 100-plus, win the World Series and then win more games the following season). That would be those ’42 Yankees again and Connie Mack’s 1930 Philadelphia A’s.

Year Team W L Next Yr W Next Yr L Result
2017 HOU 101 61 103 59 ?
1941 NYY 101 53 103 81 Lost WS
1930 PHA 102 52 107 45 Lost WS

Pretty cool company, wouldn’t you say? But now let’s point out something important that separates the 2018 Astros from those 1930 A’s and 1942 Yankees. When those teams won the World Series, the entire postseason lasted a week. One best-of-seven series. Thanks for playing. Have a great winter.

Nowadays, it doesn’t work like that. As you may have noticed, in the wild-card era, the postseason is a grueling four-week marathon – compounded by night after night of late starts, later finishes, high-stress at-bats and multi-time-zone travel. It takes its toll.

Why has no team in the wild-card era, other than the 1998-2000 Yankees, repeated? We repeat: It takes its toll. And it has taken its toll on this Astros team.

“These guys are banged up, man,” Bregman said. “There’s no way around it. “You see guys taking swings and grimacing. You see Altuve hitting a double and limping into second base. I mean, you all see it. It’s not like everyone feels great.

“When you play into November,” he said, his voice rising again, “we understand why it’s so hard to repeat. When you play into November, your body is banged up.”

As much as Bregman would love for us all to play his what-if game and add, oh, 20 theoretical wins to the Astros’ total in our heads, that game is impossible to play. But he does have a point.

The lineup they ran out there Monday in Game 3 against the Indians was the lineup they would have expected to play more than any other this year (aside from the DH, Tony Kemp). This was the lineup you would have read about in March in all the season previews:

Springer CF
Altuve 2B
Bregman 3B
Gurriel 1B
González LF
Reddick RF
Correa SS
McCann C

But you know how many games the Astros ran those eight guys out there in those spots during the entire regular season? That would be eight. Eight!

They also went two full months (June 26 to Aug. 26) without ever being able to write out a lineup card that included Springer, Altuve and Correa at the same time – and often included none of the above.

And they still won 103 games – with the third-best run differential in the expansion era.

Wow.

All of which is a long, detailed way of saying: You know what? Alex Bregman might not be wrong. Or, if we’re not going to go that far, we think it at least says this:

This is a team that won the World Series last year – and there’s an easy argument that it’s even better now.

“Yeah,” said Justin Verlander. “I think there is. I mean, obviously, the postseason is a little bit of a coin flip. The best team doesn’t always win, especially in a five-game series….But in my opinion, this is the most complete team in baseball.”

Statistically, it’s not the same group offensively. But if it could weather this many injuries and still win 103 games, “it just speaks to how good this team is,” Verlander said. “How deep it is. How talented it is. Like I said, I think we’re the most complete team in baseball. And that’s where it really shows.”

Across the room, Bregman ticked off the names of the impact players who weren’t even here a year ago: Gerrit Cole … Ryan Pressly … Roberto Osuna … Martín Maldonado. They’re all upgrades on the men they replaced, with all due respect to those men they replaced, men who helped them win it all.

And this team, with those players, just obliterated a really good Indians team. Held them to 13 hits in three games. Held them to zero hits in three games with runners in scoring position. Spun off back-to-back games (Games 1 and 2) of three hits allowed and double-digit strikeouts – something nobody had done to the Indians in consecutive regular-season games in 31 years.

But that’s just the pitching staff. Meanwhile, the Astros rolled out a lineup that hit a ridiculous .327/.421/.614/1.036 as a team in this series. And you don’t see that much – by which we mean ever.

That’s the best OPS any offense has ever had in a postseason series of any length. And that .421 on-base percentage is tied with the 1932 Yankees for the best OBP any team has ever had in a postseason series. Yeah, we said ever.

So that’s what these Astros have accomplished so far. Now they await whatever AL monster shows up next. Red Sox? Yankees? They don’t much care.

“I’ll just say,” Bregman said, with a knowing grin, “that if you like the game of baseball, if you like two of the best playing each other, you’re going to tune into the ALCS.”

But until you do, it probably won’t dawn on you what you’re watching. On one side of the field will be a team that won over 100 games. And on the other will be the defending champs, highly motivated to prove that someone else should have been playing this week at 1 in the afternoon – and even more motivated to prove they’re still the best baseball team on planet earth.

But seriously, is it really possible that the 2018 edition of the Houston Astros could actually be better than the team that just threw itself a parade last November?

“Well,” said Alex Bregman, “there’s only one way to find out.”

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UTexasFight

UTexasFight 9528

Posted
Posted

From the Stark article

Holy shit:

 

“This was the lineup you would have read about in March in all the season previews:

 

Springer CF

Altuve 2B

Bregman 3B

Gurriel 1B

González LF

Reddick RF

Correa SS

McCann C

 

But you know how many games the Astros ran those eight guys out there in those spots during the entire regular season? That would be eight. Eight!”

 

 

 

And that slash line I posted above?

 

“Meanwhile, the Astros rolled out a lineup that hit a ridiculous .327/.421/.614/1.036 as a team in this series. And you don’t see that much – by which we mean ever.

 

That’s the best OPS any offense has ever had in a postseason series of any length. And that .421 on-base percentage is tied with the 1932 Yankees for the best OBP any team has ever had in a postseason series. Yeah, we said ever”

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UTexasFight

UTexasFight 9528

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Posted

And Brisbee:
https://www.sbnation.com/mlb/2018/10/8/17953114/astros-alds-indians-alcs-yankees-red-sox-bregman-correa-altuve

The Astros absolutely flattened the Indians by acting like the Astros. They were the team we’ve gotten used to. There were no tricks, no misdirections, no aces up the sleeve. They were simply the Astros, just better.

To which we should respond, oh. Oh, cool. The Astros are better than ever. This is definitely not frightening at all. This is definitely not like the raptors figuring out a Rubik’s Cube in Jurassic Park 5, and everything is fine.

It’s the normalcy that should have everyone else worried. This Astros team didn’t need to use Charlie Morton for four innings of relief in a clincher. They didn’t need Lance McCullers, Jr. to throw 24 straight curveballs to win. They used starting pitchers, and those starting pitchers dominated. They trusted their regular hitters to take a lead, and they did. They would let the bullpen hold that lead, which they did. There were no surprise permutations, no “Guess what! Jeff Francoeur is on the postseason roster*! *we signed him on Aug. 31 when you weren’t looking.” The Astros are the Astros we expected, and it’s terrifying.

Think about the plan the Astros had for this season:

Have Justin Verlander dominate
Unlock Gerrit Cole’s full potential
Enjoy unprecedented rotation depth
Reach October without a wheezing, gasping bullpen
Produce at least one MVP candidate out of Carlos Correa, Jose Altuve, or George Springer
Employ 73 different gigantic, bald lumberjack-looking dudes who look like a dad that answers the door while his daughter is still getting ready
Only one of those plans was scuttled — the one about the MVP candidate. Except it turns out that Alex Bregman is that candidate,

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Bender Bending Rodriguez

Bender Bending Rodriguez 1693

Posted
Posted
8 hours ago, UTexasFight said:

And Brisbee:
https://www.sbnation.com/mlb/2018/10/8/17953114/astros-alds-indians-alcs-yankees-red-sox-bregman-correa-altuve

Brisbee is one of my favorite baseball writers and a great twitter follow. SF Giants homer, but genuinely funny dude.

His column during the World Series last year explaining the Astros, Harvey, and the city of Houston and their place in it was one of the most accurate depictions of Houston and its “culture?” that I’ve ever read from someone not from Texas. 

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Chuckie Finster

Chuckie Finster 22735

Posted
Posted (edited)

Meet Baseball’s Next Supervillain

There’s been plenty of hand-wringing about MLB’s lack of charismatic superstars, but Houston’s Alex Bregman is using the 2018 playoffs to make his heel turn

Alex_Bregman_getty_ringer.0.jpg

https://www.theringer.com/mlb/2018/10/9/17954828/2018-playoffs-alex-bregman-houston-astros-villain-star

Edited by Chuckie Finster
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runthebone

runthebone 8044

Posted
Posted
40 minutes ago, Chuckie Finster said:

Meet Baseball’s Next Supervillain

There’s been plenty of hand-wringing about MLB’s lack of charismatic superstars, but Houston’s Alex Bregman is using the 2018 playoffs to make his heel turn

Alex_Bregman_getty_ringer.0.jpg

https://www.theringer.com/mlb/2018/10/9/17954828/2018-playoffs-alex-bregman-houston-astros-villain-star

Bah gawd, that's Alex Bregman's music!

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Fudge Nuggets

Fudge Nuggets 19224

Posted
Posted
47 minutes ago, Chuckie Finster said:

Meet Baseball’s Next Supervillain

There’s been plenty of hand-wringing about MLB’s lack of charismatic superstars, but Houston’s Alex Bregman is using the 2018 playoffs to make his heel turn

Alex_Bregman_getty_ringer.0.jpg

https://www.theringer.com/mlb/2018/10/9/17954828/2018-playoffs-alex-bregman-houston-astros-villain-star

I've mentioned it several times to friends, family and acquaintances... if Bregman doesn't play on your team he's the kind of guy you would hate with a passion.  LMJ is probably another one.  Glad they're on our side.

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TexArcher

TexArcher 38068

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, Chuckie Finster said:

Meet Baseball’s Next Supervillain

There’s been plenty of hand-wringing about MLB’s lack of charismatic superstars, but Houston’s Alex Bregman is using the 2018 playoffs to make his heel turn

Alex_Bregman_getty_ringer.0.jpg

https://www.theringer.com/mlb/2018/10/9/17954828/2018-playoffs-alex-bregman-houston-astros-villain-star

Trevor Bauer is a heel.

Yasiel Puig is a heel.

Rougned Odor is a heel.

Alex Bregman is a badass.

And it's not just because he plays for my team.  Alex is cocky, but he also plays the game the right way and has a great sense of humor.

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Guadaloopy

Guadaloopy 11014

Posted
Posted
3 minutes ago, TexArcher said:

Trevor Bauer is a heel.

Yasiel Puig is a heel.

Rougned Odor is a heel.

Alex Bregman is a badass.

And it's not just because he plays for my team.  Alex is cocky, but he also plays the game the right way and has a great sense of humor.

This.  Alex keeps his displays off the field, just outside the actual action of the game.  He still respects the game.  Also, his swag is all team-focused, not Alex-focused.   

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FondrenRoad

FondrenRoad 4378

Posted
Posted
12 minutes ago, kevwun said:

He is a character, not a heel.  He's too likable to be one.

I was thinking the same thing, but as an Astros fan, its hard to be completely objective.  He seems like a player I would still like if he was on another team though.  Gurriel is a bigger heel, IMO, but his numbers aren't good enough to make it matter.  Even he is usually just having fun though.

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