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2018 Houston Astros Season Thread

Planet Houston

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Mez2

Mez2 4020

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6 minutes ago, henrygandorf said:

rangers rally back from 4+ twice to beat yankees and take series.

for those looking ahead, memorial day morning (here) is verlander @ german.

The only game I look ahead to is the next one, and it's the biggest game of the season?

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Mez2

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Sometimes you just have to sit back, enjoy the performance and admire the gift that is Justin Verlander's right arm. He's 35 years old, on the wrong end of the timeline for most professional baseball players, and yet here he is, 6-2 with a 1.08 ERA through 11 starts, spinning not just dominant results, but some of the best we've ever seen at the start of a season.

Actually, Wednesday's performance in a 4-1 win over the San Francisco Giantswas somewhat pedestrian, if you can call nine strikeouts and one run over six innings "pedestrian." Pitching on six days of rest, Verlander said, "I was probably a little rusty. But overall was able to execute pitches when I needed to against a really good lineup that makes you work hard."

 

View image on TwitterView image on Twitter
 

Justin Verlander has completed at least 6 IP and allowed 2 R or fewer in each of his last 9 appearances, the longest such streak by an Astros pitcher since Mike Scott's franchise-record 14 straight in 1986.

Scott won the National League Cy Young Award that season.

 
 

 

He has allowed 11 runs in 11 starts and has surrendered no runs or one run in eight of those outings. Realistically, he could be 11-0 with better run support, but the Houston Astros have been shut out twice when he has started and been held to one run two other times. (Verlander picked up a no-decision when he struck out 14 in eight scoreless innings against the New York Yankees.)

His rankings among MLB starters:

• First in ERA (1.08)

• First in WAR (Chris Sale led 2.9 to 2.8 entering Wednesday, but Verlander will pass him)

• First in innings (74⅔)

• First in batting average allowed (.148)

• First in wOBA allowed (.205)

• Fourth in strikeout rate (behind Max Scherzer, Gerrit Cole and Sale)

• Seventh in strikeout-to-walk ratio (6.20)

Now, for Verlander's place in history. The Astros are 32-18, so from our database at ESPN, I can search the best starts through 50 games since 2009.

2017

Ervin Santana: 7-2, 1.75 ERA

Dallas Keuchel: 8-0, 1.81 ERA

2016

Clayton Kershaw: 7-1, 1.48 ERA

Jake Arrieta: 9-0, 1.56 ERA

2015

Zack Greinke: 5-1, 1.48 ERA

Shelby Miller: 5-2, 1.48 ERA

Max Scherzer: 6-3, 1.51 ERA

2014

Adam Wainwright, 8-2, 1.67 ERA

2013

Clayton Kershaw: 5-3, 1.68 ERA

Patrick Corbin: 8-0, 1.71 ERA

Jordan Zimmermann: 8-2, 1.71 ERA

Clay Buchholz: 7-0, 1.73 ERA

2012

Brandon Beachy: 5-3, 1.77 ERA

2011

Jair Jurrjens: 6-1, 1.56 ERA

Josh Johnson: 3-1, 1.64 ERA

2010

Ubaldo Jimenez: 9-1, 0.88 ERA

Jaime Garcia: 4-2, 1.14 ERA

2009

Zack Greinke: 8-1, 1.10 ERA

From that list, two starts stand out: Jimenez in 2010 with the Rockies and Greinke in 2009 with the Royals. That was actually just 10 starts for Jimenez; in his 11th he spun a shutout, so his season totals through 11 starts were 10-1 with a 0.78 ERA. He had pitched 80⅓ innings -- six more than Verlander -- and allowed just one home run. Only four of the 11 starts had come in Coors Field, but that's four more than Verlander has made there.

 

Vintage Verlander

Justin Verlander ranks fourth in the divisional era (since 1969) in ERA through 11 starts to begin a season.

*Medlen began season in bullpen.
Source: Elias Sports Bureau
2010 Ubaldo Jiménez 0.78
2000 Pedro Martínez 0.95
2012 Kris Medlen* 1.04
2018 Justin Verlander 1.08
2009 Zack Greinke 1.10

 

That would be the low mark in ERA for Jimenez, although he'd run his record to 15-1 with a 2.20 ERA at the All-Star break and started the All-Star Game. Maybe the pitch counts hurt him -- he had four 120-plus pitch outings in those first 11 starts and his command, never a fine point of his game, deteriorated a bit after that. My editor, a diehard Rockies fan, says manager Jim Tracy also had a tendency to leave him in one inning too long. He still ended up with the best season ever by a Rockies starter: 19-8, 2.88 ERA, 7.5 WAR, third in the Cy Young voting.

Greinke's hot start landed him on the cover of Sports Illustrated, but that 1.10 ERA soon rose after a seven-run game in his 12th start and a six-run game two starts later. He settled back into a nice groove after that, and won the AL Cy Young Award, going 16-8, 2.16 for a bad Royals team. His 10.4 WAR via Baseball-Reference is still the highest since Randy Johnson's 10.7 in 2002.

Looking down the road, we can search on Baseball-Reference for best first-half ERAs. Here they are since 1933, when the All-Star Game debuted:

1. Bob Gibson, Cardinals, 1968: 1.05

2. Justin Verlander, Astros, 2018: 1.08

3. Bob Knepper, Astros, 1981: 1.15

4. Luis Tiant, Indians, 1968: 1.24

5. Red Munger, Cardinals, 1944: 1.34

6. Don Drysdale, Dodgers, 1968: 1.37

7. Nolan Ryan, Astros, 1981: 1.37

8. Hal Newhouser, Tigers, 1943: 1.38

9. Zack Greinke, Dodgers, 2015: 1.39

10. Vida Blue, A's, 1971: 1.42

To recap that top 10: We have three from the infamous pitchers year of 1968; two from World War II when there was a talent shortage; two teammates from the 1981 strike season in one of the best pitcher's parks ever (each had made just 11 starts); and then Verlander, another Greinke season and Blue.

 

EDITOR'S PICKS

 

That Blue season is one of my favorites of all time. He was in his first full season in the majors and didn't turn 22 until July. The All-Star break came late that year and he'd thrown a crazy 184 innings in 22 starts -- more than eight innings per start! He went on to win Cy Young and MVP honors, finishing with a 1.82 ERA, 312 innings and eight shutouts, and while he had a long career, he never came close to replicating that kind of dominance.

Can Verlander keep it going? Well, going back to last July 30 -- about the time he says he made a mechanical tweak -- he has made 28 starts including the postseason and is 20-4 with a 1.54 ERA and 230 strikeouts in 193⅓ innings. This stretch isn't just an 11-start hot streak.

I've seen skepticism on the ol' interwebs about Verlander's performance, mostly concerning his increased fastball velocity the past couple of seasons compared to 2013-15 (he's averaging 94.8 mph this year). Trevor Bauer may point to some special substance helping him with his grip.

Two things there: (1) This guy has had one DL stint in his career, for biceps tendinitis in 2015, the only season he hasn't started at least 30 games; (2) Remember that Verlander had core muscle surgery in January 2014 and he has said it really took a couple of seasons to fully recover from that. Plus, from 2009 to 2012, he threw more than 1,000 innings in four seasons (including the postseason). He's also averaging just 100 pitches per start this year compared to 116 back in his Cy Young/MVP season in 2011, so he can air it out a little more.

This is important as well: It's not unusual for great pitchers to do some of their best work at age 35. Steve Carlton had one of his best seasons in 1980, winning the Cy Young Award and leading the league in wins, innings and strikeouts. Randy Johnson won his first of four straight Cy Youngs with the Diamondbacks at age 35. Curt Schilling went 23-7 and struck out 316 batters. Roger Clemens (cough, cough) led the AL in ERA and won a Cy Young Award. Warren Spahn won 20 games -- and did so the next five seasons as well. Cy Young, Lefty Grove, Gaylord Perry, Jim Bunning, Kevin Brown, Greg Maddux, Nolan Ryan ... the list goes on and on.

Maybe that's the final takeaway from Verlander's start: He has been a great pitcher, he has his health, he has knowledge and experience, and he has better analytics at his disposal than he probably had with the Tigers. (Indeed, as our old friend Mark Simon pointed out at The Athletic, Verlander is getting more called strikes with his fastball this year because he's throwing it lower in the zone.)

It's an artist doing his best work. Appreciate the talent.

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Mez2

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I don't think so, I think there's too much history with him and Detroit. He won an MVP there as well as Cy Young. If he does that again AND possibly wins another WS, there may be some serious thought about it but he would go in as a Tiger and I wouldn't argue with him. 

Simply put, Justin Verlander can do whatever the fuck he wants. 

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Seasick Sailor

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Will Trevor Bauer-Gerrit Cole beef ever die? 'Not going to happen,' says one

 
Bob Nightengale, USA TODAY SportsPublished 11:42 a.m. ET May 24, 2018 | Updated 12:35 p.m. ET May 24, 2018
 
636627594202276454-pitchers.png

(Photo: USA TODAY Sports)

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Gerrit Cole and Trevor Bauer won’t bother to sugarcoat it: They can’t stand one another.

These two celebrated pitchers, former collegiate teammates at UCLA, still don’t talk to one another.

They refuse to even speak about one another.

They won’t even look at one another.

Now, they’ll have no choice.

For the first time in their professional careers, they’re scheduled to square off Sunday when the Houston Astros play the Cleveland Indians at Progressive Field.

Who knows, maybe when the game ends, they’ll exchange pleasantries, complement one another, and finally end this nine-year cold war?

Or maybe not.

“I would have to say the odds of the earth burning up are better than that,’’ Cal State Fullerton coach Rick Vanderhook, a former UCLA assistant, told USA TODAY Sports. “That’s not going to happen. It’s just not. They are opposites, just such complete opposites.

“Bauer was the professor. He did analytical stuff, trying to see how many revolutions the ball had, before they started paying these guys all this money to do analytics. Gerrit was the bear would just come out trying to throw 100 mph on every pitch.

 “And you don’t ever want to poke the bear.’’

There’s no known specific incident that triggered their feud when they were All-America pitchers at UCLA. Cole pitched every Friday night, reserved for the team’s ace. Bauer pitched on Saturdays. As juniors in 2011, they became the first collegiate pitchers from the same team to be picked first and third in the June amateur draft.

“They were not friends, but you’ve got to think they respected one another,’’ Vanderhook said. “Really, I think they made each other great by always trying to out-do each other. Whatever Gerrit would do on Friday, Trevor would try to out-do on Saturday.

“I can’t wait to see them go against each other now.’’

The difference in Cole and Bauer’s personalities is even more pronounced today. Cole regards himself as a traditional old-school pitcher, even at 27. Bauer is constantly tinkering in the pitcher's lab, either on his own or at Driveline Baseball, the Seattle-area training facility that strives to build harder-throwing pitchers.

 

Cole, married to the former Amy Crawford, sister of Giants shortstop Brandon Crawford, prefers a relaxing day at the beach with family. Bauer's lone-wolf mentality and affinity for developing and flying drones is now well-documented.

They even took different business approaches in arbitration. Cole filed and settled for $6.75 million. Bauer, trying to poke fun at the system, says he originally planned to file at $6,420,969.69, a wink and a nod to his online acolytes and the never-gets-old reference to marijuana and sex. 

He eventually filed for $6.525 million, and now donates the difference - $420.69 a day for 68 days with a final $69,420.69 payment to his 69 Days of Giving campaign.

Cole doesn’t bother with social media, letting his wife handle the family Twitter account. Bauer makes it part of his everyday life, and is unafraid to express his beliefs, no matter who he offends.

Bauer stirred up a Twitter war three weeks ago when he coyly accused the Astros of doctoring baseballs, believing pine tar was the secret ingredient behind their historic success the first two months of the season.

The Astros were furious, prompting Cleveland manager Terry Francona to even apologize. When Cole’s teammates explored why Bauer would even raise the issue, they learned all about baseball’s Hatfield-McCoy feud, believing the allegations were intended simply to tear down Cole’s success.

One Astros starter, speaking to USA TODAY Sports on condition of anonymity because he promised Cole he would not comment publicly, attributes Bauer's claims as "all jealousy" stemming from their collegiate days. 

"Now," the Astros pitcher says, "it's just killing him to see Cole having such a great year."

Well, considering the way both are pitching these days, they could actually become teammates again in two months with selections to the All-Star Game, requiring them to share the same clubhouse.

Can you say, awkward?

“They were never the best of friends,’’ UCLA coach John Savage says, “but I don’t think one guy sat there hoping the other guy would fail when he pitched. They were both Bruins, and respected the profession and the program.

“Just two completely different style of pitchers. Trevor was a scientist and Cole was the brute strength guy. But both power pitchers, both strikeout pitchers, and both highly, highly competitive people and self-motivated.

“You’re talking about the most prolific duo in UCLA history.’’

Gerrit Cole leads the AL with 101 strikeouts, in 67

Gerrit Cole leads the AL with 101 strikeouts, in 67 2/3 innings. (Photo: John Glaser, USA TODAY Sports)

Cole, acquired in January from the Pittsburgh Pirates, is having the kind of season Cy Youngs are made of, going 5-1 with a 1.86 ERA, striking out a major-league leading 101 batters in 67 2/3 innings. It’s the second-most strikeouts in history by a pitcher in his first 10 games with a new team, trailing only Randy Johnson of the 1998 Astros.

Bauer, who had his finest season last year - 17-9 with a 4.19 ERA - has kicked it up another notch this season. He’s 4-3 with a 2.35 ERA, striking out 73 in 65 innings, averaging a career-low 7.2 hits per nine innings.

“He’s certainly as good as I’ve seen him since he left UCLA,’’ said pitching guru Alan Jaeger, who has mentored Bauer since he was in ninth grade, predicting Bauer would be a multi-Cy Young Award winner. “His stuff is electric now. The life on his fastball is probably as good as I’ve seen. He has that reverse slider going.

“But still, of all the things I’ve seen in baseball, I’m not sure I’ve seen anything like his junior year in college. It was Cirque du Soleil. He was making the ball disappear.’’

Bauer, who skipped his senior year of high school when he enrolled at UCLA, went 13-2 with a 1.25 ERA his junior season, and set a school record with 203 strikeouts in 136 2/3 innings. He went 38-4 with a 2.36 ERA his three years, and still holds the school record for victories, strikeouts, and innings pitched. And yet was still considered the second-best pitcher on the staff behind Cole, 21-20 with a 3.38 ERA, who was bigger, stronger and threw harder.

“It was just a situation where Bauer came to us in January his freshman year, and Cole had already established himself that fall,’’ Savage said. “We just felt like Cole would lead us on Friday nights for three years and Trevor on Saturday. So, we left it that way.’’

Certainly, a factor in determining his Friday night ace may have also been Cole’s decision to snub the New York Yankees out of high school and go to UCLA. The Yankees were preparing to provide him a signing bonus for about $3 million when they selected him 28th overall in 2008 - the current system of hard draft slots did not yet exist - but Yankees scouting director Damon Oppenheimer said they never had a chance to submit an offer.

“It was stunning,’’ Oppenheimer said, “they never even listened to an offer.’’

“I couldn’t believe it,’’ said infielder Cody Decker, who led the Pac-10 with 21 homers playing in 2009 with Cole and Bauer, “none of us could. “We thought he was just posturing for the Yankees. What is he thinking? He walked over the first day and I thought he was the most arrogant kid I ever met.

“I said, “Dude, you’re not coming here. You’re getting offered like $4 million. This is a great school, but why don’t you just go.

“He said, “I’ll pitch here three years. Go first overall. And then sign for $10 million.’ And then he laughed. You know what, he did exactly that.’’

Well, close enough. Cole received an $8 million signing bonus, the largest given to an amateur at the time.

Bauer, selected two picks later by the Arizona Diamondbacks, received a $3.4 million signing bonus. He was traded a year later to Cleveland, in what could be described as a clash of personalities.

 “I keep up with Cole, and I know that he’s killing it,’’ said Decker, 31, now a first baseman with Class AAA Reno in the D-backs organization. “I like him a lot. But I can’t tell you I know Bauer. I spoke with Bauer one time, and I said, 'I’ll never do that again. I’m good. I got my fill for a lifetime.'

“So, I don’t want to say I’m rooting for Cole (Sunday), but I’m completely rooting for Cole. I would love to see Cole strike out 21 batters. And all on high spin-rate sliders.’’

Decker laughs, knowing that the Cole-Bauer duel may garner more attention for UCLA than Josh Rosen’s selection in the recent NFL draft. Why, even Cleveland rookie starter Adam Plutko, who toyed with a no-hitter until the seventh inning in Cleveland’s 1-0 victory Wednesday over the Chicago Cubs, can weigh in on the family feud. He was the Sunday pitcher in Cole and Bauer’s final season, two years later leading UCLA to the NCAA title.

“I think we’re all going to be checking that game out now,’’ Decker says. “If nothing else, it’s a fantastic, can’t-miss recruiting tool for UCLA. It’s going to have everyone talking.’’

Well, except for the two guys who want to bury one another, leaving their own legacy on this hostility.

“If you put these two guys in a room playing checkers,’’ Vanderhook says, “they’re going to bitch and moan at each other and pop off the whole time. So I can just imagine Sunday.

“I’ll tell you what, I’m going to home with a Coors Light, and enjoy every pitch.’’

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Gut Wagon

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1 minute ago, Seasick Sailor said:

I'd rather see Marwin in LF and Davis at 1B, but I guess it's time to see if Jake fixed anything in Fresno. He did hit a couple of homers down there.

One AB should be enough for him to either prove it or sit down.

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UTexasFight

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More pitcher pron:

https://www.sbnation.com/mlb/2018/5/24/17389196/houston-astros-pitching-stats-verlander-cole-morton-keuchel-mccullers

It’s May 24, and the Astros’ team ERA is 2.39
4
With almost two full months of the season gone, the Astros are pitching like a 12-headed Cy Young winner.
By Grant Brisbee@GrantBrisbee May 24, 2018, 2:17pm EDT

No, seriously, it’s May 24, and the Astros’ team ERA is 2.39.


I guess it’s my job to put words after that, but I shouldn’t have to. It’s absurd. It’s remarkable. It’s unsustainable. It’s hilarious. It’s terrifying. It’s May 24, and the Astros’ team ERA is 2.39. This would be a remarkable factlet about the 1968 St. Louis Cardinals, but even they couldn’t compete with the Astros. Their ERA was a lofty 2.50 after 50 games.

It’s May 24, and the Astros’ team ERA is 2.39.

In honor of this tomfoolery, let’s dig into some stats and find more factlets. I like factlets. And without having a ready-made list before I decide to write an entire column about Astros pitchers, I’m pretty sure I can find enough. We’ll start with the obvious ...

Of the pitchers with more than 15 innings pitched, the highest ERA is Dallas Keuchel, at 3.43

Look at this wastrel, bringing the team down every time he pitches. His ERA is the 27th-best in the American League, which is just appalling. What’s he worth according to FanGraphs’ WAR, almost a full win? Shameful.


Other than Keuchel, the two ne’er-do-wells on the staff are Tony Sipp, who has a 4.15 ERA in 8⅔ innings and Joe Smith, who has a 7.07 ERA in 14 innings. Besides those two relievers who have thrown hardly any innings, it’s Keuchel bringing up the rear. And, sarcasm aside, he’s been quite good, you know.

(Sipp’s ERA is 2.70 ERA in May, and Smith’s is 1.93, in case you were worried about how the Astros were going to make it through this.)

The entire Astros’ staff has a K/9 of 10.4 and a BB/9 of 2.5

There have been 68 pitchers in baseball history who have qualified for the ERA title with more than 10 strikeouts per nine innings and fewer than three walks per nine. The first was Sandy Koufax, who fashioned a 2.54 ERA in 1962, with a 10.55 K/9 and a 2.78 BB/9.

Which is another way of saying that through May 24, the entire Astros staff has been 1962 Sandy Koufax for every inning of the season.


But players weren’t striking out nearly as much back in ‘62, which makes Koufax’s numbers even more remarkable, so it’s better to move into the present day. It’s more helpful to think of the Astros through May 24 as being last year’s Stephen Strasburg (10.5 K/9, 2.4 BB/9, third place in NL Cy Young voting) for every inning of this season.

It’s like the Astros were a dumb thought experiment somebody came up with after too many edibles. “What if Stephen Strasburg were a robot and could pitch every inning, man? That’d freak people OUT.”

The Astros lead the American League in ground ball percentage

This isn’t a gobsmacking stat. It’s just to show how freaky and dangerous the Astros are. The old orthodoxy was that you could be a sinker guy or a strikeout guy, but you couldn’t be both. Sinkers were for inducing weak grounders.

Except the Astros have figured out a way to have their cake and throw it in your face, too. They’re not a sinker-heavy team. Even Charlie Morton, who made his name as Off-Brand Roy Halladay, Now With Sinkers! isn’t throwing his sinker nearly as much as he used to. Gerrit Cole has cut his sinker use from 18 percent to five percent since joining the Astros.

Which is to say that the Astros have figured out a way to strike hitters out with a contingency plan of getting them to pound the ball into the ground. It’s a combination of location and movement on nasty breaking balls, and it’s absolutely working.

The Astros have four of the top nine American League starters in swinging-strike percentage

This is probably the purest stat in the sabermetric ocean. Every swing starts as a hitter thinking, “I can hit this.” Every swinging strike ends with the hitter thinking, “Nope. I was wrong.” It’s such a great way to explain how often a pitcher does exactly what he wants to do.


And by this metric, the Astros have Justin Verlander, Gerrit Cole, Charlie Morton, and Lance McCullers doing what they want to do more often than everyone but five other starting pitchers in the American League. Morton has nearly doubled his swinging-strike rate since his days with the Pirates.

More substantively, this stat speaks to the Astros’ roster construction and the future of baseball. For the last couple of years, since the ‘14 Royals and the deification of Andrew Miller, all we’ve heard about is the rise of the super-bullpen and the old-school fireman. If you wanted a postseason juggernaut, you had to get two or three closers. Four, if possible.

The Astros are a reminder that the team that won the 2017 World Series was the team without a bullpen. Or, to rehash my own words ...

Last October, you could practically hear A.J. Hinch sobbing with regret during every trip to the mound. Instead of motioning to his left or right hand as he walked out, he would simply become a human shrug emoticon. By the end of the World Series, I was half expecting him to not stop at the mound and continue walking, through the open center field gate, out of the ballpark, and straight down the middle of the highway, cars honking and swerving to avoid him, until he reached the ocean, any ocean, and slowly walked underneath the waves, where there are no relievers.
They didn’t need the super bullpen then. And they didn’t chase one in the offseason, instead doubling down on the idea that Starting Pitchers Are Important, Actually. It seems like a more sustainable strategy in the regular season, and we already have a proof of concept for the postseason, especially if there’s a chance that Dallas Freaking Keuchel isn’t one of the Astros’ four best starters.


Also, their bullpen is a strength again anyway, with the lowest ERA and FIP in the American League. That doesn’t seem fair.

The Astros’ relievers haven’t needed to throw a lot of innings, either

The Brewers’ bullpen is a huge strength, and it’s one of the reason they have the best record in the National League. However, they’ve thrown a combined 188⅔ innings. The Astros have thrown 127⅓. This is extremely important when you think about why the Astros’ bullpen was a mess in October. It wasn’t because Ken Giles or Chris Devenski were bad pitchers; they were just gassed. The starter-forward philosophy of this year’s team should help them avoid another white-knuckle postseason.

The corollary to this stat is that the Astros have thrown 20 more innings than any other team in baseball and 35 more than the second-place AL team, the Red Sox. While it’s only fair to be worried about the fatigue of the starters if we’re going to crow about the lack of bullpen use — and the Astros do lead the world in pitches thrown by a starter — they have an assortment of starters who weren’t ground into a fine dust last year, which is a rarity for a team that played an extra month. McCullers threw only 139 innings. Morton threw 170, and Keuchel thew 173. Cole didn’t have the extra month, so he topped out at 203.

Verlander threw 242 innings, but he’s an alien.


We’ll go back to a word we used in the opening paragraph, just to temper expectations: unsustainable. No, the Astros aren’t really going to finish the year like a 12-headed Cy Young finalist. Someone will stumble, and someone else will pull something. There will be balls that fall in, and there will be series where it seems like they can’t get anyone out. It’s still baseball, after all.

But it’s my duty to inform you that it’s May 24, and the Astros’ team ERA is 2.39. That’s hilariously appalling and horribly amusing. They’ve been doing it in a variety of ways, with a variety of pitchers, and it’s all working perfectly right now.

I’m not sure if the smart bet is for them or against them, but we might as well appreciate it while it lasts.

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