2018 Houston Astros Season Thread

[cabowabo 4685]

Has there been any studies as to the effectiveness of the shift? I see just as many balls hit in the vacated areas as I do hit to the shifted area.

[Tommy Nobis 905]

Has there been any studies as to the effectiveness of the shift? I see just as many balls hit in the vacated areas as I do hit to the shifted area.

PM Jeff Lunhow

[Limp Brisket 549]

Well, shit

[Tommy Nobis 905]

I for one can’t wait until Dallas is no longer an Astro

[ckhorn 226]

1 minute ago, Tommy Nobis said:

I for one can’t wait until Dallas is no longer an Astro

Nice Avatar

 

[Tommy Nobis 905]

Nice Avatar
 

Had that avatar last year to and you know what happened. So why not this year to?! Nomsayin’?

[Rockethorn1978 6205]

Dk sucks now. Hope he can get it back before the postseason because we need him.

[Seasick Sailor 3747]

46 minutes ago, cabowabo said:

Has there been any studies as to the effectiveness of the shift? I see just as many balls hit in the vacated areas as I do hit to the shifted area.

Yes

Baseball Therapy: How To Beat The Shift

Russell A. Carleton

May 22, 2018

SHARE:   

Last week, MLBAM delivered a lovely surprise to those of us in the baseball research community. You (yes, you!) can now get data on infield and outfield positioning, on a pitch-by-pitch basis, from the Baseball Savant website, specifically whether The Shift (infield or outfield) was being played. Up to this point, the only shift data that had been publicly available was provided by Sports Info Solutions (formerly Baseball Info Solutions), and it was only available at the plate appearance level (and only in the aggregate), and then only for balls that had been put into play (i.e., no home runs, no walks, no strikeouts, no hit batters).

I’ve written extensively on that SIS data, and about two years ago I found myself asking the question: “How many home runs were hit in front of The Shift?” It seems like a silly question because if the batter hit the ball over the fence, there aren’t any defenders back there (and certainly no infielders) so The Shift shouldn’t make a difference. But I thought it was an important question. While the infielders aren’t going to catch a fly ball hit over the fence, does the infield shifting lead to the pitcher throwing differently? Maybe The Shift kinda freaks him out?

Even the data that we did have told a different story than the usual narrative about The Shift. Sure, there are those plays where the batter hits the ball past the place where one of the fielders would otherwise have been, but there were supposedly more balls that The Shift snags than it lets through. But I didn’t find that. I found that in front of The Shift, batting average on balls in play (BABIP) actually went up slightly, once we accounted for the fact that the guys who tend to be shifted have lower BABIPs overall.

Or so I thought.

In March of this year, Mark Simon (formerly of ESPN, now with Sports Info Solutions) presented data at the SABR Analytics Conference that suggested the truth was a little more complicated. SIS–who provided the public data that I had been using–counted as a “shift” both the times when there was a third infielder on one side of the field (which is what most people generally picture when they hear “shift”) and times when there was an infielder (usually the shortstop) playing well out of position (mostly shaded very much up the middle) even though he hadn’t crossed the imaginary line in the middle of the field.

Simon suggested that when you broke shifts into these “full” and “partial” categories, the problem was that the “partial” shifts weren’t very effective, but the full shifts were. If teams were guilty of something in their shifting, it was soft-pedaling it. If you’re going to shift, lean all the way into it.

But there were other warning signs that The Shift might be a mirage. That same SIS data showed that for plate appearances in which the ball was hit into play, there was a spike in the number of balls (as in ball one, ball two, etc.) in the count. Because walks specifically weren’t counted in that data, it wasn’t possible to directly tie shifting to an increase in walks, but if there are more balls in the count, that’s a pretty good piece of evidence that something’s going on. And it’s probably going wrong.

Well … now we can answer a lot of those questions.

Warning! Gory Mathematical Details Ahead!

To start, the Statcast data seems to use the same formulation that SIS did in classifying two different types of shifts, and as we will see, they do perform differently. Data was available from 2015-2017. (The 2018 data is available on an ongoing basis, but I wanted to work with full-season data.) First, a little sanity check. Here’s a chart comparing the total number of partial (Statcast calls them “strategic”) shifts versus how many full shifts were reported in 2016 and 2017 by SIS and Statcast. Consistent with how SIS reports them, I selected only for plate appearances that ended with a ball in play (no walks, no strikeouts, no hit batters, no homers).

	Partial/Strategic Shifts		Full Shifts
Year	StatCast	SIS	StatCast	SIS
2016	9,970	12,287	15,686	16,924
2017	9,799	13,992	13,507	14,456

(Note: Data from SIS is from Simon’s presentation at SABR Analytics.)

We see that Statcast is a little more conservative in calling something a shift, particularly among partial shifts, so we are dealing with somewhat different definitions of what “counts.” Still, we’ll go with what we have.

First, let’s look at the shift as a defense against batted balls. In theory, that’s the entire point of what The Shift is supposed to do. In the past, using SIS data (but the version that didn’t differentiate between partial and full shifts), I found evidence that The Shift actually (slightly) increased BABIP over what we might expect, based on the hitters who get shifted. Part of the problem with doing any sort of analysis on The Shift is that it’s a very select group of hitters seeing the weird alignment. Obviously they are chosen because they have extreme pull tendencies, at least when they hit ground balls. But they also tend to be big, slow power hitters. It’s not a good idea to compare their performance to a league-average BABIP. They’re not likely to hit for a high BABIP because they tend to get the type of hits that aren’t counted by BABIP (homers) and fewer of the cheapies that inflate BABIP a bit (infield hits).

To correct for this, I looked at all hitters who had at least 100 plate appearance without The Shift. If a batter had a .300 BABIP without The Shift, then in the 200 plate appearance that he got in front of The Shift–if The Shift was exactly as good a defense against batted balls as a standard two-right/two-left alignment–we would expect 60 hits from him. If The Shift is a better defense, we’d see fewer than 60. If it’s worse, we’d see more. Now, we know that because of small-sample-size weirdness, you can’t always trust the results you’d get from this sort of analysis on an individual level. But if we sum across the league, we can get a good idea on how The Shift is doing in the aggregate.

Shift Type (2015-2017)	Expected Hits (BIP)	Actual Hits (BIP)	Difference
Partial/Strategic (n = 24,446)	7,462	7,516	+54
Full (n = 26,616)	7,958	7,746	-212
Total (n = 51,062)	15,420	15,262	-158

And if you want to see the real effect of this, here are singles per plate appearance in front of both types of shifts.

Shift Type (2015-2017)	Expected Singles	Actual Singles	Difference
Partial/Strategic (n = 38,733)	6,123	6,129	+6
Full (n = 49,502)	7,103	6,610	-493
Total (n = 88,235)	13,326	12,739	-487

In the Statcast data set, we see that BABIP (and singles) go down in front of The Shift overall, but there’s a difference between the Partial Shift and the Full Shift. The Full Shift seems to reduce BABIP by about eight points. This is consistent with what SIS found in their own data set, and their recommendation was that teams should dispense with half-measures and just do the Full Shift. It seems to be the better defense (and a better defense than the two-right/two-left variety), at least at defending batted balls.

It seems like a victory for The Shift, but that’s where things start to fall apart. BABIP has its uses, but it’s not the same thing as success. The point of the defensive team is to turn batters into outs. For that, we need (and now can calculate!) on-base percentage.

Shift Type (2015-2017)	Expected On-Base Events	Actual On-base Events	Difference
Partial/Strategic (n = 38,733)	12,549	12,823	+274
Full (n = 49,502)	16,380	16,646	+266
Total (n = 88,235)	28,929	29,469	+540

Uh oh. There are fewer outs recorded in front of The Shift (both kinds) than we might expect. It’s worth about seven points of on-base percentage for the Partial Shift and five points for the Full Shift. If you’re wondering what’s going on:

Shift Type (2015-2017)	Expected Walks	Actual Walks	Difference
Partial/Strategic (n = 38,733)	2,951	3,216	+265
Full (n = 49,502)	4,310	4,884	+574
Total (n = 88,235)	7,261	8,100	+839

(Blink.)

(Double blink.)

(Yes.)

We see that the Full Shift “took away” 493 singles, but it somehow gave back 574 walks. It seems that the primary effect of The Shift is to change the way that a batter reaches first base, and it seems that he is standing on first base more often. You can’t throw him out if he gets to walk there.

There’s more to it. In a previous piece, I suggested that one of the reasons The Shift might persist is evidence to suggest that hitters were pulling the ball less in front of The Shift, and since most power is pulled power, perhaps this would suppress home runs. (There was direct evidence that doubles and triples were slightly reduced.)

Shift Type (2015-2017)	Expected HR	Actual HR	Difference
Partial/Strategic (n = 38,733)	1,148	1,104	– 44
Full (n = 49,502)	2,019	2,086	+67
Total (n = 88,235)	3,167	3,190	+23

It seems that the Full Shift tends to increase homers (by a bit), while the Partial Shift suppresses them (by a bit). In reality, it’s mostly a wash, but that’s a story unto itself. I hypothesized that The Shift persisted because it was actually a trap that made hitters go away from their power. No such thing actually happens, according to this data. (The extra-base hit chart–not shown here–tells a similar story, with both types of shift showing a slight uptick in doubles and triples over expectations. The Shift is not a power-sapper.) If it were, it might claw back enough value to make the whole enterprise worth it, but it doesn’t do that.

Let’s roll this into a simple linear weights model and see what the final score is.

Shift Type (2015-2017)	Expected LWTS runs	Actual LWTS runs	Difference
Partial/Strategic (n = 38,733)	9 (yes, 9)	127	+118
Full (n = 49,502)	657	856	+199
Total (n = 88,235)	666	983	+317

In this set of plate appearances (players who had at least 100 non-shifted plate appearances, when they are facing The Shift), the average team has a net loss of about 3.5 runs a year through their shifty ways. The Shift ends up being a net negative for the defense (in the aggregate … hold on to that prepositional phrase).

***

When I started using this method, Ben Jedlovic (then of Sports Info Solutions), suggested a possible flaw in my methodology, which was that in selecting players who had received 100 plate appearances in a non-shifted situation, I was leaving out the guys who were prime candidates for The Shift. This is the part of the article where I drop in the name Chris Davis, who almost exclusively sees shifts when he comes to the plate. (see also: Ortiz, David).

So, what I did was to run the analyses “backwards.” I looked for hitters who had seen a Full Shift (three on the right side) at least 250 times during the season in question. These are going to be the guys who are the most pull-happy and the ones for whom The Shift was designed. I then looked at what happened to them when they did occasionally face the (presumably inferior?) two-right/two-left defense. If The Shift is superior, we should see their outcomes getting worse as teams go to the inferior defense. I used this group’s performance against The Shift as a baseline for expectations and then looked at their performance when no one shifted them.

Outcome (n = 9,975 PA)	Expected Number	Actual Number	Difference
Strikeout	2,096	2,055	-41
Walk	1,078	906	-172
HBP	108	100	-8
Single	1,182	1,461	+279
Double/Triple	505	477	-28
HR	479	474	-4
Outs in Play	4,526	4,502	-24
Linear Weights Runs	209	267	+58

Here we see that for our particularly pull-happy players, when a team removesthe third infielder from the pull side, singles go way up, which is what we would expect. So The Shift is effectively doing its job. We also see, though, that taking away that third infielder actually suppresses extra-base hits and, again, walks. But this time, when we look at linear weights, we see that for this group, going to an inferior defense makes them 58 runs better overall (in the slightly fewer than 10,000-plate appearance sample we have). For this group, The Shift is a perfectly reasonable strategy.

But what about the group that’s not quite as shift-able? Below is table of linear weights runs. Again, the “Expected Number” refers to how well we would expect the sample to perform, based on how they perform in front of a Full Shift. The “actual number” is their actual performance when they see what is supposed to be an inferior defense, the standard formation of two-right/two-left. If the actual number is higher than the expected number, that means the standard defense is allowing more runs (which is bad for the defense). If the actual number is lower, it means the standard defense is preventing more runs.

When we group batters by how often they see a Full Shift, we get:

Group	Expected LWTS runs	Actual LWTS runs	Difference
250+ Full Shifts (n = 9,975 PA)	209	267	+58
200-249 Full Shifts (n = 9,194 PA)	176	116	-61
150-199 Full Shifts (n = 9,385 PA)	137	114	-23
100-149 Full Shifts (n = 13,623 PA)	518	269	-249
50-99 Full Shifts (n = 44,590 PA)	612	502	-110

Even for the group that encounters a lot of full shifting (the 200-249 shifts group), they seem to perform worse when facing the standard defense than they do against a shifted defense. To give some sort of perspective on this, in the three years in the data set, there were just over 60 player seasons in which a batter saw more than 250 Full Shifts (and it was mostly the same names over and over). This means the standard defense is the better choice for all but the most severe pull hitters.

(A few addenda: To check myself, I ran the same types of analysis from the pitcher’s perspective and found the same story over and over. Pitchers in front of The Shift give up fewer singles than we would have expected, but they walk more hitters. I also ran these analyses using a log-odds ratio setup, which simultaneously models the batter’s and pitcher’s odds of a certain outcome happening. The same finding kept coming up over and over. The Shift reduces singles, doesn’t do all that much to power outcomes, and adds an avalanche of walks.)

The Power of Listening

Ever since The Shift became “a thing” there’s been a fairly universal reaction among pitchers. When asked about it, pitchers often talk about how The Shift made them uncomfortable. It was rarely put into words further than that, perhaps because pitchers didn’t want to give away any strategic edge through the media, or perhaps because they didn’t quite know how to put it into words. But the data shows that maybe we should have been listening to the pitchers.

It seems that hitters have already figured out the best way to beat The Shift. Let the pitcher walk you. The walk penalty isn’t something that’s been publicly discussed when it comes to The Shift. However, it turns out that it’s effectively swallowing all of the benefits that The Shift was supposedly granting. While The Full Shift is good at preventing singles, batters have just found another way to get to first base. Maybe we should have listened harder to the pitchers.

The data here doesn’t say that The Shift should be abandoned. It’s hard to make recommendations on an individual level here. Remember, all of these analyses are in the aggregate. But we do come away with one guiding principle. The threshold for when a shift should be used should be very high. It should be practiced only on those hitters with the most extreme pull tendencies. There should probably be a few thousand shifts per year, league wide, and they should all be against the same 20 or so guys. And those guys should be bunting against The Shift anyway.

For what it’s worth, I don’t think this means the end of The Shift. I’m no “play the game the right way” iconoclast when it comes to The Shift as a strategy, and even if I were, teams would still do it if it works. I’m just not so sure it actually works.

The fact that one of the major problems with The Shift is walking hitters suggests perhaps pitchers might be trained in some sort of counter-measure (maybe they’re nibbling too much?). Maybe pitchers whose game is to fill the strike zone are less prone to the walking penalty. And maybe they’re safer to shift in front of. There might be other markers of hitters that change the calculus enough to make them worth shifting. There’s a lot of ground still to cover, but going forward The Shift needs to be understood in the context of these findings.

The infield shift has a nasty side effect that makes the treatment worse than the disease in most cases, and until that side effect is better understood, The Shift should be used very cautiously.

 

Edited May 31, 2018 by Seasick Sailor

[cabowabo 4685]

Stupid play by Gonzalez.

[Tommy Nobis 905]

Stupid play by Gonzalez.

Marwins not an outfielder. When is our manager gonna learn?

[YChang 3566]

Bah...

[Jshep34 2425]

Jake now at 99 at bats, has struck out 49 times. 

[Mo Horn 8937]

I know there are ups and downs during a season, but with the bullpen turning wins into losses, our offense hot and cold, and every break seeming to go against us, it's not much fun to watch right now. I got spoiled quickly.

[Dr. Teeth 5868]

24 minutes ago, Jshep34 said:

Jake now at 99 at bats, has struck out 49 times. 

 

[Limp Brisket 549]

14 minutes ago, Dr. Teeth said:

 

Can he pitch relief, too?

[ckhorn 226]

It would have been nice  to have resigned Beltran another year. Could use a guy like that right now on the bench. He was a great influence on these young players last year.

Also, I hope the way Hinch is coaching is for the long haul. A lot his moves so far have been questionable. Seems like he is over managing.

[Helobious 9817]

Well I guess I won't be posting in here again unless these teams meet up in the postseason. Looking forward to an ALCS rematch, if you guys make it that far. 

[Seasick Sailor 3747]

13 minutes ago, Helobious said:

Well I guess I won't be posting in here again unless these teams meet up in the postseason. Looking forward to an ALCS rematch, if you guys make it that far. 

And if you guys make it out of the wild card game.

[Planet Houston 4950]

16 minutes ago, Helobious said:

if you guys make it that far. 

[DaysOff 8198]

Well I guess I won't be posting in here again unless these teams meet up in the postseason. Looking forward to an ALCS rematch, if you guys make it that far. 

Cunty

[UTexasFight 9809]

Keuchel is on pace to lose 20 games...on a team that is on pace to win 100.

[cabowabo 4685]

The loss today I can digest. Severino is a witch, and I pretty much assume every Keuchel start is a loss now. It makes yesterday's loss more maddening. At some point, you have to consider putting McHugh is the starting rotation and put Keuchel in the pen. 

[DaysOff 8198]

I'm pissed about yesterday not today.

[ckhorn 226]

We are in great shape. Offense will come around and Hinch will figure things out. We have one of the best records in the league with a bunch guys under performing. Look for Luhnow to make some tweaks during the season and then the Yankees will be our post season bitches again.

[HtownHorn 15231]

14 minutes ago, cabowabo said:

The loss today I can digest. Severino is a witch, and I pretty much assume every Keuchel start is a loss now. It makes yesterday's loss more maddening. At some point, you have to consider putting McHugh is the starting rotation and put Keuchel in the pen. 

What did Keuchel do wrong today? He got a ground ball that is an out on 29 other MLB teams.

He has pitched 74 innings so far this season, and the offense has supported him with 35 runs during those innings. 9 out of his 12 starts, the offense has scored 2 runs or fewer while he was pitching. The other 3 starts 29 runs in his 21 innings of work. The boom/bust nature of this offense is a bigger reason he's 3-7 as opposed to his performance.

Edited May 31, 2018 by HtownHorn

[UTexasFight 9809]

Yes this week has sucked and this team definitely has some holes it will need to fill but we all need a big dose of perspective every now and then.

Keuchel is fine. Not great, not poor. Just fine.
And that’s fine on this 2018 team so far. His biggest “issue” may be that he’s part of a rotation that has three guys that could very well start the all star game right now if there were enough spots.

So far this year he has a 3.65 ERA and a 1.23 WHIP. That is EXACTLY his career average for those two stats.
The problem is he’s battling expectations of matching 2015 and/or the start he had last year in his walk year.
Unfortunately, he’s backed up to his overall career average when other guys in the rotation we weren’t expecting to be as lights out are blowing past him.

And all of that is fine...for now. Maybe not so much if Morton, Cole, JV come back to earth.

But for a dose of perspective, it still blows me away that our starters the last six days in May 2017 were:
Keuchel
LMJ
Musgrove
Peacock
Fiers
Paulino

Last year we rode some career offensive years by a few guys to a title (with some clutch pitching mixed in when it mattered). This year maybe we ride some career years on the mound by a few guys to a title (with some clutch offense when it matters). It don’t make a shit to me.
That’s part of what I love about this game.

[Mez2 4047]

Maybe we have our left handed specialist outta the pen already on the team and his name is dallas keuchel

[Guest]

9 hours ago, UTexasFight said:

Keuchel is on pace to lose 20 games...on a team that is on pace to win 100.

In 4 of his losses, Houston scored 1 run. In one of those, they were shut out. Projecting that across a season is just as much an indictment of the team, which may be valid too.

 

The last 2 by Keuchel were shit games, for sure.  Altuve forgot how to hit( LOL) for a couple weeks too.  There may be just the right peer pressure and surrounding talent to turn Dallas around.

 

 

Edited May 31, 2018 by slorch

[Gut Wagon 8219]

It’s all well and good to call out management for not adding a key piece before the deadline. But less than a year later, you’d better be pulling your own weight. 

[Scraps 13798]

Lol at all the Keuchel hate. 

 

[Scraps 13798]

Not sure how many of you, if any, are memorabilia collectors but I found a pretty good deal on an authenticated Kyle Tucker bat that you may want to pick up now if you think he is gonna be worth a shit in the majors because it won't be this cheap again.  

https://www.fanatics.com/Kyle_Tucker_Houston_Astros_Fanatics_Authentic_Autographed_Rawlings_Blonde_Big_Stick_Bat/t-14990807+o-1254+d-31664437+f-3772652+z-9-114146052?_s=GPA_CA&sku=9789849&targetid=pla-299684801902

 

Also there is a Tristar show coming up July 6-8 - just waiting to see the list of people who will be there, but I am sure many Stros will be in attendance again.  So yall will be able to go get your Keuchel autographs  

Edited May 31, 2018 by Scraps

[Smax 3800]

10 hours ago, Helobious said:

Well I guess I won't be posting in here again unless these teams meet up in the postseason. Looking forward to an ALCS rematch, if you guys make it that far. 

says the bandwagoner of a team who isnt even leading their division

[Mez2 4047]

2 hours ago, Smax said:

says the bandwagoner of a team who isnt even leading their division

Harlingen doesn't have a team, so it's next best option

[Rimbo 27002]

Meanwhile, in Pittsburgh...

https://mediadownloads.mlb.com/mlbam/mp4/2018/05/31/2100917783/1527726593462/asset_2500K.mp4 

I'm gonna side with Joe here. Still love that guy.

 

 

that said they can have cole back over my cold dead body

[MAROON 446]

I wish Joe had put one upside Rizzo's head afterward.

[Seasick Sailor 3747]

 

[Hank Chinaski 6348]

2 minutes ago, Seasick Sailor said:

 

Am I the only one who would rather see Davis than Marisnick? It's difficult to describe how awful Marisnick has been at the plate this year. But a 51:1 K:BB ratio pretty much describes it.

[Gut Wagon 8219]

3 minutes ago, Hank Chinaski said:

Am I the only one who would rather see Davis than Marisnick? It's difficult to describe how awful Marisnick has been at the plate this year. But a 51:1 K:BB ratio pretty much describes it.

I think Hinch is the only guy who disagrees with you. Unfortunately, he's the only guy making out lineup cards. 

It's not that Jake will never have another surge with the bat. It's just that if said surges represent 5 percent of his opportunities, we're in for (more) long stretches of  offensive ineptitude with this guy. Let's just move on.  

Edited May 31, 2018 by Gut Wagon

[MAROON 446]

5 minutes ago, Hank Chinaski said:

Am I the only one who would rather see Davis than Marisnick? It's difficult to describe how awful Marisnick has been at the plate this year. But a 51:1 K:BB ratio pretty much describes it.

agree completely.  I think Jake should only be called upon as a 9th inning defensive replacement. I think right now you can make a strong argument that he is the worst offensive player in MLB (not counting pitchers), although Chris Davis is trying like hell to get in the conversation.

[HtownHorn 15231]

Hinch resting his best players playing the best teams in the AL is retarded. He knew this stretch was coming, and could have gotten these guys rest before this stretch. McCullers going need a shutout tonight to have a shot at winning with this lineup.

[UTexasFight 9809]

So after tonight, all of the big names have had their night off, correct?

It’s nice of Hinch to allow Fresno to take the bottom half of the batting order tonight and test their skills against the best team in baseball.

[HtownHorn 15231]

8 minutes ago, UTexasFight said:

So after tonight, all of the big names have had their night off, correct?

It’s nice of Hinch to allow Fresno to take the bottom half of the batting order tonight and test their skills against the best team in baseball.

Altuve has played in every game this year.

[Mez2 4047]

kemp and jaKe need to flip flop. i seriously don't understand why we're playing marisnicK at all, jaKe marisnicK is terrible at batting. 

[Player 4610]

19 minutes ago, HtownHorn said:

Hinch resting his best players playing the best teams in the AL is retarded. He knew this stretch was coming, and could have gotten these guys rest before this stretch. McCullers going need a shutout tonight to have a shot at winning with this lineup.

Agreed. He could have allowed guys to take a night off against Oakland or Arlington, or waited until we got past the toughest stretch of the season. 

[Fozzz 152]

20 hours ago, Dr. Teeth said:

 

Hopefully this will get Tucker going.  His power has been pretty disappointing this season, especially for the PCL.  

[WBT 20966]

22 hours ago, cabowabo said:

Has there been any studies as to the effectiveness of the shift? I see just as many balls hit in the vacated areas as I do hit to the shifted area.

Nah, all of MLB is just winging it

[TonyTexas 10741]

Agreed. He could have allowed guys to take a night off against Oakland or Arlington, or waited until we got past the toughest stretch of the season. 

This is the 10th game of a 13 consecutive game streak. Just happens to fall against tough opponents. Baseball season is a marathon not a sprint.

[Hank Chinaski 6348]

1 hour ago, Fozzz said:

Hopefully this will get Tucker going.  His power has been pretty disappointing this season, especially for the PCL.  

I went to the game in ABQ last night...both HRs were crushed, about 420' to right-center. Granted, ABQ is basically like playing at Coors Field, but he mashed both. And yeah - hopefully his power bat starts to heat up.

Also, AJ Reed is still fat. 

[UTexasFight 9809]

Altuve has played in every game this year.

Yeah, but for Altuve getting to DH and not play to field is his night off.-

[huge 3831]

Pomerantz is abjectly terrible