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2018 Houston Astros Season Thread

Planet Houston

By Planet Houston
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TexArcher
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Bregs is going Crawford Boxes right here.

ERhine
ERhine

Prior to the footage being edited by Bender:

wesleywest
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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

WBT

WBT 20401

Posted
Posted
23 minutes ago, TonyTexas said:

Great job by the bullpen. McHugh has been ridiculous. 0.90 ERA and 0.78 WHIP in 40 IP. Hinch needs to include him on the All Star team.

 

He needs to be used in the playoffs just like he was tonight.  Come in for the 6th or 7th and finish the game.  Like how Huston Street and J Brent Cox were used at UT 

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HtownHorn

HtownHorn 14446

Posted
Posted (edited)
3 minutes ago, runthebone said:

Glad he got the job done tonight, good win.  

 

But Giles has only two one run saves.  Hinch has been protecting him with cheap saves. 

Protecting him from what? He has a 0.00 era in save situations.

 

Including tonight it's now 12 IP, 7 hits, 1 BB, and 16 K's

 

Though it appears that Hinch has settled in with a group 1 and group 2 of relievers.

Harris, McHugh, and Giles seemed to be grouped together, while Devenski, Rondon, and Peacock are together. Sipp pitches when his innings are almost useless.

Edited by HtownHorn
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UTexasFight

UTexasFight 9370

Posted
Posted

Though it appears that Hinch has settled in with a group 1 and group 2 of relievers.
Harris, McHugh, and Giles seemed to be grouped together, while Devenski, Rondon, and Peacock are together. Sipp pitches when his innings are almost useless.

Not sure I follow on the Sipp comment
Hinch called on him yesterday to try and protect a 3 run lead after Devo loaded the bases and only got one out.
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runthebone

runthebone 7929

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32 minutes ago, HtownHorn said:

Protecting him from what? He has a 0.00 era in save situations.

 

Including tonight it's now 12 IP, 7 hits, 1 BB, and 16 K's

 

Though it appears that Hinch has settled in with a group 1 and group 2 of relievers.

Harris, McHugh, and Giles seemed to be grouped together, while Devenski, Rondon, and Peacock are together. Sipp pitches when his innings are almost useless.

Hinch has put him in in the 9th inning 4 times in tie games and twice as of tonight with a 1 run lead.  4 times with a 2 run lead, 6 times with a 3 run lead, 4 times with a 4 run lead, and 4 times with a >4 run lead.  Maybe he is just getting him work, but it seems like he is using him in situations where he is likely to complete a game successfully.  I know he's not the true closer right now, but I think Hinch is protecting him.

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HtownHorn

HtownHorn 14446

Posted
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16 minutes ago, UTexasFight said:


Not sure I follow on the Sipp comment
Hinch called on him yesterday to try and protect a 3 run lead after Devo loaded the bases and only got one out.

It was a joke, in reference that most on this thread prefer Sipp be used only in blow out situations and even then in limited doses. He's pitched well this year for sure.

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UTexasFight

UTexasFight 9370

Posted
Posted
Great job by the bullpen. McHugh has been ridiculous. 0.90 ERA and 0.78 WHIP in 40 IP. Hinch needs to include him on the All Star team.
 

Hinch doesn’t have a say.
The players and commissioner’s office select the pitchers and reserves.

“The players choose the pitchers (five starters and three relievers per league) and then another set of position players as reserves. The commissioner's office selects four more pitchers per league, and three National League reserves and one American League reserve.”
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TonyTexas

TonyTexas 10478

Posted
Posted (edited)
2 hours ago, UTexasFight said:


Hinch doesn’t have a say.
The players and commissioner’s office select the pitchers and reserves.

“The players choose the pitchers (five starters and three relievers per league) and then another set of position players as reserves. The commissioner's office selects four more pitchers per league, and three National League reserves and one American League reserve.”

Didn’t realize that this changed last year. I understand the reasoning but still kinda sucks for this year. And maybe next year and the year after that. 

Edited by TonyTexas
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Gut Wagon

Gut Wagon 8052

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8 hours ago, UTexasFight said:

The AL West quietly (at least to me) has the best record in baseball.
4 teams currently over .500 and even the whipping boys from Arlington have the best record when compared to the other 5 cellar dwellers.

Houston: Best of the West

Arlington: First of the Worst

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TonyTexas

TonyTexas 10478

Posted
Posted
The AL West quietly (at least to me) has the best record in baseball.
4 teams currently over .500 and even the whipping boys from Arlington have the best record when compared to the other 5 cellar dwellers.

Astros are 27-10 against the the best division in baseball.
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Gut Wagon

Gut Wagon 8052

Posted
Posted
18 minutes ago, Hank Chinaski said:

Yeah, that sucked when Astros leadership identified the most rapid and efficient way to get the organization turned around and it culminated in a WS title. 

It was so much smarter to agonizingly come within a strike of winning a title, only to then see the inevitable death spiral that was their regression to the norm. Cheers.

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UTexasFight

UTexasFight 9370

Posted
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Let’s talk about our ace instead:


A peek behind the curtain at the revered preparation of Justin Verlander

A.J. Hinch has worked with his share of starting pitchers. His catching career spanned seven major league seasons and four teams. In parts of six seasons as a manager (the last four with the Astros), he’s deployed upwards of three dozen starters.

Perhaps it shouldn’t come as a surprise that Hinch regards Justin Verlander as “one of, if not, the most prepared pitchers that I’ve ever been around.” But it’s lofty praise nonetheless for his Astros ace of less than a year, the future Hall of Famer who on Sunday will be selected to his seventh All-Star Game.

It also helps explain how Verlander, in his age-35 season, remains one of the best pitchers in baseball. With a 2.12 ERA and .549 opponents’ OPS in 118 2/3 innings coming into his start Thursday night against the White Sox, he has a legitimate chance to surpass his 2011 AL MVP campaign (2.15 ERA, .533 opponents’ OPS through 151 innings) for his best career first half.

“For JV, it’s how deep he gets into his personal analysis and how he takes other people’s perspective and studies it prior to the game,” Hinch said of Verlander’s preparation. “It’s not so much about hours upon hours. It’s about the quality of the information. He has a great memory. He has a great eye when he watches video or when he looks at all of the information. His ability to dive deep into sequencing, it’s close to second to none. It’s been a notable strength of his.”

By the time he’s arrived to the ballpark three hours or more before the first pitch of a start, Verlander will have already formulated a general synopsis of that day’s opponent. He, like every other Astros starter, will get to his locker in the clubhouse to find a printout of the opposition’s lineup on his chair, placed there by pitching coach Brent Strom. Then he gets to work.

Wearing noise-canceling headphones and an intense glare that offers no illusion he’s looking for a conversation, Verlander will station himself in front of a computer and pore through video of every hitter he’s about to face. From then (roughly 4 p.m. for a 7:10 p.m. start) until the Astros’ pitcher-catcher meeting (usually around 5:40 p.m.) he seeks to unearth any possible nugget of information that could provide an edge during the game.

“It’s just research, man,” said Verlander, wary of giving away details that would squander any competitive advantage. “I look at myself. I look at how I’ve attacked certain guys in the past. I’ve looked at how other guys have attacked those hitters. I look at their numbers. I look at my numbers. I mean, I look at everything.”

After he convenes with that day’s catcher and Strom, Verlander slips into his uniform and gets stretched out. He’ll usually emerge from the dugout onto the field to begin his warm-ups roughly 40 minutes before first pitch.

The detail with which Verlander studies hitters before starts traces to 2013 or 2014, the years he battled injuries that threatened his career, when he could no longer rely on stuff alone. He started delving into analytics late in his 13-year tenure with the Tigers but has been able to take it to another level since joining the Astros, perhaps baseball’s most progressive team.

His high level of focus on start days dates to 2009, his age-26 season. After posting ERAs of 3.63 in 2006 (his Rookie of the Year campaign) and 3.66 in 2007 (his first All-Star season), he regressed to a 4.84 in 2008 “for no particular reason,” he said.

“In 2009, the first month of the season was much of the same. I wasn’t very good,” Verlander recalled. “I woke up in New York and was just sick and tired of sucking. I was angry. I was angry at myself. So, I was just in a really, really bad mood all day. [i had] the mentality of like ‘screw it. I’m just going to go out there and show everyone I can be good. I can be great.’ I didn’t want to talk to anybody. I was mad. So, I put my headphones on and the rest is history, I guess.”

In the three hours that precede his starts, Verlander gradually ramps up the intensity of the Pandora stations he listens to as first pitch nears. He will begin with the Red Hot Chili Peppers — “Kind of mellow but not too mellow,” he said — before moving to Eminem and then Chevelle.

“I think I realized, not necessarily from that start particularly, but over a little bit of time that I’m not somebody that can flip the switch, you know? I can’t just like come to the locker room and joke around and hang out and then all of a sudden when it’s time to go pitch just be focused,” he said. “I kind of need to be focused all day.”

Since that 2009 morning in New York he feels he’s gotten better at not waking up every fifth day “in a pissed off mood” but joked his wife, Kate Upton, might say differently. “I’m a little more on edge, I would say,” he said of his start days. When starting on the road, Verlander will eat lunch in his hotel room and might leave it before it’s time to go to the park only to get coffee.

“It just kind of builds throughout the day,” he said. “And when I get to the park, it’s like, ‘Okay, headphones on, focus on what I have to do to get prepared.’ “

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Posted

done.  Voted for Trout and Salvy Perez( sorry, i just like the way the mofo plays, and his team is shit now.)

 

Rest were Astros... and I'll admit on Natty players, I leaned on stats for some.

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Fozzz

Fozzz 152

Posted
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5 hours ago, Hank Chinaski said:

Yeah, that sucked when Astros leadership identified the most rapid and efficient way to get the organization turned around and it culminated in a WS title. 

Much preferred 2012-2014 when it was clear that we had a plan and were actively increasing talent in the system, than 2008-2010 when we were adrfit and merely trying to stave off the inevitable.  The Rangers have pissed away most of their valuable trade pieces and yet have a farm system that isn't anywhere as good as Houston's in spite of the moves Luhnow has been making since 2015 to acquire MLB ready talent at the expense of the farm.  Even if Houston's MLB team was as bereft of talent as the Rangers', the Astros would still be better positioned to win in the future by virtue of the depth of their farm.  Still, I don't think JD is a bad GM (he did what he had to do with those trades and things just didn't work out), but Luhnow and his team are in a whole other league. 

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Hank Chinaski

Hank Chinaski 6310

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42 minutes ago, Fozzz said:

Much preferred 2012-2014 when it was clear that we had a plan and were actively increasing talent in the system, than 2008-2010 when we were adrfit and merely trying to stave off the inevitable.  The Rangers have pissed away most of their valuable trade pieces and yet have a farm system that isn't anywhere as good as Houston's in spite of the moves Luhnow has been making since 2015 to acquire MLB ready talent at the expense of the farm.  Even if Houston's MLB team was as bereft of talent as the Rangers', the Astros would still be better positioned to win in the future by virtue of the depth of their farm.  Still, I don't think JD is a bad GM (he did what he had to do with those trades and things just didn't work out), but Luhnow and his team are in a whole other league. 

Absolutely. 2008 was the last hurrah of the Berkman/Oswalt teams, and the writing was on the wall in 2009. The 09-10 years were had no greater chance of winning anything of significance than the 12-14 teams, and they didn't seem to have any sort of plan at all. I argued vehemently in favor of a complete rebuild. People bitch about "tanking" but the club had no choice - we were in the unique position of having a bad (and relatively expensive) major league roster and a terrible farm system.  

People who bitch about "tanking" seem to think that there is something noble about spending money foolishly on players who won't really help much (see: Lee, Carlos). 

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BornOrange

BornOrange 1441

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Posted

 

3 hours ago, Hank Chinaski said:

Absolutely. 2008 was the last hurrah of the Berkman/Oswalt teams, and the writing was on the wall in 2009. The 09-10 years were had no greater chance of winning anything of significance than the 12-14 teams, and they didn't seem to have any sort of plan at all. I argued vehemently in favor of a complete rebuild. People bitch about "tanking" but the club had no choice - we were in the unique position of having a bad (and relatively expensive) major league roster and a terrible farm system.  

People who bitch about "tanking" seem to think that there is something noble about spending money foolishly on players who won't really help much (see: Lee, Carlos). 

And Drayton McLane wouldn't spend the money on draft picks to restock the minor league system.

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