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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

UTexasFight

UTexasFight 9,380

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All these injuries and the A's are making me a bit nervous. Need a minimum of 3 out of 4 against Seattle. Hopefully a split at worst in San Fran. 

Not worried about the A’s.

They’ll hit a wall soon.
30-10 and best record since June 15, or whatever it is, isn’t sustainable even if they’ve gotten better with all of their moves in July.

I’m still going with the theory that the AL West 2018 is a lot like the AL West 2017. That is, Angels, Mariners and A’s take turns having white hot streaks (substitute Rangers for A’s in 2017) but Astros are still the cream of the crop.
Everyone was freaked out in April that the Angels were going to be there all season long.
Then the Mariners late May to mid-July
Now A’s.

Astros clinch the West on the final home game sept 23 (game 155).
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Hank Chinaski

Hank Chinaski 6,310

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1 hour ago, UTexasFight said:


Not worried about the A’s.

They’ll hit a wall soon.
30-10 and best record since June 15, or whatever it is, isn’t sustainable even if they’ve gotten better with all of their moves in July.

I’m still going with the theory that the AL West 2018 is a lot like the AL West 2017. That is, Angels, Mariners and A’s take turns having white hot streaks (substitute Rangers for A’s in 2017) but Astros are still the cream of the crop.
Everyone was freaked out in April that the Angels were going to be there all season long.
Then the Mariners late May to mid-July
Now A’s.

Astros clinch the West on the final home game sept 23 (game 155).

I generally agree, but it would be nice if all of our best players stopped injuring themselves...

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UTexasFight

UTexasFight 9,380

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“Just” a muscle strain is outstanding news.

Not picking up a baseball until September isn’t great but may not be the worst thing in the world...allows him to save his arm during August, build it back up in West Palm Beach or wherever in September and be ready to go out of the pen come October.
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thetruth

thetruth 149

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16 minutes ago, UTexasFight said:


Haha. Smart minds:
Text to a buddy: “Kinda like her in the catchers mask”

Reply: “Yep. A new Stros fan fettish was just born “

I went with the cute angle because it'd be weird to say she's fuckable if she dresses like a dude. 

And how in the fuck did that go out? 

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thetruth

thetruth 149

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10 minutes ago, perfectchaos007 said:

Our offense is so bad. We need Correa, altuve, and springer back 

Truth. People also forget about McCann. He's a leader, a decent hitter when you need one, and the best catcher we have. 

Last season AJ used the 10 day DL as a way to rotate guys to get rest. Seems like this year they're all there at once. I only bring this up because this way they're able to get these guy healthy late in the season, but if this were the post season they'd play through it. (McCann talked about doing the same last year in the post season)

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UTexasFight

UTexasFight 9,380

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Normally would hold off and post pregame tomorrow but likely to forget...

This is must read before DKs start tomorrow. 

tl;dr on his current hot streak since mid-June, he’s scrapped the cutter, throwing more 4 seamers up and in. May be opportunity to be even more dominant if he works on burying his slider again ala 2015

 

Location, Location, Location — How Dallas Keuchel is Trying to Get His Groove Back

 

The moniker “crafty” is doled out to just about any soft-tossing lefty, but in the case of Dallas Keuchel it is well-earned. Though he has not managed to reach quite the same peak he did in 2015, when he won the AL Cy Young award, he has been valuable in 2018 for the Astros, especially as of late.

In his last six starts, he is 5-1 with a 2.04 ERA. And in true “crafty” fashion, he is doing it by going deep into games (6.5 IP per start), weak contact (.565 OPS against) and very few strikeouts (5.6 K/9).

Not a lot of pitchers are able to perform the tightrope act of relying on weak contact without the help of strikeouts, but a few adjustments Keuchel has made in the last two months is helping him do just that.

LineBreak%403x-2.png

When Keuchel left the park on June 27, he did so with a 4.22 ERA having just given up six runs over 5.1 innings. Hitters had been feasting on his cutter all year to the tune of a .439 slugging percentage against it. Something had to change.

In his next five starts, Keuchel threw the pitch just five times, opting instead for his seldom used four-seamer. Keuchel has always adjusted his gameplan based on matchups, so there have been a few games where he has gone to the four-seam fastball more, but as you can see he has relied on it much more heavily as of late.

Brooksbaseball-Chart.png

In years past, the four-seamer got crushed. Batters wOBA against the pitch went from .387 to .340 to .311 over the past three seasons. This year, though, it is at just .269 — good for 14th-best in all of baseball and two spots behind Justin Verlander.

So, what changed? For starters, Keuchel is throwing his four-seamer one tick faster than he has the previous two seasons, although it is almost exactly the same as it was in 2015 when hitters had a wOBA of .387 against it.

The spin rate is essentially the same. The main difference has been his location. Take a look at where Keuchel threw his four-seamer from 2015-17.

Keuchel2015-17FourSeam.png

Now look at where it has gone this year.

Keuchel2018FourSeam.png

Instead of bearing in on the hands of right-handed batters (he uses the pitch almost exclusively to righties), Keuchel has chosen to elevate this season. The result has been a whole lot of foul balls. 22% of his four-seamers this year have been fouled off — up from 16% over the previous three seasons. After fouling off fastballs up but still having to worry about his go-to repertoire of pitches at the knees, Keuchel gets a lot of swings that look like this.

LineBreak%403x-2.png

Meanwhile, Keuchel’s favorite putaway pitch seems to have deserted him this year. When he won the Cy Young award in 2015, Keuchel had the fifth-most valuable slider among all major league pitchers. This season, it is next-to-last.

Again, the main difference here is location. Here is 2015.Keuchel2015Slider.png

And here is 2018.

Keuchel2018Slider.png

Not a lot of explanation necessary, here. When Keuchel is burying his slider, he is extremely effective. When he is leaving it in the middle of the plate, it is getting crushed.

Perhaps Keuchel is just trying to pound the strike zone or maybe hitters have learned to lay off the back-foot slider or more likely a combination of the two. The problem, though, is Keuchel is not even giving hitters the opportunity to chase this season.

  2015 2016 2017 2018
Whiff% 42 41.7 44.9 32.5
BB% 3.8 2.4 5.2 0

You read that right. Out of 454 sliders thrown this season, not a single one has resulted in a walk. Now, I’m not advocating for walks as a general rule but when hitters know Keuchel is refusing to bury his slider to the back-foot, they are able to tee off.

Interestingly, if you look beyond the surface level stats, Keuchel’s slider has not been nearly as bad as it seems. xwOBA paints a different picture.

  2015 2016 2017 2018
wOBA .145 .195 .230 .324
xwOBA .162 .221 .231 .235
Difference -.017 -.026 -.001 .089

As you can see, Keuchel’s slider is normally pretty close as far as actual results and expected results. This year this is a huge gap. By far the largestamong any pitcher on their slider this season.
LineBreak%403x-2.png

Keuchel, I am sure, is very aware of this. He makes many adjustments throughout the year, always looking for an edge. The question he and the Astros have to answer is whether or not his missing slider is due to location or bad luck. I would posit a little of both. If he can start burying that slider for strikeouts, even at the cost of a few walks here and there, and can continue to have success with his four-seamer, the Astros could have yet another serious weapon in their rotation.

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