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2018 Houston Astros Season Thread

Planet Houston

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Hank Chinaski

Hank Chinaski 6310

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10 hours ago, TonyTexas said:

For you McCutchen dreamers, it looks like he could be going to the Yankees. They must not be comfortable that Judge is coming back.

 

God fucking damnit. Predictably, the Yankees got him for next to nothing, a 23 year old with a wRC+ of 83 in AAA. 

Why we weren't interested in trading a shitty prospect for Andrew McCutchen is fucking beyond me. Makes no goddamn sense. 

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TexArcher
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Bregs is going Crawford Boxes right here.

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HtownHorn

HtownHorn 14468

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2 hours ago, Hank Chinaski said:

God fucking damnit. Predictably, the Yankees got him for next to nothing, a 23 year old with a wRC+ of 83 in AAA. 

Why we weren't interested in trading a shitty prospect for Andrew McCutchen is fucking beyond me. Makes no goddamn sense. 

Also has a .812 OPS against LHP, against whom the Astros still struggle. What's crazy is the Astros allowed McCutchen to pass through waivers and go to the Yankees.

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Hank Chinaski

Hank Chinaski 6310

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1 hour ago, HtownHorn said:

Also has a .812 OPS against LHP, against whom the Astros still struggle. What's crazy is the Astros allowed McCutchen to pass through waivers and go to the Yankees.

Yeah that's the other part - the Yankees or Indians were going to get him if the Astros didn't. You know, our direct competitors in the AL. 

He's clearly an upgrade in LF. How much of an upgrade is the question; here is a comparison:

Astros LF: .240/.320/.396; 99 wRC+; 1.6 WAR

McCutchen: .255/.357/.415; 115 wRC+; 1.8 WAR

So his offense has been clearly better. His OBP is better than everyone in the lineup except Bregman and Altuve (and White and Kemp, though they haven't had a full season of PAs). 

I just don't get why you'd balk at trading a couple of C-level prospects for a clear upgrade. Shit we gave up a much better prospect for Francisco Liriano last year. 

Grrrrr.

 

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ckhorn

ckhorn 208

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14 hours ago, Guadaloopy said:

I don’t get your point.  If it upsets him to get relieved by the lefty specialist, he needs to hit his spots and get the job done himself.   

Really! Baseball much. It doesn't take a smart man to figure out  that replacing Sipp and Harris for Verlander aren't equal. Upton had a great at bat against Verlander. JV isn't scared of Ohtani. This wasn't the issue anyway. The freaking hitting is the main reason. The dude should have at least 17 wins by now if we would score some runs when he pitches. This like the 1980"s Nolan Ryan all over again.

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UTexasFight

UTexasFight 9376

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His high K rate with a 3.23 ERA makes me wonder about his control. But he evidently has a gun. Have any of you seen him pitch? 

Saw him in Round Rock earlier this year when Fresno came through.

I remember running in to a co-worker at the game who commented on being distracted early in the game chasing around his kids but then hearing this “pop” over and over and wondering “who is THAT?”

 

He has MLB stuff but the question on him has always been can he control it.

I posted earlier this month when his name came up as a possible LMJ rotation replacement that he’s the kind of guy that can take a no-hitter in to the 6th inning every time out...or not make it out of the first inning.

 

they’ll talk about it tomorrow, I’m sure, but he had a career re-birth after getting treatment for sleep apnea a year or so ago which he credits with adding 3-4 mphs to his fastball as a result of getting better sleep

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UTexasFight

UTexasFight 9376

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Athletic article on James from back in May


How a sleep apnea diagnosis led to a breakout for Astros prospect Josh James

Explanations for velocity increases from year to year aren’t always clear. Perhaps a pitcher adjusted his mechanics. Maybe he used the offseason to work himself into better physical shape or was simply healthy after previously battling injuries. Often, it’s some combination of these factors.

The unique story behind Josh James’ velo spike doesn’t neatly fit into any of the above categories. The 25-year-old Astros minor leaguer didn’t overhaul his delivery or drastically alter his workouts or his diet. So why does his fastball, which a couple years ago sat 89 to 93 mph, now regularly touch 98?

James, who has quickly risen from an unheralded former 34th-round draft pick to a legitimate reliever prospect for Houston, attributes his ability to throw harder to better quality sleep. The 6-foot-3, 220-pound righthander was diagnosed with sleep apnea the offseason before last, and addressing the disorder, he says, correlates with his breakout.

James, whose fastball now sits 94 to 96 mph, struck out 41 percent of the batters he faced in Class AA this season before the Astros promoted him Sunday to Class AAA, where he’s scheduled to debut Thursday in Fresno’s game at Las Vegas. He began throwing harder last year, his first year sleeping with the assistance of a breathing mask, but his velocity increase has been even more pronounced early in 2018. On April 29, in his final home outing for Corpus Christi, the stadium scoreboard radar gun flashed a 100.

“I feel like I’m still brand new to throwing hard,” James said. “It’s like every day I’ll go out and I’ll throw and I’ll feel sore and I’m like, ‘Man, in this next outing, I don’t think I’ll be able to hit 95.’ And then I come out and it’s coming out pretty good. It’s definitely interesting.”

Apparently, this is the new normal for James, an intriguing arm the Astros have developed as a starter but whose inconsistent delivery will likely result in him being a reliever. The story of how he discovered he had sleep apnea traces back to 2015, when his roommate with low-Class A, a pitcher named Ryan Thompson, complained of James’ intolerable snoring and encouraged him to get it checked out by a doctor.

During his 2016 season in high-Class A , James felt exhausted, his velocity lagged into the high 80s and he began to gain weight. As a result, James decided to see a sleep specialist in his offseason hometown of Fort Lauderdale, Fla. He underwent a sleep study that he said revealed he was waking up almost 30 times a night when lying on his back and another 15 or so when on his side.

“It wasn’t necessarily eyes open,” James said. “It was just I wasn’t getting into my REM sleep.”


(Photo: Charlie Blalock)
Though surgery to repair his deviated septum was suggested, James opted to try sleeping with the assistance of a CPAP machine (Continuous Positive Airway Pressure), a common means of therapy for sleep apnea that features a mask. He wears the mask to bed every night, he said, and tried to use it even on the long overnight bus rides in the Texas League.

Vastly improved, mostly uninterrupted sleep has James much more energized and in better moods, he said, and also has eliminated his previous need to nap during the day. The CPAP machine is attached to an app that generates a report on his sleeping, and James said now he wakes up maybe only once or twice a night.

“I just wanted to stop snoring and see if I could get some better sleep and not feel as bad,” he said. “(I’m) unbelievably energized. Even sleeping four or five hours with the machine is 10 times better than sleeping 10 hours without it.”

While acknowledging it’s difficult to draw a straight line from treating sleep apnea to throwing harder, multiple sleep experts vouched for the viability of James’ explanation.

“Particularly if you’re affected during your slow-wave sleep (also known as deep sleep), that’s when your growth hormone gets released, so your ability to gain strength can be affected. Your ability to stay focused is going to be affected. Your ability to do things like repeat mechanics, locate — all of that’s affected because essentially you’re just chronically sleep deprived,” said Dr. Scott Kutscher of the Stanford Sleep Medicine Center. “So while there is very little research on the effects of sleep apnea directly on things like performance (in baseball), we know based off what happens with sleep deprivation that there is certainly a significant impact on performance.”

Dr. Christopher Winter of Charlottesville Neurology and Sleep Medicine in Virginia echoed a similar sentiment. “Performance is not only being able to perform and throw hard,” he said, “but it’s also being able to get your body ready over the next couple days to throw hard again.” He added he believes sleep apnea is underdiagnosed among baseball players.

“I’ve seen the reverse several times — I know other doctors have, too — where a young pitcher is slowly losing velocity and nobody can really figure out why,” Winter said. “Sleep apnea is one of those things where it kind of slowly creeps up on you.”

James’ velocity spike last year caught him by surprise. His new-found ability to blow a fastball by hitters has changed everything. When he’s throwing strikes, his mid-80s slider and his mid-80s changeup are more effective than before. Repeating his delivery has long been the biggest deficiency for James. His consistency in that area has improved but remains a work in progress.


Photo by Charlie Blalock
Drafted in 2014 out of Western Oklahoma State College, James is an example of what Astros officials have termed “a Jim Stevenson special.” Stevenson, the team’s amateur scout for north and west Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Kansas, has advocated for a number of under-the-radar players at Oklahoma junior colleges the Astros have drafted in recent years. Outfielder Ramon Laureano and righthander Dean Deetz (Northeast Oklahoma A&M) and third baseman Abraham Toro (Seminole State College) are among the most notable in addition to James.

As a 34th-round pick, James received only a $15,000 signing bonus. A native of Hollywood, Fla. who also spent a lot of his childhood in the Virgin Islands, his parents’ birthplace, James first enrolled at Division II Barry University in Miami. After pitching only five innings in his year there (he allowed six earned runs), he left to go the JuCo route. A former summer ball coach of his in the Virgin Islands connected him with Western Oklahoma State College coach Kurt Russell. Stevenson saw James pitch only a few times there in his draft year but liked the pitcher’s durable, athletic build and fast arm enough to encourage the Astros to take a late-round flier.

James has a 3.66 ERA in 364 professional innings dating to June 2014. He spent full seasons in low-Class A in 2015 and high-Class A in 2016 before last year reaching Class AA, where he had a 4.38 ERA and was limited by injuries to only 76 innings. He had a 2.49 ERA in 21 2/3 innings for Corpus Christi to begin this season before the Astros bumped him to Class AAA.

Even though his snoring issue has dissipated, James’ reputation has proved difficult to shed. Before the start of the minor league season, he had to assure his Class AA teammates it was okay to room with him on road trips. Eventually, he recruited fellow righthander Brock Dykxhoorn and later righthander Akeem Bostick.

“It took some convincing,” James said, “to get that done.”

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UTexasFight

UTexasFight 9376

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To the “move him down in the lineup” crowd (for the record, I’m with Hinch on this one):

Since being activated on Aug. 10 after missing nearly six weeks with a lower back injury, Correa entered Friday hitting just .162 with one home run in 77 plate appearances. However, Hinch said he isn't planning to take any drastic measures with the former All-Star, such as moving him down in the lineup.

"He can work through this," Hinch said of Correa. "Every hitter has done it. I think talent wins in the end. If I need to tweak a thing or two or give him a day off, I will. But rushing to that ... might change the function of our team, and it may not change it for the better. I don't know that that's necessarily the answer."

Hinch said he wasn't aware of any lingering physical issues with Correa, adding that he's confident the slump is poised to end.

"Carlos is relentless in his work, and in the fundamentals of hitting," Hinch said. "The hits are coming. They're going to come in bunches. He's certainly somebody that we're going to rely on down the stretch to put up some numbers."

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