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2019 Houston Astros Thread

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YChang

YChang 3444

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Just now, Iconoclast Texan said:

I am so fucking nervous. Have more nerves for this game than the ALCS and WS elimination games in 2017

Yeah. For me... my formative years as a Houston sport fans began in the 80s. Just so used to crushing disappointments with a few bright spots here and there. That switch just hasn't flipped for me like some of the other fans that are super confident—even when on paper the team is really really good, like the Stros this season.

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GHOSTUSER

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4 minutes ago, YChang said:

Yeah. For me... my formative years as a Houston sport fans began in the 80s. Just so used to crushing disappointments with a few bright spots here and there. That switch just hasn't flipped for me like some of the other fans that are super confident—even when on paper the team is really really good, like the Stros this season.

I am scarred for life from the Buffalo game. Was in high school and remember laughing and making plans with my Dad to go up to Pittsburgh to see the AFC Championship game after Bubba McDowell's pick 6 made it 35-3. If the Astros blow this, it will be an even bigger choke job. I am not ready to deal with that.

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Player

Player 4575

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27 minutes ago, Iconoclast Texan said:

I am scarred for life from the Buffalo game. Was in high school and remember laughing and making plans with my Dad to go up to Pittsburgh to see the AFC Championship game after Bubba McDowell's pick 6 made it 35-3. If the Astros blow this, it will be an even bigger choke job. I am not ready to deal with that.

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Somebody lock this bitch in the bathroom until after the playoffs. 

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Pimphand

Pimphand 5751

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Just now, Gut Wagon said:

Some would say the fact two underdogs already have advanced to the league title round means it won't be so bad if we lose tonight. I am not one of those people. Let's kick some tail.

We would usurp the Dodgers throne of best team to lose an LDS after only one day. This would be similar to the 2001 Mariners who won 116 games in the regular season then only won 1 game in the ALCS against a team that didn't even win the World Series. It would be in the discussion of biggest choke jobs in MLB history.

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TexArcher

TexArcher 37774

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I haven't even done the 15 minutes of actual work the guy in Office Space talked about.

I just keep day dreaming of Altuve hitting one off the arches, Bregman hitting one off the train, Yordan hitting one into the upper deck in right, and Cole putting a dozen guys on the pitching ninja videos.

We're gonna win, ya nervous bitches.

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YChang

YChang 3444

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7 minutes ago, TexArcher said:

I haven't even done the 15 minutes of actual work the guy in Office Space talked about.

I just keep day dreaming of Altuve hitting one off the arches, Bregman hitting one off the train, Yordan hitting one into the upper deck in right, and Cole putting a dozen guys on the pitching ninja videos.

We're gonna win, ya nervous bitches.

Hell yeah! 

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housious

housious 468

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1 hour ago, YChang said:

Yeah. For me... my formative years as a Houston sport fans began in the 80s. Just so used to crushing disappointments with a few bright spots here and there. That switch just hasn't flipped for me like some of the other fans that are super confident—even when on paper the team is really really good, like the Stros this season.

Glenn Davis and Mike Scott were my favorite baseball players when I was a kid. I don't keep up with the regular season these days, but my dad would make the three hour drive to the Astrodome for games 5 or 6 times a year. Needless to say, disappointment is the norm. 

That said, the Astros are winning tonight. 

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Johnny Sack

Johnny Sack 8397

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2 hours ago, Iconoclast Texan said:

I am scarred for life from the Buffalo game. Was in high school and remember laughing and making plans with my Dad to go up to Pittsburgh to see the AFC Championship game after Bubba McDowell's pick 6 made it 35-3. If the Astros blow this, it will be an even bigger choke job. I am not ready to deal with that.

Chiefs loss the next year was much worse. The 93 Oilers had a great defense.  

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GHOSTUSER

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3 minutes ago, Johnny Sack said:

Chiefs loss the next year was much worse. The 93 Oilers had a great defense.  

That's true. I was in college by then. The loss to Buffalo was more traumatic to my young psyche. I remember feeling like I was punched in the gut after the Chiefs game.

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Seasick Sailor

Seasick Sailor 3747

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How Gerrit Cole Went from So So to Un-hittable

By Travis Sawchik

 

Divisional Series – Tampa Bay Rays v Houston Astros – Game Two
Gerrit Cole struck out 15 batters in Game 2 of the American League Division Series.

BOB LEVEY / GETTY IMAGES

Gerrit Cole was always supposed to make hitters swing and miss. But there was a time when the No. 1 overall pick in the 2011 draft, with a 100 mph fastball in his arsenal, failed to meet expectations.

In his five years with the Pittsburgh Pirates, Cole hovered around average in strikeout performance. By FanGraphs’ strikeout rate “plus” (K%+) metric, which sets the strikeout ability baseline at 100 and adjusts for yearly strikeout environment, Cole’s first five years in the majors ranged from slightly below to slightly above average. Between 2013 and 2017, his K%+ rate fell between 91 and 118 percent.

But after the Houston Astros acquired Cole, his adjusted strikeout performance jumped to 156 in 2018, meaning he was 56 percent above the major league average. This year? His 176 mark is the best adjusted performance since Erik Bedard’s 2007 season. By raw totals, Cole’s 326 total strikeouts this season are the 14th most in a single season and the most since Randy Johnson’s 334 in 2002. He has continued to dominate into October, and will pitch in an elimination Game 5 on Thursday versus Tampa Bay.

So how did Cole go from being an unexceptional strikeout pitcher to the game’s best K artist, and perhaps a favorite to win the AL Cy Young Award? It’s a story about his fastball, a pitch that has transformed from a middling offering to the game’s best, according to FanGraphs run values.

“He’s essentially throwing laser beams, or as close to it as I’ve ever seen from a human,” said one MLB front office official.

The game has changed since Cole debuted in 2013. Back then, the Pirates were teaching pitchers to pitch to contact and were producing record ground-ball rates. But strikeouts have the benefit of keeping the ball out of play and out of the air, and those qualities have become more and more important as home run levels have risen and risen.

When the Astros sat Cole down for a meeting in February 2018, they outlined how they believed Cole could be a more dominant pitcher. Aided by heat maps, data and video, team officials explained that much of their plan was dependent upon Cole’s fastball.

The Astros showed Cole that his upper-90s, four-seam fastball was harder to hit up in the zone. They recommended that he scrap his two-seam fastball, typically thrown lower in the zone to try to create ground balls, and a pitch type that has been crushed recently.

He listened. Cole reduced the share of two-seam fastballs he threw — from 18.1 percent of offerings in 2017 to 0.4 percent this year — and targeted the upper portions of the strike zone, a move designed to stay above hitters’ swing planes.

Sawchik-ColeMLB-1009-2.png?w=575

Cole has generated 220 swings and misses on his fastball in the top third or above the strike zone this year, which is the most of the Statcast era. (Justin Verlander’s 185 last season is second.) In 2017, Cole produced 66.Another enhancement to his fastball was more curious: his dramatic spike in spin rate, which created controversy last season. Spin is important because more spin (transverse spin specifically) increases the Magnus effect, thus creating more movement — a larger rise on a fastball or break on a curveball. Spin and velocity lead to more swing and misses. While spin rate generally increases with velocity, Cole’s velocity has increased only slightly in Houston. It’s thought to be difficult to change spin-to-velocity ratio without using foreign substance, and some people believe that the use of sticky substances is widespread in baseball.

Sawchik-ColeMLB-1009-1.png?w=575

When I asked Cole last summer about his change in spin rate, he explained that Verlander had taught him how to get more “true rotation and hop” on his fastball. He has raised his vertical release point, and the spin axis of his fastball has changed slightly from 222 degrees in 2017 to 216 degrees with the Astros.

In 2017, Cole’s fastball averaged 8.79 inches of vertical movement, ranking 191st out of 295 starting pitchers, according to BaseballProspectus.com PITCHf/x leaderboards. This year, Cole’s fastball had 9.95 inches of vertical movement, ranking 32nd among 395 starting pitchers. He’s gained an inch of “rise” and 1 mph on his fastball. That might not sound like a lot, but even small gains can have large effects.

In 2017, Cole’s fastball ranked 41st among qualifying pitchers1 in whiff-per-swing rate at 21.6 percent, and he finished with a 4.26 ERA on the season. In his first year in Houston, Cole’s four-seam, whiff-per-swing rate jumped to 12th, at 29.3 percent, and his ERA dropped to 2.88. And this season, he led the majors in four-seam fastball whiff rate (36.9 percent) and finished with a 2.50 ERA. Batters have hit .171 against his four-seam fastball. He can now dominate batters in the strike zone with his fastball, not just with his swing-and-miss slider below it.

Cole, a free-agent-to-be, could lead the Astros to a second title in three years thanks in part to arguably the best pitch in the majors: a fastball that has become a laser beam.

 

 

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FondrenRoad

FondrenRoad 4378

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44 minutes ago, Johnny Sack said:

Chiefs loss the next year was much worse. The 93 Oilers had a great defense.  

The Oilers made playoff history for a lot of their opponents.

Elways "The Drive Part 2"

The Bills "The Comeback"

KC "Montana's Comeback"

Houston fandom has always been teeth gnashing.  Unlike Cleveland fans who hardly ever expect much out of their teams, the Oilers, Astros, and Rockets were usually good playoff caliber teams most years, and they'd almost always snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory.

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Beau Vine

Beau Vine 54230

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2 hours ago, Limp Brisket said:

We are winning this game.

No shit, some of y'all need to check to see if your nuts are still there.  If you're not confident in Cole vs anyone TB has, at home, then something's wrong upstairs.  And comparing the Astros team to the Pardee/Eddy Oilers.  GMAFB!

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Scraps

Scraps 13561

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No shit, some of y'all need to check to see if your nuts are still there.  If you're not confident in Cole vs anyone TB has, at home, then something's wrong upstairs.  And comparing the Astros team to the Pardee/Eddy Oilers.  GMAFB!
Always been a bunch of pussies on this thread yo
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Gut Wagon

Gut Wagon 8070

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44 minutes ago, CycleTex87 said:

The Death Star.  Fully operational.  Lining up on Alderaan as we speak.

I get the whole "battle-tested veteran" angle with Reddick, and I don't have a beef with starting him. He hit a rocket last game. But I do look forward to Tucker pinch-hitting at some point and driving in three big runs with a double to the gap. 

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thetruth

thetruth 149

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6 minutes ago, Gut Wagon said:

I get the whole "battle-tested veteran" angle with Reddick, and I don't have a beef with starting him. He hit a rocket last game. But I do look forward to Tucker pinch-hitting at some point and driving in three big runs with a double to the gap. 

Reddick catches shit for his bat, but I can't tell you how many balls I've seen him snatch going over the fence out there, I think fans vastly underestimate that. 

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Gut Wagon

Gut Wagon 8070

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Just now, thetruth said:

Reddick catches shit for his bat, but I can't tell you how many balls I've seen him snatch going over the fence out there, I think fans vastly underestimate that. 

Oh, for sure. He's an excellent defender. I'd like to think nobody from Tampa will actually get a ball that far into RF tonight, but there's obviously a chance Reddick could save the day. As noted, I don't have any criticism of starting him...I just hope Tucker can contribute in some way.  

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UTexasFight

UTexasFight 9450

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Reddick catches shit for his bat, but I can't tell you how many balls I've seen him snatch going over the fence out there, I think fans vastly underestimate that. 

Being able to reach up and touch 9-10’ high?
I think the difficulty of that is vastly overestimated.
A guy’s arm reaching 3’ above a 6’ high wall is no more impressive than that same guy’s arm reaching 6’ above a 3’ high wall.


Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely want him in RF at MMP tonight. He’s by far your best defensive option in rightfield as long as George is manning CF.
I just think people equate all balls caught above a wall as being equally difficult and impressive and I’d have to disagree with that
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