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2019 Houston Astros Thread

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rvm96

rvm96 1643

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1 hour ago, HtownHorn said:

and the discussion is not about them. It's about filling out the bullpen with guys better than Devenski, Harris, James, Rondon, Perez, and Guduan such that Osuna and Pressly have plenty left in the tank for October.

Will Harris has been fine other than a couple hiccups recently 

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henrygandorf

henrygandorf 29189

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2 hours ago, HtownHorn said:

and the discussion is not about them. It's about filling out the bullpen with guys better than Devenski, Harris, James, Rondon, Perez, and Guduan such that Osuna and Pressly have plenty left in the tank for October.

except i was responding to specific blown saves stats. that implies pressly/osuna but shouldn’t. 

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9 hours ago, runthebone said:

It's nice to see how leaders like Bregman treat Alvarez.  There is no bullshit--he is a teammate, and it is all about winning. 

I was a little disappointed the veterans on the team couldn't pull off the silent treatment on the dinger.

 

 

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Js1

Js1 85302

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10 hours ago, tx 3 putt said:

Yordan Álvarez becomes the 7th Astro to homer in MLB debut, joining:

2017 - Derek Fisher

2016 - Teoscar Hernández

2014 - Jon Singleton

2008 - Mark Saccomanno<<

2003 - Dave Matranga<<

1987 - Ken Caminiti

>>Only career HR

 

i wonder what Jon Singleton is doing ?  Besides getting high 

CSB / Mark Saccomanno was once my substitute teacher in sophomore chemistry in high school up in Spring.  Getting that extra cash to supplement the minor league money.  About 4 years before he got that call up. 

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henrygandorf

henrygandorf 29189

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1 hour ago, tx 3 putt said:

Bregman stepped up for the call ups day 1, especially with the press 

he had a horrible series, I wonder if he’s pushing himself too hard on carrying the team ?

besides a few notable exceptions, bregs and brantley have been struggling since our guys went down.  we've been holding this thing together with duct tape.

and by duct tape, i mean reddick, straw, fisher, chirinos, miley, cionel, etc.  probably some luck mixed in as well.

we're still 8-2 to start our 33 game stretch leading to the asb.  18-15 was my internally set goal, and we'd have to go 10-13 to match that.

it's june 10th, and the last series we lost started in april.

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HtownHorn

HtownHorn 14676

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17 minutes ago, henrygandorf said:

besides a few notable exceptions, bregs and brantley have been struggling since our guys went down.  we've been holding this thing together with duct tape.

and by duct tape, i mean reddick, straw, fisher, chirinos, miley, cionel, etc.  probably some luck mixed in as well.

we're still 8-2 to start our 33 game stretch leading to the asb.  18-15 was my internally set goal, and we'd have to go 10-13 to match that.

it's june 10th, and the last series we lost started in april.

It also helps that we've played 3 teams with a combined winning percentage of 0.405, while outscoring them 47-42. Astros have been a little lucky as the run differential corresponds to a .556 winning percentage as opposed to .800

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henrygandorf

henrygandorf 29189

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Just now, HtownHorn said:

It also helps that we've played 3 teams with a combined winning percentage of 0.405, while outscoring them 47-42. Astros have been a little lucky as the run differential corresponds to a .556 winning percentage as opposed to .800

sure, but take away that one m's game, and you're left with 46-28.

assuming that's closer to accurate.

that said, i like seeing us win close/extra inning games.  especially with young guys.

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Hank Chinaski

Hank Chinaski 6314

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Fangraphs piece on Yuli, good read, hopefully he can snap out of it...

https://blogs.fangraphs.com/yuli-gurriel-may-be-trying-to-do-a-little-too-much/

Spoiler

Because his name is right there in the title of the piece, I won’t ask you to play that little game where I give you two anonymized batting lines and ask you to guess who they are, only to reveal that one is Yuli Gurriel and the other is the re-animated corpse of Ike Van Zandt or something like that. I’ll just give you two batting lines, both from Gurriel, and ask you to note the difference in quality between the two:

Yuli Gurriel’s Curious Slump
Seasons PA BB% K% wOBA
2016-18 1,274 3.9% 10.8% .329
2019 254 4.7% 10.2% .282

That 47-point drop in wOBA doesn’t really give you a sense of relative performance, so let me put this another way: Gurriel’s wOBA from 2016-18 fell into the 38th percentile among players with as many plate appearances over that span. Fine but hardly exceptional. His wOBA this year — again only among those players with as many trips to the plate — falls into the third percentile. Only José Ramírez (with a .262 wOBA) and Starlin Castro (.249) have done worse.

 

Curiously, though, Gurriel’s walk rate and strikeout rate have both improved — albeit modestly — even as his overall performance has suffered. Little else about his plate discipline numbers seems much different this year than last, either. Gurriel’s swing rate last year was 50.3%, and this year it’s 49.1%. Last year, he made contact 85.9% of the time. This year, he’s improved to 87.1%. The numbers don’t change much when you look inside or outside of the strike zone, either, and where they do change it’s often for the better. So what’s going on? I think a clue is in the kinds of strikeouts he’s getting. Here’s a chart that shows Gurriel’s swing rates on all the pitches he saw with two strikes from 2016-2018:

Capture1.png

And here is that same chart, but from this season:

Capture2-1.png

 

I’ll save you the effort of adding up the swing rates on all the pitches inside the strike zone and tell you that from 2016-18, Gurriel saw 348 pitches in the zone with two strikes and swung at almost all of them: 330, or 95%. Most of those were fastballs. Some of the time, he struck out. Other times, he made hard contact. This year, by contrast, Gurriel has swung at 63 of 71 such pitches, or 89%. That six-point drop might not seem like a huge deal, but it’s meant that a whopping 39% of Gurriel’s strikeouts this year have been looking, which is by far the highest figure of his four-year career (his career mark is 23.2%, and last year’s 29% figure was by 11 points a career high). It’s also meant that Gurriel has made less contact when behind in the count this year than ever before.

I’m not sure what to ascribe these changes to. One possibility could be a general discomfort at being called upon to play around the diamond more often due to injuries to George Springer, Carlos Correa, and José Altuve. On its face, that argument doesn’t make much sense: Gurriel played 46 games away from first base even last season, and put up perfectly acceptable offensive numbers, and he’s moved around the infield since his Cuban playing days. Perhaps, though, this season’s situation is different. This year, Gurriel is fielding different positions not because it’s the best matchup given the Astros’ opponents but because A.J. Hinch has to play him there due to injury. That could mean Gurriel is being put into game situations in which he’s not comfortable and to which he hasn’t been exposed before. And he’s perhaps thinking just a little bit too hard about what he has to produce there while his talented teammates recover from injury.

If that’s true, it could explain other changes to Gurriel’s game as well. Prior to 2019, Gurriels’ average launch angle sat right around 10 degrees, but that average masked a distribution that showed that about a quarter of his hits went straight forward on a line (a zero degree launch angle) while another quarter left the bat at about 20 degrees — just enough to get over the heads of the infielders and drop in for hits. This year, his average launch angle has increased — to 15.4 degrees — while the range of angles at which he hits the ball has narrowed. Almost gone are the balls hit straight on a line, and significantly diminished are the 20 degree knocks. More and more of Gurriel’s hits, as a percentage, are coming in that dangerous middle zone where balls in play are somewhat more likely to turn into outs. As a consequence, Gurriel’s .264 BABIP this season is the lowest of his career, even as his hard-hit and contact rates have stayed level.

Whatever the cause, things can really only go up from here: Gurriel’s -0.4 WAR is among the 10 worst in the league among qualified players. And there are, despite the poor results, a lot of things going right for Gurriel. His hard-hit rate, contact rate, strikeout rate, and walk rate suggest that his eye at the plate and his ability to do damage to the ball when he makes contact are all working just fine. Perhaps he is trying to lift the ball a little more than is necessary to do damage at the plate, and perhaps that approach — combined with a newfound passivity possibly born of a little bit of overthinking — has turned Gurriel’s performance this year on its head. If that’s the case, it can be remedied: Gurriel’s wOBA has been as low as this before and still rebounded:

Capture3.png

With a little perseverance, then — and perhaps a few more swings on strikes in the zone — he could be back to normal for the stretch run. And if this run of poor performance is the result of Gurriel trying to do a little too much at the plate? Well, maybe it’s all right to relax a little bit. All the evidence suggests that he and the Astros are going to be just fine.

 

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Rimbo

Rimbo 25917

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18 hours ago, tx 3 putt said:

Yordan Álvarez becomes the 7th Astro to homer in MLB debut, joining:

2014 - Jon Singleton

 

I somehow suspect Álvarez's career won't mirror Singleton's.

10 hours ago, slorch said:

I was a little disappointed the veterans on the team couldn't pull off the silent treatment on the dinger.

I can't see how they could've done it. :) 

6 hours ago, henrygandorf said:

besides a few notable exceptions, bregs and brantley have been struggling since our guys went down.  we've been holding this thing together with duct tape.

and by duct tape, i mean reddick, straw, fisher, chirinos, miley, cionel, etc.  probably some luck mixed in as well.

we're still 8-2 to start our 33 game stretch leading to the asb.  18-15 was my internally set goal, and we'd have to go 10-13 to match that.

it's june 10th, and the last series we lost started in april.

Is that good?

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tx 3 putt

tx 3 putt 76894

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This Day in Astros History 

June 11th, 2003 -  Roy Oswalt, Pete Munro, Kirk Saarloos, Brad Lidge, Octavio Dotel and Billy Wagner combine to no-hit the New York Yankees, 8-0.  This was the first time in MLB history that a no hitter  was shared by six pitchers. Striking out 13, the Astros were the first team to no-hit the Yankees since 1958 Dotel threw a four-strikeout inning.  Lidge would record the win.

Via astrosdaily.com

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UTexasFight

UTexasFight 9431

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i think Luhnow missed on this decision  

 

I knew I’d see CFM talk on this thread after seeing he moved to 8-0 last night.

 

yeah, it looks bad now but you don’t “regret” a decision based on a sample size of 2.5 months. Let’s see how this looks September and/or this time next year.

The following is true of anyone but maybe moreso him given his history, but maybe one of the worst outcomes would be have a guy that is lights out through the all star break into early August...then get shelved for a month or two or even into October.

You’re humming along with a solid top 3 and don’t make a move to bolster your starting pitching and then you’re fucked if he gets hurt after July 31.

 

Will be interesting to see how contenders guard against potential injuries with one less month to make trades this year.

 

Speaking of injuries and guys expected to contribute later in the year, what’s the latest on Whitley? Never mind his ineffectiveness so far at AAA, when is he expected to be back?

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DaysOff

DaysOff 7947

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This Day in Astros History 
June 11th, 2003 -  Roy Oswalt, Pete Munro, Kirk Saarloos, Brad Lidge, Octavio Dotel and Billy Wagner combine to no-hit the New York Yankees, 8-0.  This was the first time in MLB history that a no hitter  was shared by six pitchers. Striking out 13, the Astros were the first team to no-hit the Yankees since 1958 Dotel threw a four-strikeout inning.  Lidge would record the win.
Via astrosdaily.com
There was a great pic on the back of the NY Post of each of them holding a ball.
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FondrenRoad

FondrenRoad 4378

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23 hours ago, henrygandorf said:

besides a few notable exceptions, bregs and brantley have been struggling since our guys went down.  we've been holding this thing together with duct tape.

and by duct tape, i mean reddick, straw, fisher, chirinos, miley, cionel, etc.  probably some luck mixed in as well.

we're still 8-2 to start our 33 game stretch leading to the asb.  18-15 was my internally set goal, and we'd have to go 10-13 to match that.

it's june 10th, and the last series we lost started in april.

Reddick has been legitimately good this year. And Chirinos has consistently exceeded expectations.  He is quietly the best all around catcher in the AL right now with a 2.6 WAR. They aren't duct tape. 

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henrygandorf

henrygandorf 29189

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9 minutes ago, FondrenRoad said:

Reddick has been legitimately good this year. And Chirinos has consistently exceeded expectations.  He is quietly the best all around catcher in the AL right now with a 2.6 WAR. They aren't duct tape. 

duct tape is defined by expectations, not performance.

we've had crippling injuries, and reddick/chirinos have played like all-stars (especially considering our healthy stars have been scuffling).  it wasn't a derogatory statement.

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TonyTexas

TonyTexas 10510

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Posted (edited)

I've been thinking about this roster and what will happen when we start getting players back and who they will replace. It appears that Springer and Altuve will be the first ones back, hopefully by the Yankee series. I think Straw is definitely a casualty but not sure about the other one. Mayfield seems obvious but they might want to keep him for infield depth until Diaz gets back. So Fisher might be the other. Unfortunately, I think White remains until Correa get back and Bregman doesn't have to play any SS, freeing up Yuli from any 3rd base duties.  Stassi/Stubbs is obvious though maybe they keep it as is.  I'm undecided between James and Devenski when McHugh returns. This could all change if they decide to go back to an 8 man bullpen.

Edited by TonyTexas
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