2019 Houston Astros Thread

[runthebone 8322]

Are you for real.  Someone needs to get nailed between the shoulder blades.  Then the next guy gets it in the nuts.  We are up 6.

[Guadaloopy 11129]

Should be a double play on review.  Looks like he just got a spike in the meat of the forearm.  

[TexArcher 38816]

Just now, Wishbone said:

I was at that game. Getting ready to leave. Then it began.

We were in the gray seats in left-center, three kids just out of high school trading massive shit talk with a good natured row of StL fans who'd taken a bus trip to Houston.  It was epic.

[Wishbone 4924]

He’s good.Until he sleeps on it and it needs surgery tomorrow.

[runthebone 8322]

Rondon is the hardest thrower we have left.  Let him fucking maim someone in the 9th. 

[Fudge Nuggets 19407]

Very nice DP.

[HtownHorn 15243]

Nothing prettier in baseball than an Altuve-Correa double play.

Edited July 28, 2019 by HtownHorn

[Fudge Nuggets 19407]

Best fans in baseball heading for the parking lot.  Very aggy.

[Jshep34 2425]

That should have been reviewed dp. Hit the first card up in b9

Sent from my SM-G930P using Tapatalk

[perfectchaos007 6766]

Correa is going to want a massage tonight. 

[Fudge Nuggets 19407]

Two outs, time to bean a mofo.

[Wishbone 4924]

O’Niel with the wizzard of OZ witch socks

[WBT 20884]

Good win, take the series tomorrow

[Guadaloopy 11129]

Good win made great by ruining their ‘04 NLCS BS.   

[rvm96 1643]

 

[WBT 20884]

Now tied with the Yankees for best record in the league

[Guadaloopy 11129]

Best record in AL for the first time this season.  

[Guadaloopy 11129]

2 minutes ago, WBT said:

Now tied with the Yankees for best record in the league

And we have the tiebreaker.  

[TonyTexas 10683]

Actually we’re .003 behind

[TexArcher 38816]

6 minutes ago, Guadaloopy said:

Best record in AL for the first time this season.  

And best run differential.

Next up, pass the Dodgers.  

Witness the power of this fully operational offense.

[WBT 20884]

The Sawks have put a hurting on the Yankees' run differential this weekend.

[perfectchaos007 6766]

32 minutes ago, TexArcher said:

And best run differential.

Next up, pass the Dodgers.  

Witness the power of this fully operational offense.

Our offense is even better in the AL with Alvarez. Road games in the World Series are gonna suck without him. Fuck the backwards ass NL rules 

[TexArcher 38816]

6 minutes ago, perfectchaos007 said:

Our offense is even better in the AL with Alvarez. Road games in the World Series are gonna suck without him. Fuck the backwards ass NL rules 

Exactly, and that's a big part of why passing the Dodgers is a big thing.  Plenty of time to do it.

[Mack Tripper 703]

Fuck Bud Selig

[UTexasFight 9788]

I remember as a 10 yo getting the little paper schedule before the ‘92 schedule and thinking “that sure is strange not having any home games in August.”

[formermav43 4607]

15 minutes ago, Mack Tripper said:

Fuck Bud Selig

And the AL.

[UTexasFight 9788]

Dp

[WBT 20884]

I remember that road trip happening but I don't really remember the reason for it being so long.  The convention lasted 4 days.  Even if it takes 5 days on either side to transform the dome from baseball field to convention and back, that's still only 2 weeks.  Why did the team have to clear out for 4 weeks?

[WBT 20884]

5 minutes ago, UTexasFight said:

Found an old program from ‘92:

Also, wtf with that 10 game road trip in September?  After being on the road for a month, they still had another trip going Atlanta > Cincinatti > San Diego > LA with no offdays?  F bud. 

[DaysOff 8157]

Fulton County? Braves are on the 2nd stadium since the launching pad.

[UTexasFight 9788]

Also, wtf with that 10 game road trip in September?  After being on the road for a month, they still had another trip going Atlanta > Cincinatti > San Diego > LA with no offdays?  F bud. 

Haha

I had the same though looking at that.

MLB schedule-makers that year must have been Clinton fans

 

 

...and what necessitated a trip back home on the off day between the Chicago and St Louis series? That makes no sense.

could the traveling secretary really not find a laundromat in STL? Or maybe they just realized what a shithole STL is and decided better off flying home for a night.

 

I’m going to have to go dig that program back out and read the full article.

[runthebone 8322]

Trust me, every night spent away from St. Louis is well worth the effort

[rvm96 1643]

Also, MLB.com updated their top 100 with Tucker at 13, Whitley at 17, and Beer debuting at 100. Alvarez and James graduated due to time at the majors. Bukauskas and Corbin were dropped from the list. 

[Mez2 4041]

I.v drmk. We Winn? ?

[WBT 20884]

Googling some more about that month long road trip, I found this:

[TexArcher 38816]

1 hour ago, UTexasFight said:

...and what necessitated a trip back home on the off day between the Chicago and St Louis series? That makes no sense.

I wondered that, too.  Must have been so they could have a day with their families?

[Scraps 13745]

Googling some more about that month long road trip, I found this:

Roids+ Mullet = Awesome

 

[henrygandorf 29219]

you assholes talking about the early 90's and nl west road trips (atlanta, la, sd - yeah that makes sense) are giving me ptsd from games at the murph.  i used to beg my little 9 year old heart out to stay up to watch some innings of those games on 20-vision (9:30 start time) only to see us make a bunch of errors and have every break go against us.

i don't have the numbers in front of me, but it feels like we were 1-30 there when i was growing up, so i'm sticking with that record.

[tx 3 putt 78470]

100% you bean a cardinal tomorrow

[henrygandorf 29219]

if david eckstein, trump, and hitler were in the batters box, but you only have two baseballs...

[WBT 20884]

yeah the murph was brutal

[runthebone 8322]

59 minutes ago, henrygandorf said:

if david eckstein, trump, and hitler were in the batters box, but you only have two baseballs...

Hitting Eckstein will be the hardest, so why waste a baseball trying to?

[ausjala 101]

4 hours ago, henrygandorf said:

if david eckstein, trump, and hitler were in the batters box, but you only have two baseballs...

I nail Trump, let him get up and begin a jog to first, and then bean him again.

[Jebus 1341]

26 minutes ago, ausjala said:

I nail Trump, let him get up and begin a jog to first, and then bean him again.

The jog to first would probably finish him off

[WBT 20884]

5 hours ago, runthebone said:

Hitting Eckstein will be the hardest, so why waste a baseball trying to?

I feel like that's the only wrong answer

[Cooder 37]

100% you bean a cardinal tomorrow

I’ll be so glad when all the old timers are gone and this mentality is out of baseball.

[Limp Brisket 549]

I’ll be glad when CR doesn’t infiltrate the Astro’s thread.

Edited July 28, 2019 by Limp Brisket

[tx 3 putt 78470]

That was intentional in a blow out game, on one of your star players 

[TonyTexas 10683]

Alvarez, Correa in, Bregs, Reddick out

[UTexasFight 9788]

Rosenthal saying we’re backing off Thor because we want to keep Tucker
Maybe this was known... but not by me

“• The Astros backed off Syndergaard partly because of their reluctance to lose Kyle Tucker, who looms as a piece of their future outfield, with Michael Brantley, Josh Reddick and George Springer free agents after 2020.”

In 2018, Manny Machado, Brad Hand, Zack Britton and Cole Hamels were traded between July 18 and July 27.

It’s July 28. Where are all the deals?

Many expected the new single July 31 deadline to spark earlier activity and a great number of trades. Yet as the day began, the only transactions thus far had involved mostly spare parts.

Depending upon whom you believe, the stalled market is due to the unrealistic demands of sellers, the delays by several teams in determining their paths and the Mets’ sudden decision to entertain offers for some of their best pitchers — starters Noah Syndergaard and Zack Wheeler and closer Edwin Díaz.

Oh, and there also is this: Most of the players available, starting pitchers in particular, are not all that enticing.

Consider:

• Blue Jays right-hander Marcus Stroman is first in the American League in groundball percentage and fifth in ERA with a 2.96. He also comes with an additional year of control. But he is more of a contact pitcher than a strikeout artist, and come the postseason — against offensive powerhouses such as the Red Sox, Twins, Yankees, Astros and Dodgers — contact will not necessarily be a good thing.

• Like Stroman, Diamondbacks lefty Robbie Ray comes with an additional year of control, but he is flawed in a different way. Ray misses bats (his strikeout percentage is the ninth-highest in the majors), although he also gets himself into trouble (his walk rate is the third-highest). Against the better offenses in the postseason, Ray might be out of the game by the fifth inning.

• Rangers left-hander Mike Minor, who ranked second in the AL in ERA at the All-Star break, has a 6.00 ERA in his three starts since. Tigers lefty Matthew Boyd has a 5.74 ERA in his last nine starts. Syndergaard is at 4.33 for the season, Wheeler at 4.71.

• Perhaps only Giants lefty Madison Bumgarner has raised his stock in recent weeks, producing a 2.00 ERA in his last 36 innings and impressing some rival executives who had been skeptical of him earlier. But Bumgarner, due to the Giants’ surge into wild-card contention, might only be available now for an exorbitant price. The same goes for righty Trevor Bauer since the Indians are closing in on the AL Central lead instead of merely a wild card.

Teams consider numerous variables, including a player’s makeup, when evaluating acquisitions. The quality of opposition and ballpark are factors when clubs weigh the relative merits of starting pitchers.

“Neutralized ERA,” an advanced metric from Baseball-Reference.com, puts all pitchers on an even playing field by accounting for the quality of opponent and park.

Here’s how the above group ranks:

Opponent and Park Adjusted ERA
Mike Minor 2.40
Marcus Stroman 3.10
Trevor Bauer 3.32
Matt Boyd 3.50
Madison Bumgarner 3.92
Noah Syndergaard 4.39
Zack Wheeler 4.79
Around the horn

Information from major-league sources:

• The Brewers, arguably the most creative team at last year’s deadline, have kicked around the idea of bolstering their injury-depleted rotation by trading one of their potential free agents: catcher Yasmani Grandal or infielder Mike Moustakas. It’s unclear whether the concept has advanced beyond internal discussions.

With back-to-back victories over the Cubs, the Brewers have pulled to within one game of the NL Central lead, and owner Mark Attanasio is a go-for-it type. The return of Travis Shaw and emergence of Keston Hiura would make Moustakas perhaps easier to replace than Grandal, but the Brewers probably could find a cerebral, defensive-minded catcher. Baseball America recently ranked the team’s farm system as the worst in the game, so a trade of a major leaguer might be a better way to improve.

The Brewers were in on lefty Derek Holland before the Giants traded him to the Cubs.

• On Saturday, I reported on Twitter that the Mets were exploring, among many scenarios, trading Syndergaard to the Padres and using some of the return to land Stroman from the Blue Jays. ESPN’s Jeff Passan later reported that the Mets were considering similar pursuits of Ray and Minor, two other pitchers who, like Stroman, come with an additional year of control.

For the Mets, such a plan would be all about 2020, reflecting a desire to retool on the fly instead of taking a step back. Like all trade scenarios, the outcome cannot be judged until the exact particulars are known. For two additional years of Syndergaard, the Mets might consider it worthwhile to acquire one year of Stroman/Ray/Minor plus whatever else they would retain from the Padres — perhaps a longer-term starter such as lefty Joey Lucchesi and others.

• Like most GMs, the Yankees’ Brian Cashman hates being forced into trades, but his rotation’s 14.90 ERA in the past eight games is leaving him little choice but to attack the team’s pitching needs with even greater urgency.

To this point, Cashman has resisted including outfielder Clint Frazier or pitching prospect Deivi Garcia in a deal for a starter with less than two years of additional control (Stroman, Ray, Minor, Bumgarner, Wheeler, etc.).

Frazier, 24, is again hot at Triple A, but for all his offensive ability, would Cashman truly draw the line with a player whose defense regressed this season and whose makeup might not be well-suited for New York?

• The Padres are drawing heavy interest in second baseman Luis Urías from teams that view him as a potential starting shortstop. General manager A.J. Preller is always active in discussions, and his course at the deadline ultimately might be determined by how willing he is to part with Urías and closer Kirby Yates.

• The Nationals, last in the majors with a 5.99 ERA, want to add at least one reliever, but they’re in a difficult spot with a farm system that ranks only 24th in the majors, according to Baseball America.

Virtually every team wants infielder Carter Kieboom, but the Nats are not inclined to trade him when they are uncertain about the future of third baseman Anthony Rendon, a potential free agent whom they have tried to sign to an extension. Infielder Luis Garcia, the team’s No. 2 prospect, is not as highly regarded as Kieboom.

• The Dodgers, recognizing the lack of impact relievers available and unwilling to meet the sellers’ prices, also are considering trades for starting pitchers, including Stroman.

Such a deal would enable the Dodgers to use one or more of their current starters out of the bullpen. Even during his days with the low-revenue Rays, president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman prioritized impact over positional need in his dealings.

• To this point, the Pirates have given zero indication they are willing to move left-handed closer Felipe Vázquez, who is guaranteed a total of $12.5 million in 2020 and ’21 and can be retained through $10 million club options in both ’22 and ’23.

• The Reds, entertaining a variety of buy-and-sell scenarios, might end up as one of the most active clubs. Among those in play: potential free-agent right-hander Tanner Roark, outfielder Yasiel Puig and second baseman Scooter Gennett, as well as closer Raisel Iglesias, who is signed through 2021.

The availability of Iglesias first was reported by the New York Post’s Joel Sherman.

• The Astros backed off Syndergaard partly because of their reluctance to lose Kyle Tucker, who looms as a piece of their future outfield, with Michael Brantley, Josh Reddick and George Springer free agents after 2020.

• The interest in Blue Jays relievers includes not only Ken Giles and Daniel Hudson but also Joe Biagini. Giles comes with one additional year of control, Biagini three. Hudson is a potential free agent.

• The Padres remain in the market for a left-handed hitter.