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2019 Houston Astros Thread

Planet Houston

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UTexasFight

UTexasFight 9,818

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Yeah, I’ve been thinking about that rotation order for a while. I think there was a short stretch after we got Greinke where it lined up that way but then cole missed that week or so in August and it’s been JV/cole ever since
I like splitting up the power arms with something softer.
 
 


JoePos with an article talking about the JV/Cole duo having a season we’ve never really seen before, and indirectly giving some additional push to my argument above for slotting Greinke between them

In 2002, Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling each struck out 300 batters for the Arizona Diamondbacks. That’s the only time in modern baseball that teammates have struck out 300 batters.

Funny story: Not many people remember the 2002 Diamondbacks, even though they were, in most measurable ways, better than the 2001 team that won the World Series. The 2002 Diamondbacks led the National League in runs scored, the World Series goat Byung-Hyun Kim had an absolutely fabulous season (how many people remember that?), and Johnson-Schilling finished 1-2 in the Cy Young race for the second year in a row.

But, alas, those Diamondbacks were swept in the division series by the St. Louis Cardinals, and everything changed after that. Two years later, Arizona lost 111 games. Life moves fast. And if you want to be remembered, you better win in the playoffs.*

*A friend recently told me that, after thinking about it a lot, he identified the greatest team in his lifetime. I waited for the obvious answer — the 1998 Yankees. That’s pretty much what every baseball fan his age would say, unless they are Red Sox fans.

Instead, he said: The 1998 Braves.

This threw me — I had no clear memory of the ’98 Braves. I mean, sure, you immediately remember they were one of those many Braves teams that won the division — they won like 493 division titles in a row — and they had the Maddux-Glavine-Smoltz trio, and whatever. But nothing about them stood out in my mind … and I went back and looked at them.

I don’t know if they’re the GREATEST team, but I could see why he makes that argument. That was probably the best Braves team. They won 106 games and had a 106-win pythag (determined by runs scored and allowed). Glavine won the Cy Young, Maddux was probably better, Smoltz got Cy Young votes, Chipper and Andruw Jones were both viable MVP candidates (though Andruw was overlooked since his amazing value came from defense), Andres Galarraga hit 44 home runs, and so on. This really was an all-time great team, but they went into a death-defying offensive slump against the Padres in the National League Championship Series, lost four of six games, and that was it. All but forgotten.

Anyway, this year it seems likely that Gerrit Cole and Justin Verlander will become the second pair of teammates to strike out 300 batters in a season. Cole already has 300 (in just 200 innings) and Verlander is 17 Ks short (with two more scheduled starts).

And it seems to me that never in baseball history has a team had a combination quite like Cole-Verlander (Colander?).

Yes, there have been amazing and famous pitching combinations before — Spahn and Sain, Koufax and Drysdale, Seaver and Koosman, Ryan and Tanana, Maddux and Glavine, Halladay and Lee, Kershaw and Greinke. I hope you noticed something about each and every one of those remarkable combinations: One pitcher is right-handed, the other left-handed. This obviously isn’t a complete list, but one thing that does seem true of the greatest pitching-teammates in baseball history is that they were fundamentally different kinds of pitchers.

Not Colander. They are the same guy. They are both 6-foot-4 or so, both 225 pounds or so, both right-handed forces of nature who throw mid-to-high 90s fastballs, death-defying sliders, and sneaky change-ups.* They both strike out a bunch of hitters, both give up a lot of home runs, and both walk very few batters and give up very few hits.

*They also were both college pitching phenoms who were taken at the top of the draft. Cole was the actual first pick in the draft while Verlander was taken second. “Second?” Doug Mientkiewicz famously said in horror after facing Verlander for the first time. “Who was taken first, and you better say Pujols!” It was not Pujols, of course. It was Matt Bush. The Padres have never fully recovered.

Verlander is the heavy favorite at this point to win the Cy Young Award, but it’s not clear to me that he’s actually having the better season. They seem, actually, to be having the same season.

Verlander: 19-6, 2.50 ERA, 3.28 FIP, 283 Ks, 40 walks, leads league in WHIP, hits per 9, strikeout-to-walk ratio.

Cole: 18-5, 2.61 ERA, 2.74 FIP, 302 Ks, 45 walks, second in WHIP, hits per 9, strikeout-to-walk ratio. Leads in strikeouts and FIP.

Same-same. Verlander has a lead in Baseball-Reference WAR because he has allowed fewer unearned runs, Cole has a lead in FanGraphs WAR because he strikes out more and allows fewer home runs. But essentially, Colander is the right way to look at them.

And this is the point: No team has ever had identical twins quite like Cole and Verlander at the top of their rotation. The fascinating question will be: What will this mean come playoff time? On the one hand, the Astros basically go into the postseason with not one but two Tom Seavers and that seems like a pretty good recipe for winning a World Series.

On the other hand, Cole and Verlander are similar enough that I can’t help but wonder if, over a seven-game series, batters will begin to get a bit more comfortable against that style of pitching. Part of what made Koufax-Drysdale or Johnson-Schilling or Maddux-Glavine so devastating was their contrasting styles, they were great in such different ways. I mean, let’s not get carried away, Cole and Verlander are not really the same pitcher, they do offer different challenges, but it’s a similar enough look and hitters are so great now …

Last year, Verlander was really good in Game 1 of the ALCS against Boston, but the Red Sox then beat up on Cole in Game 2 and rolled from there. I’m not saying that’s a trend or anything, but it’s just something to keep an eye on.

By the way, Cole averages 13.6 strikeouts per nine innings — that’s the most ever for a pitcher with 300 Ks. It’s interesting to see the progression

1883: Old Hoss Radbourn struck out 315 batters.
• In 632 innings, he averaged just 4.5 Ks per nine.

1904: Rube Waddell struck out a modern-day record 349 batters.
• He averaged 8.2 strikeouts per nine. This was when the league average was 3.8 Ks per nine innings.

1912: Big Train, Walter Johnson, struck out 303.
• He led the league by striking out 7.4 per nine. Masahiro Tanaka strikes out 7.4 batters per nine innings this year; that ranks him 49th among qualified starters.

1946: Bob Feller struck out 348
• He averaged 8.4 strikeouts per nine which was higher than any previous pitcher in the modern era … and yet, he did not lead the league in strikeouts per nine. Hal Newhouser struck out 8.5 batters per nine that same season.

1965: Sandy Koufax struck out a record 382.
• He struck out 10.2 batters per nine. That same year, “Sudden” Sam McDowell struck out 325 batters but struck them out at a higher rate — 10.7 batters per nine.

1973: Nolan Ryan struck out a record 383.
• He averaged 10.6 strikeouts per nine.

1989: Nolan Ryan struck out 301.
• Several more pitchers — Vida Blue, Steve Carlton, J.R. Richard, Mike Scott — had 300 Ks in the 1970s and ’80s, but Ryan became the first to whiff 11 batters per nine.

1999: Randy Johnson struck out 364; Pedro Martinez struck out 313.
• Unit was the first to strike out 12 batters per nine innings, but that same year Pedro was the first to strike out 13 batters per nine innings.

2001: Randy Johnson struck out 372.
• He struck out 13.4 batters per nine, which is the current full season record.

2019: Gerritt Cole has struck out 302 batters in 200 ⅓ innings.
• That’s 13.6 per nine innings and will be the record assuming he maintains it in his last starts

 

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pigmeat markham

pigmeat markham 135

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9 hours ago, TonyTexas said:

Is something wrong with Springer? This is his 4th day off this week.

When you're sliding into first
And your pants begin to burst
That's diarrhea, diarrhea

When you're sliding into two
And your pants are filled with goo
That's diarrhea, diarrhea

When you're sliding into third
And you feel a greasy turd
That's diarrhea, diarrhea

When you're sliding into home
And your pants are filled with foam
That's diarrhea, diarrhe

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Hank Chinaski

Hank Chinaski 6,360

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9 hours ago, UTexasFight said:


As are the rangers.
A’s keep putting up a picket fence. 7-0 after 7.

We’ll get a chance to clinch on the field.
Our game starts 2 hours ahead of the A’s tomorrow

OAK had won 14 of their last 17. During that stretch, they've managed to pick up...1 game on HOU, despite beating HOU in 3 of the 4 head-head matchups. That's got to be a little demoralizing.

Still, like last year, they've proven to be a pain in the ass in terms of putting the division on ice - they're at least 2 games better than any other 2nd-place team. 

But yeah, it would be more fun to clinch it after a win at home. Hope that's today. 

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Pimphand

Pimphand 6,370

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1 minute ago, henrygandorf said:

so magic numbers are now 1 and 6 (6 for both nyy and lad)?

The only magic # is MFY/LAD and yes they need to go 6-2 to close out to stay on top in control your own destiny mode.

We know the Rump Rangers are gonna lay down and get swept at home for the MFY in hopes they can cost us HFA. With Severino going tomorrow there really are only 3 games left on their schedule. The two in Tampa and today's game.  Hopefully CFM can do us a solid and outduel Tanaka.

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