Justin Verlander: "The American League goes through us"

Plus he has Jose Altuve's unabashed love, which is more powerful than any known force in the universe.

 

A full season with Verlander should improve our record, so I agree with his comment!

 

Russo is a complete clown for saying that garbage yesterday. There are so many reasons why it's stupid to disrespect the Astros, but a full season of Verlander is reason #1.

 

I'm glad Russo said it. The biggest question when a team wins the World Series for the first time is how do they respond the next season. Hopefully Russo's comments added a little bit of fire inside them.

 

It doesn't matter. The Indians, Astros, and Yankees are all crazy good, and the Red Sox are the defending AL East champs and doubtful their team won't hit more HRs this time.

 

Any fuel that can be added to the fire after the long exhausting season that they had is great. It's all about motivation with this team going forward, the talent is clearly there.

 

I look at the Astros and find it hard to believe they wouldn't be far and away the best team - if healthy (which is a big IF for this team). Last year, the pitching staff was decimated and they won 100+ games despite basically throwing a bunch of games midseason with AAA pitchers anytime they got behind. Add 4 extra months of Verlander and McHugh, a full season of Cole, and a bit of health for Keuchel (we can assume McCullers is randomly injured) and you have probably the best pitching staff in baseball with 4 potential Cy-Young candidates. Bullpen is bolstered, and most of the key pieces of the best offense in baseball are entering their primes.

 

We won the world series without a bullpen.
We destroyed the best starters and relievers in the game.
We now have the heart of a champion.

It's like we are on cruise ship to the Bahamas.

 

Why moreso this team than any other in MLB?

 

NY homer gonna homer.

Its a disease with east coast sports personalities. They don't know a league exists west of New Jersey.

 

The league certainly feels disproportionately top heavy right now. There are 3 teams that would be easy favorites in most years, and if they do finally get the Martinez deal done Boston will be awesome as well.

 

I guess the biggest things that I think make the 2018 Astros better than the 2017 Astros are:

1) Internal improvement from a young core... key guys like Bregman and Correa should just be improving every year with age and experience.
2) Having a young core that is thoroughly play-off battle hardened... fighting 3 very tough series against the 3 biggest payrolls in baseball and winning two 7 game series.... gives me a ton of confidence moving forward... before that they (the young guys) were largely unknown quantities in the play-offs (2015 notwithstanding) but now they are pretty much veterans.

 

Mostly because 3 of their 5 starters have a long history of health concerns (Keuchel, McCullers, Morton).

 

Adam Clanton posting this gif shortly after midnight was how I learned that the Verlander trade actually went down. Damn right the road to the World Series runs through Houston. Eff everybody and eff sports story narrative, WE ARE THE CHAMPS! I still can't believe it.

 

Yes it sure does.

 

theres nothing worse than to have a team fresh off a championship come in and be complacent and satisfied. Thanks for the fuel and bulletin board material russo

 

Verlander, Cole, Peacock, McHugh, and Whitley would be projected by Fangraphs Depth Charts to be about as good as the Yankees staff. With the Astros offense, the Astros would still likely be projected to be the best team in the AL with Keuchel, McCullers, and Morton pitching zero innings. Granted, the Astros would only have Martes, Paulino, and Armenteros as depth at that point. This team is stacked.

 

Fair enough. What other team has 5-6 MLB starters + minor leaguers?

 

logic checks out