Astros are high on him. Obviously he’s no guarantee but I think it’s more likely, at the very minimum, he out produces Beltrán.
I really think we should just use the LF/DH spot as a glorified try out slot. Give Moran,Fisher, White, Reed etc a chance to prove themselves against MLB pitching. See if we can't find a future 1B/DH/LF without having to shell out some of our soon to be precious financial assets. Sign a reliever, and try to find another buy low breakout candidate, and roll with our current crew.
I like Kyle Tucker, Moran, and White a lot. Fisher to a lesser extent. But I still believe in him. AJ Reed is a pure bust. I think we have some good in house talent (I think marisnick will continue developing as well) and there’s no need to go looking for outside talent as of yet. I’d like to see us address the LH relief pitcher issue though. That’s the biggest issue in my opinion. Maybe DH but I wouldn’t mind Gattis getting more AB’s and Yuli getting the rest. P.S. maybe Reed can become our LHP
If AJ is a "pure bust" after 150 PAs, JD Martinez was 6.5 "pure busts" before we cut him. Yeah, JD was an outlier...but if he can be an outlier after 6.5x the PAs, it seems too early to declare definitively like that on AJ
Time will tell. I’ll keep my position though. It is rooted in reality and probably a safe conjecture at this point.
https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2017/11/al-west-notes-trout-hernandez-angels-bruce.html Jay Bruce wants to play for the Astros. I think he makes very good sense on a contract similar to Josh Reddick, but his initial asking price was almost twice that. He’s left handed, he can play LF, 1B, RF, and DH, and he’s good. But that $50M is probably better used on a reliever or extension.
This is presumptious but this may be Brian McCann's final year as an Astro, he wants to retire as an Atlanta Brave and the Astros have a 15 mil option for 2019..money that could be used on locking up Keuchel, Verlander, Morton.
I can see Crane with all the money from the playoffs and probably 1,000,000 tickets sold and a slew of merchandise revenue increasing payroll a good 30-40 mil, that's pretty much been his increases every single year as owner. Also taking into account what's coming off the books..Beltran's 15 mil, Maybin & Gregerson around 3 mil each, Clippard & Liriano a few more mil and if Luhnow has his way shedding Fiers and Sipp for out of option prospects or whatever would be about 10 mil more..that should cover arbitration increases and nab a couple quality bullpen arms amongst the Minor, McGee, Cishek, etc type FA's.
Of course it's safe. All I'm saying is, if JD was 99% bust when we let him go, AJ is probably somewhere closer to 90% likely to bust. So yeah, you're probably going to be right, and I'd bet on that too. But it doesn't seem smart to ignore him already without having to--we've seen crazier turnarounds.
I actually think him being LH hurts my interest in him. Marwin,McCann and Reddick getting wiped out by southpaws for most of the postseason really killed my appetite for seeing another one in the lineup. He just creates another vulnerability against them. If he were right handed, I would say we could trade Gattis, go with an all glove catcher, use Bruce as the everyday corner outfielder, and use the DH as a revolving door.
That’s the nature of the playoffs (small sample) as well as how Hinch decided to construct the lineup. Spacing out the lefties makes them more effective. If Marwin is kept as a utility player where he is most valuable, then Reddick is really the only everyday left handed bat in the lineup since McCann can only be counted on for 2/3 of the games and really isn’t that good of a hitter anymore. Adding a lefty who can bat 2nd or 5th would significantly improve the lineup imho.
Adding another LHB makes it harder to space them out without diluting the better hitters. Astros may have trouble getting some of their young lefties plate appearances as it is. Any LHB acquired through FA or trade likely needs to be a better hitter than Reddick (i.e., can hit LHPs) or play catcher. As you mentioned earlier, money probably better spent on relievers.
Postseason stats vs. LHP: Reddick - .250/.344/.250 4BB:5K in 28 ABs(I'm stunned it wasn't worse) Of course he hit .108/.132/.135 against RHP Marwin - .161/.235/.226 3BB:10K in 31 ABs McCann - .103/.212/.207 2BB:7K in 29 ABs (I'm stunned this wasn't better. 2 of his 3 came in the World Series including his HR insurance that we needed) Gurriel - .103/.161/.207
McCann doesn't have much difference historically in his splits, so I wouldn't even worry about him. Reddick is more concerning, but did it this year.
Yuli is functionally a left handed hitter. His splits are bizarre. This season, he posted an .865 OPS vs. righties, and .695 vs. lefties. In 2016, he was .739 vs. .537.
Without seeing Cuban data, I would guess this is just a weird fluctuation as there has only been one good reverse split hitter (Ichiro) in baseball recently. All the others regressed to neutral split or a normal split.
Yeah. I think most analytics guys agree that extreme platoon splits are mostly fluke on the batter's side, one notable exception being Ichiro.
