But he did not have a bad 155 innings last year. He allowed 3 or fewer earned runs in 18 of his 29 starts and 17 of his first 25 (68%) Obviously ALL his starts count, but rookie pitchers have bad games. It's part of the adjustment to MLB. He was good much more often than bad. You can't say he had 155 bad innings when over 2/3 of them were quite good. Take away 4 bad starts from 8/20 and after when he was gassed because of how he was used and needed throughout the year, and his ERA is 3.81
I already mentioned, right after the signing of Hadar, that Nook was right saying that Crane would in fact go over the luxury tax for the right player/situation. Surprised he did it and glad he did.
J.P.'s ceiling is Jose Urquidy which is perfectly fine as long as he's only being asked to be a #5 unless you can find someone better and then you should.
JP was a rookie last year. He established a floor, his ceiling is still an open question. We should have a better idea about him at the end of this season.
This would be huge. McHugh was borderline all star guy at the beginning of his Astros career. Maybe the most underrated guy in. Baseball during that time.
I'm sorry, but Abreu, Pressly, and Hader will not be available for all 162 games. Explain to me why JP France should be in the minor leagues? The reality is if Mccullers comes back or Garcia then there's no spot for Brown anyways without trading someone. I understand you like Hunter Brown. 25 year old rookie with 5 ERA and good stuff isn't rare. I think he will be a good starter someday, we need another great arm in the pen right now. I'm playing probabilities. France would be one of the top 15 #5 starters.
That’s fair, and I would happily take that from France. Either way, that’s still a MLB-quality pitcher.
As long as we don't have a waste of space in Carlos Gomez coming back during this Astros reunion tour
Before last season, Jose Urquidy had pitched far better than a run-of-the-mill #5 starter. Hiis ERA’s were: 3.95, 2.73, 3.62 and 3.94. His WHIP’s were: 1.10, 1.01, .99, 1.17.
Not sure if posted but this would be a huge development. If he makes strides a la Dubon then we are deeeeeeeeeeeeep
Pretty sure if you take away most pitchers' worst 1/3rd of their innings, they'll all look like great pitchers. It seems that it should be a concern that he was gassed after pitching like 120 innings in a 6 man rotation for much of the first 2/3rd of the season with only 1 start going to even 100 pitches. And apparently we should expect that he won't be gassed pitching a full season in a 5 man rotation this year.
J.P. France should be in the minor leagues because he simply doesn't have the stuff to consistently get MLB hitters out. His ERA may have been 3.83 last year buy it was all luck. Based on his lack of strikeouts and quality of contact against him he should have been much much worse. His FIP was 4.70 and his xERA was 5.00. His luck simply can't continue to hold out which is why fangraphs has projected him for a 4.79 ERA this year.
In terms of overall production, Soler projects to be nearly the hitter Altuve does. If you can plug that into LF and have McCormick in CF, that has value. It would give Houston 2 MVP caliber hitters (Tucker, Alvarez), 3 All-Star level hitters (Altuve, Bregman, Soler), 3 above average hitters (Diaz, Abreu, McCormick), and one average hitter (Pena) in their lineup. Their worst “everyday” hitter would be a guy who has averaged 16 HR and a .260/.320/.420 line in his first 2 seasons.
He's the guy who hit the home run of Garcia on strike 5 right? When he struck out swinging and looking in the same at bat and then homered? bad memories
