Surprised there hasn't been a thread discussing the shockingly good start to the Astros this year. My knowledge of baseball and the Astros is admittedly low since I never played the sport and I would definitely consider myself a bandwagoner Astros fan compared to the Texans and Rockets. Why have we been so good this year? The only player I know is Altuve and I know we have been stockpiling our minor league and farm system for years now. I used to follow the team a lot back in 2004 and 2005 but it has been hard to connect with the team ever since all the players I knew left and we couldn't even watch the games on TV. Is it safe to start buying tickets to Astros games again?
There are a couple of reasons the Astros are performing well this year. One is that they have major league caliber players at every position as well as backups. Secondly, their bullpen is much improved. Last year, they had numerous games where the bullpen faltered and one would cringe every time the bullpen was used. Also, Porter was not a good manager. Granted, he did not have a lot to work with, but he made some strange decisions. They still have a ways to go to prove they are contenders. Good news is that Carter, Gattis and Springer should continue to improve. They have all done noticeably better over the past 2 weeks. Also, the starts from Keuchel and McHugh SHOULD be unsustainable. You can't expect Keuchel to remain below 1 in ERA or McHugh to continue his great string of starts dating back to last year. That is not to say they won't consistently be solid starters, just to say the Astros won't win every single game they start (as they have thus far). There is no reason they can't continue to win provided they stay healthy.
Well, the pitching is likely to regress, but our heavy hitters (Carter, Springer, Gattis) are likely to improve.
You can either educate the bandwagoners or continue having empty stadium seats. It's hard following the team when they put out a porous product for half a decade and when you never played the sport.
Besides getting rid of Porter and getting Hinch, did we have any major free agents? It's unfathomable to me that simply a year of experience for our existing starters has made us this good. Are we actually expected to make the playoffs as a division winner or wild card? Who is our main competition in the division? Thanks.
People mock the idea of spending significant money on a reliable bullpen, but it makes a huge difference - both in terms of actual performance and at a psychological level. Losing leads late over and over has a draining effect. Winning games late over and over builds on itself. At the same time, this team was decent LAST year. They were a 0.500 or so team for the last 4 months of the year. Then they added several new players and fixed the biggest holes on the team. They also got a manager who's philosophically aligned with the front office and is likely playing the team more along the lines of the way it was designed. At the same time as that, the other teams in the division regressed or did not really improve. Oakland basically traded away or lost all their best players, starting with last year's midseason trade. They are basically in rebuilding mode, as is Texas. The end result shouldn't be too surprising. LA and Seattle will probably improve some, and the Astros probably aren't going to run away with anything, but they should be in the playoff mix late in the season.
Gattis, Valbuena, Gregorson, Neshek, Rasmus are the key additions. The competition is the whole of the division at this point. The Angels should be considered the top competitor.
Last year's early season awful start basically killed the season... but they were actually respectable after that (around the time the bullpen stabilized in terms of guys finding their roles).
Good yes, I think this team can certainly hang in the race, but i don't think we're this good. Keuchel and McHugh are great starters, completely legitimate studs IMO. Having said that we are 9-0 in their starts, we aren't gonna win every start by them I don't care how good they are. Keuchel in particular is due to give up a few runs. The last two starters in the rotation are well below average. Hernandez has been OK so far, but his career track record and his peripherals suggest he won't keep it up. I don't think we can win 95 games with 2/5 of the rotation being bad. The thing worth noting is that we have the resources to quickly address the rotation if we really want to via trade. This team is on the cusp of great, but as is I would say we are decent to good, and our stock shows no signs of stopping its upward trajectory moving forward.
I don't mean to sound snide, but this is a perfect opportunity to educate yourself and discontinue wasteful thread making practices. C'mon man.
Don't forget Lowrie, who I think was our biggest free agent signing. I'm curious to see how the next 20 games go without Lowrie. He had the steadiest bat in the lineup, arguably better than Altuve who gets a lot of singles out of hustling out infield dribblers. Our last couple wins have masked it, but I think the only injuries that would cause as much harm would be to Altuve and Keuchel.
If you don't know much about MLB, I would say the Astros draw a striking resemblance to the Jazz. The Jazz have a good young core, and they are moving in the right direction. There is a lot to be excited about in Utah, just as there is for the Astros. However, both are essentially fringe-playoff hopefuls, which is okay because our realistic windows are a couple years down the road. Are we good? Yes and no. We have made strides, but we will not sustain our current pace. Now, not winning 105 games doesn't mean we aren't good. We are good. Just not as good as our play indicates. Our roster is far from complete--we still have holes. The back of our rotation is an issue, and our lineup could use more stability. BUT, all you need to do to be relevant come playoff time is meander around .500. Think of the Royals. All MLB playoffs is about is who is hot at that time. You're in-season record is relatively meaningless. And we are capable of meandering around .500. As noted from other posters, we've drastically improved our bullpen (though it is not perfect yet), and our offense has yet to click on all cylinders.
What is also important to note is that besides Springer, none of our "stockpiled" prospects are important pieces of the current team yet. Carlos Correa, Mark Appel, Lance McCullers, and Brett Phillips (among others) are still in the minors. There are also guys like Jon Singleton and Domingo Santana who probably have a bright future, but struggled in MLB stints and are back in the minors. If you really haven't been following the Astros, then it needs to be pointed out how big of a deal Carlos Correa is. He is currently the best player in the minor leagues at any level. He has potential to be a superstar the likes of which the Astros haven't seen in a decade plus, if not more. The fact that we are playing this well (sustainable or not) before he is even here is incredibly exciting. On the other hand we traded a few of the prospects that were pegged as future pieces (Rio Ruiz, Mike Foltynewicz, Jarred Cosart) to acquire players (Marisnick, Gattis) who are important parts of the current club. This may have sped up the process more than some initially realized. And while the signings of the bullpen duo (Neshek, Gregerson) and Lowrie were more publicized, Luhnow has found absolute gems in McHugh and Will Harris who were both left for dead by their previous teams. So, in short, there is certainly a chance that we come back down to earth this season. But I would be absolutely shocked if the near future isn't fun as hell for a Houston baseball fan, and for a while.
Never a good idea to compare an MLB team to an NBA team... not only that, the NBA team you chose was a pretty poor comparison. The Astros are likely closer to the Pelicans... they've already gone through the really bad years (Utah still doing that), and they have some of the game's best young players either here or coming up (equivalent to what Anthony Davis is). And for a more realistic comparison, these Astros are very much like the early 90's Astros... right before everybody exploded onto the scene together.
The NBA is never a good comparison because it's such a star driven league. You can have a great team, but without one elite guy it's very hard to win it all. In baseball you can perennially compete for it all if you just build a really good team, so superstars necessary, although they do certainly help.
Yes, we are actually good. Our pitching is due to drop in production. Our offense is due to pick up in production. Overall, we should be very competitive, every game. I think the biggest improvement comes from the bullpen. Going from the worst to top 10 (or maybe even better) is a HUGE upgrade. Considering that we were playing 0.500 ball for the last half of 2014...and the improvements to the lineup (Valbuena, Lowrie, Gattis, Rasmus) as well as the bullpen, I dont think 90 wins is out of the question, unless we suffer some big injuries. If we stay healthy, I expect to make the playoffs this season, since winning 53% of our remaining games almost guarantees we make it.
Oberholtzer should be a decent BoR pitcher and take one of those spots. Appel hasn't had the best start to the year, but I expect he'll be MLB ready later in the year. At least one of those two should slow the bleeding. I was really expecting Tropeano to be in the rotation this year to help out. I like Conger, but I think this could hurt Astros in short term. I liked Woj and still do. He needs to work on consistency and endurance. He just seemed to lose his stuff very early to the point that by middle of the 3rd he looked done. Couldn't throw it over the plate or it would get hammered in the 3rd/4th innings and command wasn't good enough to nibble. He'll probably be an option later in year.
