OK I'll play. -Astros acquire Jonathan Lucroy with a package of prospects which includes the Tucker brothers(plus more) and Castro continues to be Keuchels catcher. -Springer plays 150 games -Collin Mchugh builds on his 2nd half year success from last year and has a sub 3.30 ERA -Colin Moran will be the starting 3b by June 15th -McCullers comes back in mid April but due to the success of the starting 5 he is used out of the bullpen until mid may to conserve his innings. -Blessed by the spirit of Carlos Delgado, the Astros win 96 games.
Yeah lets look at the minors year before, his age 20 year, and get back to me with his walk rates. I'm not going to argue with you about the fact that Roy Oswalt was an incredible pitcher. That said, I wouldn't be shocked if McCullers had a better career. Also wouldn't be shocked if he gets hurt at some point and his career never materializes.
I would be extremely surprised if McCullers has a better career than Oswalt. Roy had arguably the best pitching career in Astros history. He absolutely should have his number retired by the team. Guys like JR Richard, Darryl Kile, Brad Lidge, and Scott Elarton have had plenty better stuff than Oswalt. Better stuff is rare but comes around once every few years or so. It certainly doesn't guarantee you a good career. A guy as good as Roy Oswalt is a once in a twenty years proposition. We have exactly one guy with more than a 10% chance at getting to his level, and that's Dallas Keuchel.
The thing about Roy's results that make him unquestionably the GOAT Astro pitcher is the era in which he pitched. He did it in the early to mid 00's when offenses were still killing it. To put it into perspective, McCullers had an awesome rookie campaign. His ERA+ was a great 125. In Roy's first 7 years he only had an ERA+ under 140 once, and that was a 124 (he also threw 237 innings and won 20 games that year). MCullers rookie year would have easily been Roy's worst year. Roy was also a workhorse. With the exception of one year where he had injury issues, he basically started every game, and consistently went really deep in games for 10 years. This isn't saying that McCullers can't be great, he may even approach Roy's level. I just don't think people truly appreciate how awesome Roy was because his style wasn't flashy.
I attended his home debut at the Dome. Even as a kid, not knowing who the hell Roy was, and even though he came out of the bullpen, I still DISTINCTLY remember thinking, WOW!!!! This guy. So, yeah.
I can't be the only one here worried about regression, right? I think we will be good, and I'm hoping for 88-93 wins. But everyone crowning us before the year starts has me a tad worried. Every AL West team, outside of OAK, has real reasons for optimism. For that reason, I'm a little weary to crown us the clear favorite. The playoffs are more or less a crapshoot than a real representation as to who the best team was over the course of the season. For that reason, I wont make post-season predictions. That said, I think the win totals will be: HOU: 90 TEX: 89 SEA: 89 LAA: 86 OAK: 75
For sure, I agree with all of that. I would add in the fact that pitching in the AL is tougher than the NL but I wouldn't say the AL in 2015 was tougher than the NL in 2001, etc. That said, I still just don't think it is fair to make statements like "McCullers rookie year would have easily been Roy's worst year" when Roy Oswalt was in the minors at his age. That's all I was trying to say.
I've seen a few people like you, but I just find it highly unlikley that this is a good division. I think the rest of the division will be around .500. I think the Astros will win 96 games, but i think we could diappoint and win 86 games again, yet still win the division handily.
Unrelated and nothing about pitching inside but oddly enough, I feel like Wandy was tough for Pujols. We've come a long way since the days of Wandy being our best pitcher...
Jeez... the recency bias has gotten so thick that people don't even remember when Roy made his debut!! In fact, not only did Roy solely pitch at MMP... but he basically became the first pitcher to not only be effective with consistency there... but he flat-out dominated there. Dispelling myths that it was nothing but a hitters park (I'm still dead-set against them bringing the CF fence in...)
Fair enough... but Roy's minor league run (minus the injury year) at similar ages was just as (if not moreso) impressive than LMJ's... and had the team called him up a year earlier, do you really think he would have been that much worse? His rookie year was at a Cy-Young/MVP-type level... and even if postulate that he's only slightly worse at age 22 vs. age 23, that would still likely be at a level that exceeded what LMJ was able to do. I'd just not even compare the two at this point.
It is tough to compare a young pitcher to Oswalt because Oswalt had a great career without much problems. I agree with nearly everything you said this except I would add McCullers may even surpass Oswalt. McCullers projects to produce about 80% of the wins that Oswalt did over his career assuming average pitcher health (seeing him pitch, this may be optimistic) and average pitcher aging curves. He has the stuff (i.e. shape of pitches) to do it, but command (ability to place pitches with a plan) is a work in progress. Oswalt had command which McCullers probably never develops. However, McCullers made it to majors at a younger age while his control is still improving. Only Dierker has produced more as a pitcher at McCullers's current age for the Astros. For 6 guys with ERA- most similar to McCullers at his age in last 20 years: Rosada, Williams, Wood, Willis, Prior, Kershaw. For 6 guys with FIP- most similar to McCullers at his age in last 20 years: Rosada, Prior, Gallardo, Bumgarten, Willis, Kershaw. Based on those quick comps, McCullers could flame out or be the best pitcher in baseball over the next 10 years. While McCullers probably doesn't develop as well as Oswalt, it is my impression (which may be wrong) that most fans don't realize how rare it is for a guy to be this good this young. If he stays somewhat healthy and stays an Astro, he should be one of the top ten Astros pitchers ever.
Things to worried: Rotation Like i said last year, i did not like our rotation when you had Feldman as your number 2 McHugh as your number 2 starter and Feldman 3. This year we have McHugh again as number 2 with Fiers 3 Feldman 4 and Fister 5. The injury of McCullers (who i believe made the difference in the rotation when he became our number 2) gives us a number 3 as number 2 and 2 number 5 starters. Right now we have all starters, except K pitching at least one spot in the rotation over their abilities. Maybe Feliz could be our McCullers of this year, and become a good number 3 starter and move McHugh to number 4 and Fiers number 5, that would be an awesome rotation. Now, the bullpen, with the rotation that we have, i would like to go with 13 relievers. I don't think our starting rotation is going to go deep with guys like Feldman and Fister, like i said, number 5 guys. I would have Hoyt in the bullpen, have Feliz stretching out in the minors and see what happens with Feldman and Fister, if they don't do the job, then McCullers once healthy and Feliz cover those starting rotations.
