The guy I'm most worried about is McHugh. Kuechel, although I expected him to regress a bit, I think will be able to recover and pitch solidly again this year. McHugh has had declining velocity for the last 2 years and his command has declined too. You hear our broadcasters talking all the time about how fastball command is so key to him. He has really had to throw a lot more cutters which may explain why his velocity looks down. The McHugh that we first saw that was dominant and a strikeout machine was only for about a half a season. That guy was 93 + on the high heater and throwing his knockout curve. The guy we saw last season and are seeing again this year is a low 90's bad command fastball, 86-8 cutter with decent command, and still a pretty good curve. I know Collin has had blister problems with his throwing hand and that is prolly one of the root causes. I don't know how hopeful I am that he can ever get back to being a number 3 or better guy. And all things considering I like Fiers and Feldman better to be consistent in the back end of the rotation. The Astros problem right now is they aren't getting top end of the rotation performances from 1-2-3. Hopefully lance helps. Batting has been awful too, baserunning has been awful too , in now way am I singling out pitching. But I am concerned about it.
Like that myth about a house full of women and how their periods all end up happening at the same time?
I'm not... history has shown us that you can win with good-to-elite pitching and subpar hitting. Not vice versa.
The pitching will be fine. As "bad" as Keuchel and McHugh have been, both are still on track to have pretty good years in terms of overall value. I think the main thing that needs to change is the guys who have actually been awful (Giles, Sipp, Neshek, Fister, Fiers) need to merely be mediocre or above replacement level. Really the same thing can be said for the offense. Altuve, Springer, Correa, and Rasmus have put up star level performances so far. They were counting on Gomez to be a star player and he isn't getting it done; that is probably issue #1 with the offense. Aside from that, if everyone who has been doing awful (Valbuena, Castro, Kratz, Gattis, Marwin, White, Tucker) would just be mediocre and above replacement level, this offense would be doing quite well and the win column would reflect it.
Fister and Fiers both have ERA's lower than Keuchel. I'm very concerned with Dallas right now. His velocity has been down a little, and his control has been terrible from the jump. The last 2 years he could religiously hit the outside corner, now he's clearly missing on a regular basis. Once he gets behind, hitters can lay off his breaking ball, or he has to come into the zone where he gets punished. Right now, I don't think it's a slump with Keuchel. I don't think his arm has rebounded from last seasons workload, and him not being great is a major problem. All of our other current starters are easily replaced, and ace isn't.
ERA is a pretty bad measure of pitcher performance. But I agree the velocity drop for Keuchel is concerning.
Last year he had an era + of 103 . I think era + is prolly the best stat to measure value for pitchers when comparing them to other pitchers right ? So 103 means very slightly above average . I don't know where he ranked last year . Last year he was our number 3 after lance came up . Compared to his ability his first year with us , last year was mildly disappointing , but he did grind through 200 innings . So if you can get an era + of a bit above 100 while eating up 200 innings I think he qualifies as a middle of the pack number 3 . But really the argument of 2,3,4,5 is kinda semantics . You have production and then you have front end or back end starter . To really rank him I'd have to do a study on other pitchers and look at things like consistency . But era + is good for a snapshot and says that he was barely above average , really almost right at it . Well as I'm typing he just gave up a homer lol . On the cutter .
Agreed on semantics. His 103 is 21st among qualifying AL pitchers. Of the 15 AL teams, only 4--Toronto, Cleveland, White Sox, and Oakland (if you count Kazmir over there--which I will for this since that's where he had his success)--had #2 starters who had higher ERA+ than Houston with McHugh. Granted, Toronto and Cleveland also had #3 starters with higher ERA+'s. Point being, McHugh was well in range for a 2nd starter on a decent team and absolutely a 3rd starter on a good team last year. I really think people on here (a) devalue what he did (I don't think that's you) and (b) have overly high expectations for what the 3rd/4th/5th starters should do. Is there room for improvement even on last year? Absolutely. Would I love to have 5 aces? Definitely. But every team can't have that, and that isn't a necessity to win.
I'll give him a lot of credit for eating up those innings and managing to stay right around ( above ) average. It would have been very hard to combine other pitchers to achieve those same results and having just one guy do that provides a lot of value. His top end performances may not have been in line with other #2's but his overall production certainly suffices. However that was last year, this year not only are expectations different , but so is his stuff. The stuff part is what worries me about Colin. In his first year here he posted an ERA + of 146 . His k/9 dropped last year by around 1.5. I need to see some positive trends from him soon either in the stuff or in the production ( results ) for me to not start writing him off as a pure innings eater. I agree with everything that you've said , but I also think that both in terms of stuff and in pure production , last year was not as good as his first year here. He was still very valuable. This year, the further slip in stuff ( so far ) has me worried. That's what my first post was about.
Man, watching McHugh is very frustrating. In almost all of his starts he seems like he has some good stuff working, but something always seems to go wrong. His curve ball was looking on point tonight, but he didn't throw it much. I think he's real close to putting together a good stretch.
McCullers may join Astros in Boston By Brian McTaggart / MLB.com | @brianmctaggart | May 3rd, 2016 HOUSTON -- Right-hander Lance McCullers could rejoin the Astros' rotation sooner rather than later. McCullers, who's scheduled to make a rehab start for Triple-A Fresno at El Paso on Saturday, could return during next week's road series in Boston, manager A.J. Hinch said. McCullers threw 62 pitches on Monday at extended spring training in Kissimmee, Fla., hitting 92-97 mph, and will throw a bullpen session on Wednesday before heading to west Texas.
Yesterday should be encouraging. He gave up 2 HRs, but one was up and in and the other was down and away. The other 2 runs were just terrible luck for McHugh. Those were the kinds of things we haven't been recovering from this season.
What are we going to do with our starting rotation? Yes, McCullers is back, but K is struggling big time. Right now our best pitcher is Fister? He has a 4.60 ERA and a whip of 1.432. 12 walks and 16 K, ouch I am really worried about our rotation.
I think if McCullers comes back strong the rotation will be fine. They will still probably need to add an impact arm at the deadline, but between now and then it should be fine. Keuchel and McHugh have not been as good as last year but have still been pretty good. If McCullers is as good as he was last season that's a solid 1-2-3. Then between Fiers, Fister, Devenski, Feldman, Feliz, Musgrove, etc. the back end should be good as well.
What we really need is a young power arm; someone like a Vincent Velasquez in Philly. Also we still need a back of the bullpen power arm. Spoiler Thanks Luno
