There were many implausible events from last season that are unlikely to happen twice which makes it hard for me to predict how things will play out in 2018. 1) Injuries to 4/5 starters at once 2) Marwin and Reddick (regular season) career seasons 3) Two months of #1 type pitching from a guy we let go (Fiers) 4) Verlander being as dominant as he was 5) Reliever meltdown in playoffs 6) Peacock There is more I am sure i just cant think of right now. I know we have a very good team, of that I am sure. Outside of Altuve, Correa, and Springers streakiness, individually, I just don't know what to expect.
I'm still in shock over Peacock's season. A 29 year old pitcher who had spent 6 years struggling to stay in the majors to suddenly start dealing like that.
Add Bregman's 2 seasons in one. What he was pre and post-all star break was something you couldn't predict. With a normal Spring Training, I would expect him to not be so 2-sided this season.
What I find so shocking is that his stuff wasn't even all that good coming into this year. I know he was a former top 100 prospect years ago, but his stuff seemed extremely mediocre the last few years. At least with Mike Scott, you saw the raw ability......... Peacock just was a completely different pitcher this season.
IIRC Peacock also pitched well at the end of the 2016 season. I have Peacock tentatively pencilled in as the Astros #4 starting pitcher next season.
But those numbers were wholly unsupported by the metrics. He was basically the same guy with a crazy low BABIP. Then suddenly this season he started striking people out like it was nothing.
Peacock dropped his arm slot sometime in 2016 and moved to the edges of both sides of the rubber. Made him extremely difficult to pick up from the batter's box.
Teams will spend, they just aren't going to hand out ridiculous contracts. Hosmer is only 28 and San Diego isn't remotely near the luxury tax. Supposedly Royals have made him a similar offer. It is more than I'd pay Hosmer, but it isn't horrible.
That's a lot of money for a guy with 1 great season. If he can repeat 2017, then it's a good contract. But otherwise, he's basically a Josh Reddick level ,good but not great player, and we got that for 1/3 the price.
I think any team that typically needs to keep its budget lower than MLB-average (Padres and Royals are in that camp) will be completely hosed if they sign Hosmer at the prices being quoted. His 2015 is repeatable, but that's nowhere near worth these prices...especially at 1B. And his mediocre defense at 1B makes it that much worse.
The Padres and Royals aren't too close to competing. The offers aren't close to a lock to go bad. Only thing I see wrong with them is that they are taking on a risk (i.e., I don't think he's good enough to give him a 7 years) when they don't really need to take a risk.
Pitchers and catchers report on Valentine's Day to continue the literal love story with the Astros. First workout the 15th. Rest of squad reports the 19th. First full squad workout is the 20th.
His numbers don’t sit well amongst advanced metrics which I gather from Fangraphs articles and he’s a perfect reason why a team like San Diego that doesn’t favor analytics is willing to pay a 1B who’s probably no longer a top 10 AL1B like he’s a top 5 in baseball.
http://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/21953574/houston-astros-accept-invitation-white-house Astros to visit the White House...
It's so damn unfortunate that accepting an invitation to the White House is controversial. No matter what a team does it is viewed as some kind of statement whether they want to make one or not. I would go if I had the choice, but I wouldn't have been bothered had they declined either.
Also relying on a slider now. When Peacock was a top prospect in the A's system, he was known for having a plus curveball. We saw him bust it out a few times in the playoffs when his slider wasn't working and it caught hitters off-guard since he's a fastball/slider guy now. I think he should mix it in a little more. Same with his changeup, busted it out for some big strikes when the slider wasn't sliding.
