While I appreciate the odds makers, I will take the "under" on making the playoffs and I will take the "over" slightly on winning the World Series. The Pythagorian says we should be a game over .500% right now....... but the season is short and there are so many unknowns from the entire rotation outside of Greinke, to guys like Alvarez, Brantley and Springer staying healthy...... is Tucker going to hit well enough? Is the pen going to melt down? Many questions....... the upside is very high but very volitile.
Reminds me a bit of a Ali - Frazier prize fight in the rope-a-dope days. Ali is behind in scoring, but everyone expects him to make a late run. Its just a question of whether he has enough left in the tank to knock Frazier out. People betting on the Astros think they will get guys back and make a late run. Maybe, maybe not.
On Astros making the playoffs, I'm betting on the Rangers and Angels not being better. On World Series odds, the AL has a lot of great teams and a 7% chance of winning suggests Astros may be the best of the bunch, but have their odds knocked down due to bad start and current injuries increasing their chance of not making the playoffs.
That 80% is factoring ~50 innings total from Verlander/Urquidy, and 120 PA from Alvarez. Thing is, as much bad luck with injuries/underperformance/ball bounces/calls as the Astros have had, other teams can suffer the same deal. It’s just as likely that Verlander/Alvarez comes back, the hitters turn on, and Javier/Valdez are the real deal as it is that everybody keeps slumping, Verlanders out for the year, and all the young arms fall apart. 80% feels awfully high based on what we’ve seen so far, but reality is there is a lot of uncertainty for all teams, so it ends up going back to total talent level, and Houston still has as much as almost anybody.
Paraphrasing full interview with Taylor: How would you sum up experience so far? It is still baseball. Weird season, masks, staying in hotel room, but it is still same game. Not going to lie, first games with no fans is nice. It is like a test run. What is it like on the road? My schedule…don’t go out much before this. Sit inside. Watch golf on TV. Not allowed to congregate in same room, go partying. Wants to keep baseball going. We don’t want anything to happen How did you find out about trade? Woke up to bunch of text messages. Slept in late. Farm director left voicemail…hey you’ve already probably seen it, but we are sending you to the Astros. Weird. Just saw Astros in postseason. Nice that the Big Dog wanted me. What did you learn in intro meeting with Astros? See clip posted previously. Astros show lots of data. For you, focusing on slider? What have changed? See clip. Astros like fastball up. Working fastball down some will help setup slider. Hoppy fastball? Heard some call it a cutter? I can’t see it. I’ll throw something that looks straight, and catcher will be like, “That moved like crazy”. Catchers say it is like a cutter with backspin. What’s Tebow like? He’s nice. Works hard and wants to get better. Hungry. Only played with him for half a season. Mets were second organization and you were a PTBNL in deal from Pirates to Mets. Is it true that PTBNL can’t say anything until finally sent over? I didn’t know I was PTBNL until I was named later. How is it like with fake crowd noise? Try to focus on me and catcher. Me and the catcher. Doesn’t even focus on hitter. It is strange going into these big stadiums with all these seats. Weird having to ask what would it look like if fans in the stands. What’s it like in pen? No fans throwing stuff at you. Easy to focus. After 2018 went starter to relief. How does it feel? Not a big transition. Always thought he would end up in pen. Always had stamina issues. 4-5 innings…don’t know if I can do that like major leaguers. When asked about pen..Said sure, and then fell in love with it being able to go all out. Stromy? Likes to work with him. Strom took ball and said grip slider like this. He threw 4-5 sliders and was like this works. Miller will say to slow down when about to go out. Miller and Stromy on same page. Stromy from So Cal, too. Talk about it much? Didn’t know.
Stroman opted out and will be a FA. Will HOU have any interest? He was pretty vocal on the lack of sign stealing punishment, so who knows if he’d be interested. Money talks...but his name is ‘Stro Man!
I'm thinking Javier/Bielak have a chance to be (Javer, SP2 and Bielak a chance to be a Peacock type P) that's a pretty good start. Taylor has been the best of the rookie relievers but I could see Scrubb, Paredes having long careers. What they really need is Whitley to be a SP1 but I'm beginning to have my doubts.
6 of Houston’s top 8 team leaders in innings pitched had less than 0.2 years of MLB service time coming into the season. They all have an ERA under 3: Valdez 1.90 Javier 2.91 Bielak 1.69 Taylor 1.54 Scrubb 0.00 Paredes 2.70 (Greinke and McCullers are the other 2 of the 8 IP leaders.). Houston has 3 other rookies (Bailey, Abreu, and Castellanos) who have ERA under 3.01. So they have 9 rookies with an era of 3 or less, and that does not include Jose Urquidy, who entered the year projected to be the #4 SP, and their #1 prospect Forrest Whitley. One has to figure that between those 11 guys there’s got to be 3-4 who will be long term key contributors.
Thank goodness for the surprise pitching given the struggles of the offense and all of the injuries. At some point tough the walks are going to catch up with some of these guys.
I think Bielak and especially Scrubb are due some regression. But Taylor and Paredes look like legit bullpen weapons and Javier is an artist. Valdez will be the one to watch. His performance so far this season appears to be a legit increase in control. He is not going to keep getting this lucky on keeping the ball in the park but even when that normalizes if this control improvement sticks he will be a very good MoR SP. For now a long term 3-4-5 of Javier-Urquidy-Valdez seems like a great trio for the next 5 years. Combine that with Taylor and Paredes as the 7th and 8th inning guys, and the Org only needs to address closer and the top of the rotation long term.
The walks are the big concern. If Javier, Paredes, Bielak, and Taylor continue to throw strikes, they should be fine or at least okay. Scrubb..his curve is hard to hit, but he's got to do better with getting it in the zone. As you say, the walks will catch up if he doesn't do something to minimize them. On Bielak, if one is talking ERA, most definitely. Though, I expect his K numbers will increase some and his walks should drop a little.
The only thing this guy is worse at than knowing baseball.... is the stock market. What a clown. Do not contribute to his gofundme, not everyone has to make it.