I have a hard time to believing Dusty would be playing a sub optimal lineup 75% of the time if the front office wasn't on board.
He's not putting out a suboptimal lineup 75% of the time, and FO is probably okay with Dusty's choices regarding resting players. The amount of times Straw has batted leadoff with a mostly healthy team shows Dusty has a lot of control over the lineup, as well as Click saying the lineup is 100% Dusty's choice. Dusty gives the FO a lot to complain about, but still appears to have a lot of latitude with day to day decisions. I don't see evidence that the FO has butted their heads into when guys rest, and I see no reason for them to do so. I've seen Dusty be unsure about rotation going forward as he needs to discuss with Strom/FO as well as a few other things. I've never seen Dusty unsure about rest days for position players except when waiting to see how a guy recovers from injury/getting nicked up. If the FO complains about Dusty playing poor bench players, Dusty is just going to say get me better bench players.
Just don't sit the stars on weekend games at MMP. Other than that, I'm fine with days off to keep them fresh.
They likely aren't taking that into consideration...but I'd be willing to bet no one (who's healthy) gets a day off this week with the A's and Yanks in before the break.
6 games with the ASB behind it. Yordan is back. If Brantley and Tucker are ready to go, I wouldn't be surprised if they play all 6. A chance to gain more ground on the A's and to beat down the yanks in a weekend series at home? Dusty will play them.
I don’t think both Brantley and Tucker will be back for the A’s series. Maybe one of them. Maybe both back for the Yankees series, with a DH day likely for one of them. Them winning, and guys like McCormick making the most of their opportunities, are also factoring into these rest decisions.
I hear ya and I know they don't consider it. I just think for the fans, the stars should be out there on weekends unless they are dinged up. Me being selfish for sure, but that's a lot of $ to go out there and not see my 8-year old's favorite players play.
The crazy thing is that the Astros are currently UNDER performing their Pythagorean and project as a 104 win team. Every team has injuries, but the Astros have been able to rely on the depth built under Luhnow to get them through all of this...... I really would like to have seen what Luhnow would have done for a longer period of time....... almost all of these players that the Astros are relying on now are from Luhnow and his staff, and most were not high draft selections or expensive..... Straw, McCormick, Torro.... Garcia, Urquidy, Valdez, Javier, Taylor and Abreu. I remember before Luhnow was fired, maybe a month or so before, he was asked a question about why the Astros were not producing more young pitching prospects and him confidently saying "A lot of young arms, mostly international signings are very close to being ready to step in and do very well."....
Coming off of the 11 game win streak with the orioles and tigers on the schedule I think Dusty looked at it as an optimal time to get some key guys some rest. I’m not mad at him for it. Obviously Brantley and Tuck got nicked up and Yordan and Maldy had some personal business to tend to. It was awesome to sweep the Indians when we were no where close to full strength. Getting Chas, Robel Garcia, and Taylor Jones several at bats was great. All eyes are on this Oakland series. Great opportunity to create even more separation heading into the all star break and the cherry on top would be pushing the Yankees even deeper in the ditch they’ve dug themselves in. We’re getting healthy and keeping our big dogs fresh for the home stretch.
The Astros are an octopus and we swept Cleveland with four arms tied behind our back. Maldy doesn't count. Anything he gives us offensively is a BONUS. He's occupying the role most shortstops used to play as the defensive specialist always at the bottom of the order. He is out Metzger or Everett in this lineup. These are our Hitting Eight arms so to speak. 2B R Altuve LF L Brantley 3B R Bregman SS R Correa DH L Alvarez 1B R Gurriel RF L Tucker CF R Straw Everyone else is DEPTH. This lineup hasn't been together very often, and strangely enough, it hasn't been one of our better line-ups. There's usually a sub or two who's hot when we get on a roll and score big. I do not expect Bregman back before the All-star break and possibly not Brantley unless he's DHing. I would not be surprised to see a McCormack, Straw, Tucker outfield in the next six games. With Bregman out, I doubt we'll see more than six of the eight arms of this octopus and possibly as few as four. But we'll see.
I would guess the guys that are going to the ASG will get a day off this week. Especially this weekend. He will probably play our full lineup this Oakland series, but he tends to rest guys when we plays teams that aren't very good, like the yanks
That is supposedly taken into account with Pythagorean... but I agree with you.... if our pen was as good as our line up or rotation, we would have at least 6-7 more wins.... last I looked we were first in ERA and runs scored in the AL.... which is amazing considering the injuries and that we have lost Cole, Verlander, Osuna and Springer in just the last couple of years.... that would crush most organizations..
Is Verlander officially lost? No chance of resigning him? If it comes at the expense of giving Correa the best possible deal for him to stay here I would be against it but ideally I want both back.
I haven't heard much about Verlander. There was a report a month ago that he was interested in pitching for the Astros, but then recently he discussed pitching for the Tigers. I would be shocked if the Astros retained both Correa and Verlander. At this point there is a very high likelihood that Correa is gone.
