Categories Hensley and Brown have better stats in very limited opportunities so upgrade/downgrade is to be determined. Mancini and Velasquez were deadline rentals to replace injured players. Brantley is back and Castro retired. Smith/Taylor is largely irrelevant appeasement to Dusty's old school thinking. We have righties that get lefties out. No need for a left handed pitcher that does an inferior job. That leaves Abreu for Gurriel and that is a huge upgrade which requires changing the batting order. It is harder to upgrade this team than any other team in baseball. It can be done, but not with an average player.
I hope so, but I'm not sure. Last year we had very limited injuries, with the obvious exception of Brantley. Altuve probably played a tick higher than his baseline expectation, at least during the regular season. The bullpen didn't hit any potholes either over the course of the entire regular season and postseason. Losing Verlander hurts during the regular season, but honestly probably helps us for the postseason, given his historical postseason ineffectiveness. I can certainly see a scenario where the 2023 postseason Astros are a better team than the 2022 postseason Astros. Adding Jose Abreu and Brantley is huge. I think the question is whether the pitching turns in the same performance. Hard to improve upon what Framber, Javier, Pressly and Bryan Abreu did in 2022. Complacency is usually what prevents championship repeats -- the mental game. It's really difficult to put in the same effort a second time compared to when you are trying to prove something... and it's hard to be that determined two years in a row.
While not easy to upgrade, the Astros are probably easier to upgrade than a couple of teams. Cardinals, while not having as many top end dudes, have okay dudes everywhere including the bench.
Based mostly on age/experience, I would expect these 9 players to improve: Pena, Alvarez, Tucker, Hensley, Lee, Javier, Garcia, B Abreu, Brown Based mostly on age, I would expect these 5 players to decline: Altuve, Maldonado, Pressly, Neris, Montero While these 8 players should be expected to perform roughly the same: Bregman, Dubon, McCormick, Valdez, Urquidy, Martinez, Maton, Stanek Brantley, McCullers, Meyers are coming fully back from injury so it’s reasonable to expect them to be better (or at least as good while playing more) than last year. J Abreu projects to be a clear upgrade over 2022 Gurriel. Injuries are always a wild card. I agree the Astros probably got a little lucky last season.
Need Garcia to take the next step that Framber did in 2020. Signs are there that he's about to be ready. His body type and age, along with his mechanics/stuff, set up quite well. Him and Framber are truly just built up well for the long haul career that being a starting pitcher entails. Harnessing the mental game is the final hurdle (framer has hopefully done so for good...)
I like Garcia as well to have a good year in 2023. He has excellent secondary pitches and his fastball has slowly been improving year by year which has been his main issue in the majors. He's also added quite a bit of spin to his fastball and curveball since he first arrived.
Yep. Inwas piinding the table two years ago for Marte at the deadline and when the A’s got him for basically a bag of **** I was pretty pissed we didn’t get him. Then, he signed an imminently reasonable contract that offseason and it was like- what the hell dude- we had a chance to make CF a strength for a long time and you decided against it while leaving all that money unspent. Bad idea. It was basically Gm malpractice not to do those deals with your boss telling you to get it done. I’d have fired him for that alone.
I'd like Garcia to throw his fastball more up in the zone (or down, left, right, or even less if he can get his cutter over the plate more).
Garcia has to learn to adjust his delivery to meet the new time clock. Whether he can do that and still maintain strike zone control is a question that need to be answered first. He quick pitched a little toward the end of the season, but that's not really adjusting to the pitch clock. He may have also gotten away with a few balks. Don't get me wrong. I'm rooting for him to adjust to the changes and become the pitcher we want him to be.
Why would the pitch clock affect Garcia more than others? Edit: Okay, after rereading this, I am guessing you erroneously think the pitch clock keeps ticking after the windup has started.
@SKYGODZ187 I'm stupid, you're smart. I was wrong, you were right. You're the best, I'm the worst. You're very good looking, I'm not very attractive.
I don’t think anyone was wanting to trade Framber and Drew Gilbert for Arraez, which would be the equivalent of what Miami gave up.
The point was I thought the idea that the Twins were even shopping him at all was bs and unsubstantiated. I dismissed it entirely, and I was wrong.
And he was a dude that had 6+ eras on Aaa and wherever else when he got traded. he had a 6.87 era in the majors and a 6.52 era in AAA- he was also considered damaged goods. Cool- the Marlins reclamation project worked. Maybe he was special and they were only going to do a deal for him. That wasn’t how it was thought of or written up at the time.
Seems more like the equivalent of trading Urquidy for Arraez. Lopez has an ERA just south of 4 over 5 seasons and a 106 ERA+.
