Agreed. And he will steal quite a bit more. I think this will be a massive breakout year for Tucker as he moves into full MVP contention.
The limiting factor on the other is innings more than runs, right? Those were all spot starts more or less. I assume if he was up for 10 games at a time or something he’d have a little more rope.
But that’s just it- there’s no adjustments for small sample sizes and even smaller ones when you break it down R/L. It’s garbage in garbage out and not worth talking about. If you want to talk adjustments for a guy like Hensley you have to go to minor league numbers and convert to MLB equivalencies.
Venezuelan lineup against the Astros tomorrow. Some guy named Altuve is batting first against the Astros. Game will be on ATT SportsNet.
Response is to both this and the post this post responded to. The problem is that what we anticipate is NOT what we KNOW. It was just one year ago that we THOUGHT we knew Gurriel was good to go at 1B. We might have though he had peaked, but few began the season imagining he would fall off the cliff in production. I don't know anyone who expected that. I know I didn't. I hoped Bregman would return to his former self, but after a couple of years it wasn't really expected and certainly not KNOWN. I fully expect some unexpected things to happen during the course of the season. But this is why flexibility in payroll is a good thing rather than spending every last cent at the start of the season. Same with the lineup. It should be fluid rather than locked in place until we see how players perform this season.
He's certainly doing everything he can this spring. He took the Lee/Diaz debate in a different direction. Has the debate become Stubbs/Price now?
I really don't understand the long term consequences of batting order in affecting a hitter's results other than RBI opportunities and perhaps an increase in Sac bunts or Sac flies. It eventually comes down to pitcher verses hitter and even if pitchers initially select different pitches due to the batter behind a hitter, eventually they will throw the pitch that is most effective against that hitter. In this case, seeing more fastballs for Pena. Eventually pitchers will throw the breaking balls against him until he shows he can hit them with authority or at least foul them off and increase the pitch count. When that happens, it won't matter which spot in the line-up he's in. At this point, the batting order is about maximizing runs given the strength of each player and not maximizing the individual's player stats. While I understand it will not happen, I have always been of the opinion the lead-off hitter should be the best OBP unless he is one of the best OPS guys. In Altuve's case, his OPS would be better suited to 3 or 4 so he can drive in runs as well as get on base. But that seem unimaginable to some. I just don't understand why. I didn't understand Springer batting lead-off either. I can somewhat understand putting your best hitter at lead off just to maximize his PAs, but that comes at the expense of maximizing RBI opportunities. This is my reasoning for placing the best OPS guys (best hitters) at 3 and 4 in the batting order. It is a reasoned balance to maximize runs scored. And OBP then becomes most important for the leadoff batter who is not a top 2 OPS guy. In my mind, a lineup should be built around our best hitter which is Alvarez. He hits both left and right handed pitching with great authority and that hitter should be in the 3rd spot in the order. Since he is a lefty, the best Righty OPS hitter will bat behind him. This also works well with Dusties LRLRLRLRL predilection which does have some reasoning behind it only if the batters are typically better against pitchers throwing from the opposite side. Though this is not really always true. Getting back to the line-up, leading off with a lefty is generally better because most pitchers are right handed. So I propose Brantley as the lead off against right handed pitchers. He has a normal advantage you would expect facing right handed pitching and his OBP is a far stronger part of his game than SLG. So our line-up is now: 1. L Brantley OBP 2. R (Abreu/Bregman/Altuve) 3. L Alvarez OPS 4. R (Altuve/Bregman/Abreu/) 5. L (Tucker) 6. R (Bregman/Altuve/Abreu) 7. L/R 8. R (Pena/McCormick/Meyers/ Maldonado) 9. L/R To be continued Eureka! I can finally edit after 30 seconds! Uh, minutes.
It is conceivable we will have four hitters battling for MVP votes. Alvarez (2022 3rd behind Judge/Ohtani), Bregman (2019 2nd to Trout) , Tucker (2022 15th ALMVP) and Altuve (2017 ALMVP). All but Tucker have been there before and he could easily join them. And that's not even counting Abreu (2020 MVP) who could have a season like Gurriel's age 37 season or an up and coming Pena. Just a brief reminder of the MVP voting in 2022: 3. Alvarez 232 points 5. Altuve 142 points 15. Tucker 8 points 17. Abreu 5 points 19. Bregman 4 points
“The same can’t be said of the Houston Astros (and, to a slightly lesser extent, the Los Angeles Dodgers and Toronto Blue Jays). Don’t get us wrong — the defending champs still look plenty fearsome on paper, but they ranked dead last in MANFRED a season ago because they finished 29th in pitch tempo, 29th in shift avoidance and 22nd in sprint speed. Essentially, MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred (no relation to the metric MANFRED) came along and nerfed some of the hallmarks of Houston’s playing style when it won the World Series last year.”
In the short outings, he had 15.77 ERA. Granted, he was typically being pulled at the 3 or 4 run mark whether it was 2 outs in the first or 2 outs in the 3rd. I don't think it is reasonable to expect that he would have made it 2-5 more innings without giving up a run after having an average 15.77 ERA in the short starts he gave up 3-4 runs early. As such, he was not deserving of more rope. He would have to pitch better to get more rope.
If Brantley is washed, it will be apparent within a month or two of the season and he can be moved down and Pena moved up (or even have Tucker moved up). I don't think it is unreasonable to give Brantley that opportunity to prove himself based on his history. Dusty sometimes gives too much credit to guys that have been around in the league longer, but in the case of Brantley we don't have any evidence to indicate he can't return to his pre-injury form from last year. Some of the people in this thread act like if Pena doesn't start the season hitting in the 2 spot that he will be mentally damaged forever and never recover. That's silly. His production will go down but he won't fall off a cliff, and we know Dusty and his lineup proclivities. He's gonna move people around. I wouldn't be surprised if Pena hits 2nd every game that Brantley rests, which will probably be a good bit to start the season.
There is no reason to think Brantley is washed. He has never been the type of hitter to need exit velocity to be productive. He has never had average or max exit velocities above the mid 70s percentile and has actually been in the 50s and 60s just as often. However, last year was actually his best as an Astro for average exit velocity and a career best for barrel percentage. His value is in consistency, swinging at the right pitches and making contact. None of that should be negatively impacted by the shoulder if he's healthy but simply a year older. He had a very similar shoulder issue in 2016 and returned just as good as ever. I expect Brantley to have a perfectly good season with a good AVG and OB%. His SLG may be slightly down due to lost power but his high contact approach along with the shift being gone will help him get to 115-120 OPS+. He will also probably have a slightly reduced role, maybe sitting 1-2 games per week (ideally vs a tough LH starter and replaced my Chas) which will only help his percentage numbers.
