I mean. We b**** slapped them, the Rays, Blue Jays. Unfortunately we played like **** against the MIGHTY WS champion Phillies.
I blame the 4 PM start. Some of the Stros are just waking up from a nap. 6-9 at home is just @#$@# ridiculous, they are playing in front of non-Tampa home crowds.
It's gonna totally screw you up when you realize they have a 6pm start on Sunday. The team's fine, yall need to deal with it.
Astros are now 17th in position player WAR at 3.5. If you replaced Maldy, Abreu, and Hensley with replacement level players at 0 WAR apiece the Astros would be about 5th in position player WAR lmao.
Not sure if this is sarcasm or not. If not, my reaction is.....And I thought moving him to leadoff after a hot streak was an extreme overreaction.
Every team has guys that struggle. If you removed the 3 players struggling the most from every team and replaced them with replacements players, the Astros would probably still only be 7th or 8th.
I know Peña has hit a couple of homers, but having him and DuBonds lead off is almost like giving the other team an opener. I would love, in the interest of comedy, to hear Dusty’s reasoning for having them 1 and 2.
That’s generally true, but having -1.4 WAR concentrated among three players, with only one of those players even needing to have regular playing time, is a unique situation for the Astros. Looking back at past seasons only Maldy would hit the -0.4+ range in the past with maybe a few other guys in the slightly negative range before picking things up. Of the three in question, none of them have been all that unlucky either. They all have been truly terrible, with only Abreu having a strong enough track record where you would be shocked if he doesn’t pull out of it.
There was a little sarcasm in my post, and that's why I said they would likely be 7th or 8th. Usually, when people say... if you removed this slump, these players, etc, to show a big change, it would not be a big change if that was done across the board. The Astros having three really negative players is a big deal. I'm hopeful Abreu won't be this bad going forward. Maldy, he's got an OPS just over 0.100 lately and it would be closer to 0.033 without HBPs. Even with massive improvement, that's not looking good.
Pena has a 0.380 OBP and 1.200 OPS in the 2 spot so far this year. No idea why or if it's a fluke, but having him in the 2 hole hasn't been like giving the other team an opener. As for why he does it, I assume he wants Tucker/Bregman/Yordan in places that give lots of opportunities to drive in runs. And those two were probably the next best current players on the team when the roles opened up. You could argue Julks or Meyers could take the 1 spot from Dubon now, but it's really only been 2 days of being bad, which isn't enough of a sample size to do much. Until then, he was doing fine. Chaz/Altuve will be more viable 1 spot hitters whenever they return. Brantley may take the 2 spot or help strengthen the bottom of the other, probably depending on what Pena continues to do.
