I may be wrong, but I always assumed the idea was for the benefit to the righty sandwiched in between that gets to face a lefty with the benefit of protection behind them so you have to pitch to them. You also can't pitch carefully to the first lefty because you have a bad matchup with the next guy. If Alvarez/Tucker are bunched up and it's with no outs, the righty batter comes in without much protection behind him. If they are bunched up with 1 or 2 outs, the lefty specialist can come in and potentially never have to face a righty. Not that they do this, but for example, if you had Yordan/Chaz/Tucker, you create a mess for the opposition. They either have to have a lefty face Chaz, or don't bring in the lefty. If it's Yordan/Tucker/Chaz, your lefty can just pitch around Chaz if you get that far. You basically create a MVP caliber hitter out of thin air by doing this (if Chaz was there. That's not actually the case, but an extreme example).
Abreu's lack of power is mind boggling. The dude has no pop in his bat at all. He has hit one home run since early August of last year. That's pretty scary production coming from your everyday first baseman.
Boy, I know you love to defend every Dusty move but you are really reaching here. Because one right handed hitter may occasionally, under the right circumstances, have a slightly more favorable matchup (and still not be better than Tucker) that justifies not protecting Yordan with your 2nd best hitter, and also getting Tucker as many PA as possible. I agree with starting Chaz between them against a LH starter, but shockingly the stats wizard Dusty can't figure out something that complex. He can't figure out that Chaz is even good against them to begin with.
Put Chas between Alvarez and Tucker. You put a lefty to face Yordan and Tucker, you get to deal with a guy that who has a career .933 OPS against lefties and hitting 1.3 this season.
The Astros need 6 “good” hitters to field a championship team and Abreu and Maldy are not that. So at least 2 but preferably 3 out of a group of Brantley, Meyers, McCormick, and Pena need to post wRC+ of >120 in order to make up for that if Abreu and Maldy are going to remain in the everyday lineup.
While I've not agreed with much of the Dusty defending at all costs, I can see keeping Alvarez and Tucker separated to ensure at least 1 RHB gets a swipe at a LHP if one is used against them. That said, that RHB should be really good to ensure the best bats are getting the most ABs. Right now, Bregman probably should be that guy. If Bregman was significantly worse than Tucker and Alvarez (not just a slight slump), I would agree with you that Alvarez and Tucker should bat back to back.
Tucker has been better against LHP (and overall) the last 3 seasons than Bregs. And almost half the time, the 3 batter rule would mean the lefty has to face a righty anyway. If we started Chaz between them against a LHP, now we're talking actual benefit.
You only see it as defending Dusty moves because you have issues with him. I am telling you a logical reason to do what they do - that's it. I *don't care* what Dusty does. I have said, numerous times, that I don't believe the Astros are worried about winning in April or May and use the regular season to experiment and do whatever. He could put them next to each other. He can split them. He can start Maldy every day until he feels Diaz is ready - I don't care, because there's a bigger goal in my mind, and it's not to win a random game on April 30th. It's been the same with Hinch going back to middle of 2017. I'll happy critique decisions in the playoffs - but Dusty (and Hinch before him) and the Astros are supremely confident in winning their division and use the regular season to prepare for the playoffs, when every one of his decisions tends to work pretty damn well every year, which seems irrelevant to people when the next season starts. The same people complaining about all of Dusty's daily moves this year were the same ones who were complaining about playing Yuli or not using Chaz enough or b****ing about not playing players enough or playing players too much or giving people days off on good streaks or on bad streaks or against good teams or complaining about every pitching decision the last 5 years or whatever else. They go silent when Dusty's moves work (remember all the complaining about yesterday's lineup before the game?) and then just restart again the next day or year. It's all just extremely silly - it's like people don't even know how to enjoy the best baseball dynasty of the last 20 years because a rookie catcher doesn't get enough April at bats in the #9 spot or Tucker bats #5 instead of #4.
On the 3 batter rule, it only matters if the inning doesn't end. While that may only apply half the time, teams would be able to pick when to deploy their LHP such that he only faces Tucker and Alvarez a lot more than half the time. Teams are going to use a left handed reliever on Alvarez and Tucker because even Alvarfez and Tucker being close to even in splits(Tucker still has a small platoon advatage against RHPs), the lefty reliever is usually better than most teams 3rd-5th RHP. Bregman is usually better against LHPs and it offers him a lot of protection against facing a difficult right handed sidewinder because there is no team that is going to throw a RH sidewinder against Alvarez or Tucker.
This is entirely on Jeff "we lean too heavily on analytics" Bagwell and his enabler, Jim "let's fix what isn't broken" Crane. Just an absolute disastrous start to Abreu's Astros career. It doesn't help that Dusty continues to manage like it's still 1998. I'm not panic in April guy but it's fair to get annoyed at performances and decisions. That said, it's hard not to look at how completely lost Abreu looks at the plate and not think he isn't washed and that giving Bagwell a prominent voice in personnel decisions was just stupid. Hopefully Cintron isn't bullsh*tt!ng us and honestly sees something in his mechanics that they're about to fix but there are guys in A ball that could put together more competitive AB's.
If I remained too silent during Dubon's hit streak, I apologize. If I didn't say during Dubon's hot streak that I was afraid it would cause Dusty to make a mistake (i.e., like batting Dubon leadoff and getting Dubon career-like stats from the leadoff spot), I apologize. --------- Dusty Baker: You have to field the best team on a daily basis. Dusty Baker: Mauricio Dubon has been starting in centerfield with Justin Verlander on the mound because Dubon has the strongest throwing arm of the Astros centerfielders and he is trying to keep opponents from going first to third with a fly ball pitcher in low scoring gms When I see quotes like this, it makes me think Dusty plays who he thinks will help him win in the regular season, and that decisions March-July are made to win games in March-July. This is a very smart way to look at things in March-July as banking wins and not overtaxing guys is the best way to put the team in a good position in the postseason. The Astros have been very good at banking wins. Though, it does mean that Dusty is basically saying that if he plays the wrong guy for a long period time in May and June, it was a mistake on his part and not part of his postseason master plan. Switching to Chas late in the season was either an admission he was wrong or that the FO overruled him. I think the FO is very open to Dusty experimenting. From my point of view, it looks like Dusty plays who he believes is the best player unless a guy needs rest or is a matchup he likes. Granted: I dislike some of Dusty's moves based on some of Dusty's moves.
The Monday morning quarterbacking is hilarious. The Abreu signing was widely praised in here and around baseball. Abreu had the best batting average in baseball last season against the top 25 pitchers in OPS+ against. I wasn't expecting MVP Abreu. However, I thought okay with the best hitting 2nd baseman in baseball, some pop at SS, Bregman having a bit of a resurgence, studs in Alvarez and Tucker.... that should be pretty solid. I was thinking 3 seasons of .800 OPS for Abreu would be good enough. NOBODY knew the guy would lose it to this level. Blaming Bagwell is just ridiculous. You think it was his idea to not have a GM for the offseason? Also, VERY few people were calling for bringing back Yuli as the full time starter. Yes, many of us wanted him to have a bench role. The other options seriously being discussed were Josh Bell and Anthony Rizzo. Bell isn't exactly lighting the world on fire with his .687 OPS. Rizzo to me was never really an option. He was always going back to the Yankees. Astros being interested was just his agent getting more money from the Yankees. We are spoiled rotten fans after all these years of success. Starting to sound like entitled Yankee fans....
I loved the Abreu signing and I did not want Yuli back unless it was in a coaching/front office capacity. Abreu is not near what I hoped but he still can be a solid contributor and man 1B capably as the 5th or 6th best hitter on this team. But why put the 5th or 6th best hitter in the cleanup spot? He needs to be in the 6-7 hole.
A few months ago, you liked the signing. https://bbs.clutchfans.net/threads/astros-sign-jose-abreu.317825/#post-14380054
If Abreu plays 5 out of every 6 rensining games at the level he did May-October last season he will finish: 135 g 66 runs / 65 rbi 33 doubles / 10 hr 45 bb / 99 K .298 avg .360 / .417 / .777ops Last year that would have been about 125 OPS+ and great for the 5th or 6th best hitter on a team. Not $19.5 M worth of production but not a disaster either. I'm mot giving up yet.
9-3 vs the #1, 2, 3, and 15 teams in the current power rankings the past 2 weeks. During that time, the Astros fell from 4th to 6th. I haven't looked but that has to be the hardest 12 consecutive games on the schedule. 2 weeks ago I would have bet money and given a handicap to someone that the Astros would finish April below 500. Great job !!
Yes but that's because they choose to do that by blowing off the power of average. In 2017 we were a rolling ball of butcher knives on offense without any great offensive players b/c nobody was worse than average. Every single position player had positive WAR and I want to say our worst offensive player had a 99 or 101 OPS+ If you got rid of the wretched performance that is Maldy and replaced him with Diaz you would have a pretty close to average OPS+ guys. MVP Tier (140+)- Tucker and Yordan Really Good tier (121-140)- Altuve, Bregman Good (105-120)- Pena, Chas, Brantley/Meyers (Platoon- might even reach really good tier) Average (95-105) Diaz, Meyers That solves the problem. Abreu cannot bring the entire offense down singlehandedly if that's how you handle it. But, if you want to **** around with Dubon playing 2 or 3 times a week instead of just Chas, Jake playing against RHP, Brantley playing against LHP and Maldy catching 80% of the time you can sure fashion a shitty lineup if you want to try. Winning teams need 4 guys hitting well at once. To get 4 guys hitting well at once you need 6 or 7 guys that are good hitters in the lineup. Dusty way too often fails to do that. If you stop playing Maldy and you work a smart platoon we just need a little above average from those 4 guys you listed, not quasi all star type play (which is what I think of 120+ OPS+ as, quasi all star.
