Imagining Meyers and Diaz as premium offensive players at CF and C is pretty damned exciting. The train might just keep on rolling.
Yainer Diaz should be playing catcher most days and 1B when he's not catching. I've been saying for a long time that his bat is ELITE. Do not hide it on the bench behind two horrible players in Maldy and J Abreu!
With todays game, the Astros can now field a lineup (if Altuve can keep his little ass on the field) with 8 players that have an above average OPS. They won't with any regularity, but they could.
Yep. And it’s the logical one. And it’s probably almost the best defensive lineup. If you threw Dubon in at 1st while you played Diaz at C and Chas, Jake, tucker and Yordan at the 4 DH/OF spots that team would be really hard to see not winning 100 games and being chalk to win it all.
If Diaz played as much as Sengun we would all be thrilled. Sengun didn't play 10 MPG like Diaz has been getting.
The Astros have a .600 winning % and the 4th best record in the AL. Nobody in the NL has a .600 winning %. The Braves .593 is best record in the NL. The Yankees .590 is the last WC in the AL and would have the 2nd best record in the NL.
Latest podcast is now up. We review the month of May and year to date, talk about the Rangers, point and laugh at the Angels, talk about Strausburg and MoBerg. spoitfy: https://open.spotify.com/episode/1Pb7CX8DIffAi1O1udxsDC?si=09kzthbSTB6ZeYVNIs8fWg Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podca...n-astros-podcast/id1683955456?i=1000615817490 Amazon: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/8...y-is-over?ref=dm_sh_O3xGWzjhrLAqmTyae43er9HLW
On the broadcast last night they said that hitters chasing Manoah's slider out of the zone last year was his bread and butter. They continued that it rolls a bit more this year with less bite and hitters have been able to see it better and lay off of it. They also said his Fastball is down about 1 MPH. MLB hitters are world class. Any little reduction in quality from a pitch can result in it being hammered. Thats also the difference in a pitcher who relies on deception and pitching out of the zone vs one who has the stuff to beat hitters in the zone. Thats why the Astros like the Rafael Montero’s of the baseball world.
One thing I'm really looking forward to in here is the people that bash Bagwell on a daily basis over the Abreu and Montero signings should be showing up very soon with the same energy praising Bagwell for NOT signing Wilson Contreras or Christian Vazquez. It's looking like Yainer Diaz could be a dude and if Bagwell signed one of these other catchers Yainer would likely be rotting in AAA. If you are going to bash Bagwell for the bad signings you need to be fair and give him credit for the right decisions as well.....
Another thing that irritates me is that the Astros have an entire organization that researches every player and gives all that information to the decision makers. And at that point Crane was the decision maker, not Bagwell. Bagwell did not decide to fly down to recruit Abreu. Crane SENT him and instructed him to sign Abreu based on information Jeff and others gave him. Now I get that Crane likes Bagwell and values his opinion but the Abreu contract was the responsibility and "fault" of many more people than just Bagwell and Jeff was not the most important. As for Montero, he signed the day after Click was dismissed. There is no way the offer wasn't in front of Montero and his people before Click was gone. Besides, I don't think Bagwell would have nearly the influence over the signing of a PITCHER who has been in the organization for over a year than the pitching coaches and scouts do. Jeff is getting a much to unfair, bad rap here.
Contreras just got too pricey. Not sure I'd credit Bagwell for dodging that bullet. Bagwell brought this on himself with his denigrating of the advanced metrics and overall, "I know best", "I'm smarter than the baseball community" mentality. Most players are, in fact, not smarter than the baseball community. Bagwell is no exception. And why should he be? He has no GM experience. This was his first time doing it and he made mistakes. No surprise.
Sengun played 15-20 minutes a game for the first 4 months of his career on a team that had no purpose other than playing young players and trying to lose. Y'all's obsession with Diaz needing to play a ton in April/May is bizarre. We'll know what he is for this season by October and if he's good enough, he'll play plenty then. Maldy will be starting the majority of games at catcher, if healthy. The Astros sending Salazar down suggests they are now comfortable with Diaz as backup C. He has potential ABs at DH and 1B if he proves good enough. He already has more ABs this season than Tucker did either in his 1st or 2nd seasons. There are lots of different ways to develop players.
You're right, keeping one of likely the five best hitters on the bench when your offense sucks is actually really smart when you think about it.
Dubon has a .690 OPS. I swear some of y’all be acting like he’s Barry Bonds…I’d be willing to bet Abreu’s OPS the rest of the season will be higher than Dubons.
Dubon has a .690 OPS. I swear some of y’all be acting like he’s Barry Bonds…I’d be willing to bet Abreu’s OPS the rest of the season will be higher than Dubons.
Everything was up too. His command was shotty af. Seemed like every fastball was sailing high. I would still bet on Manoah turning it around bc he was so dominant prior to this year.
