He was good before he got here also. Last season was by far his worst stunt in the majors. He's a plus defender at shortstop and average with a bat. That is enough to be an everyday big leaguer.
#1. Click didnt control Dusty. Click stayed out of the way. #2. Click didn't do **** with personnel. That's why the team is in trouble. Don't give me the Catcher BS. They ended with the right catcher at the deadline.
It feels so weird and confusing to be so wrong now that I think that I... Do I... Do I literally love Mauricio Dubon?
The pitching staff was so good last year there was literally no way for Dusty to **** it up, and Click leashed him up during the playoffs but that almost got wrecked by him using an injured McCullers. we have not the pitching staff for Dustyisms this year.
Pretty crappy win… that being said, the Astros playing as they should would have led to a sweep. Playing as they should is a relative term, however. Sure, Altuve/Bregman/Tucker/Abreu should be more consistent and will hopefully have a course correction back to their expected numbers if they are healthy. Yordan coming back will also stabilize things. However Montero is a mess and Abreu may also need some mechanical adjustments.
Abreu and Montero are making things a bit difficult on the bullpen. You just can't trust either in a close game. Stanek/Maton/Neris/Pressly are it, and they can't pitch every game.
And I’d still take Stanek off that list in a second given his track record. Honestly, is Nerris the only one who hasn’t had a full-on WTF moment this year? Granted, Pressly is fine from a mental standpoint despite occasional hiccups. Montero is a mental mess. You hope Abreu wouldn’t be given his dominance last post-season, but this is such a fickle game. And if you really track last season, Abreu was totally coddled into high leverage appearances…. And was only fully unleashed in the playoffs. Luckily Maton lacks the emotion chip to become a mental mess… and he’s probably overtaken Montero/Stanek in the pecking order for the time being.
Pretty much. Looking through his game logs, he's had 4 of what I would call "meaningfully bad games" this year (and we won 2 of those), he's pitched in 34 games
Relief pitchers are very tough to evaluate. They pitch so few innings, that every bad outing is magnified. They are human and pitching against MLB hitters. Because of this, 99% of them will have at least a few stinkers during a season. So, I disregard the 10% worst outings, and want to see runs given up in 20% or less and multiple runs given up in less than 5% of the remaining games (assuming 1 IP outings). That is basically 70% of outings with 0 runs. I would also like to see 1 or fewer baserunners in at least 75%. To be clear, I don't want them to be terrible 10% of the time, but if it happens, I don't hold it against them as long as they are reasonably good in the other 90%. % of remaining games 1+ earned runs / 2+ Pressly 13.3% / 0% Abreu 12.5% / 0% Neris 3.2% / 0% Maton 9.7% / 0% Montero 33.3% / 13.3% Stanek 12.5% / 0% Martinez 40.9% / 9.1% 1 or fewer H/ BB/ HBP Pressly 77.4% Abreu 75.0% Neris 83.9% Maton 80.6% Montero 63.3% Stanek 70.8% Martinez 50% As you can see, by this analysis, Neris and Maton have been exceptional. Pressly and Abreu have been very good. Stanek has been mostly good but not quite dependable. Montero and Martinez have been bad and need replaced
Bryan Abreu has been inconsistently bad for the past month. He needs to get his **** together. https://www.baseball-reference.com/...1&t=p&year=2023#120-133-sum:pitching_gamelogs
... We skinny dipped in the Los Angeles smog ... We encountered the unruly Balk call ... And we brushed shoulders with another bullpen flameout Evidently, Fear is not a factor for the Astros
https://theathletic.com/4640289/2023/06/26/rafael-montero-astros-meltdown-dodgers/ Seven days ago, Baker broke from his preferred script. He sent a broken reliever into the belly of a beast and paid the price. Francisco Lindor, Pete Alonso and Tommy Pham loomed in the sixth inning of a game Houston led by three. All three of them notched hits against Rafael Montero to start the sixth inning, moving the Mets within a run while prolonging Montero’s miserable season. “He’s been struggling. I know it. You know it. Everyone knows it,” Baker said after the game, which the Astros won 10-9. “You have to take your shot in the sixth when you got four innings to do whatever mishaps that happen versus the seventh or the eighth. You take your shot at some point in time.” Baker’s bluntness accentuated what now must be more widely acknowledged: Montero is having the sort of season that is impossible to defend. After his latest disaster on Sunday — a blown three-run lead against the Dodgers, forcing his team to play 11 innings before finally recording the win — Montero sports a 7.76 ERA and 1.82 WHIP. No qualified reliever entered the day with a higher ERA. Only two had higher WHIPs. Owner Jim Crane, who ran the baseball operations department when Montero signed his contract, now must consider how much longer he can watch his investment implode. Crane does not have a history of eating bad contracts — but also has never had one of this length and value age this poorly. As long as Montero remains active, the Astros must use him in some capacity. They can’t ignore his presence and risk overworking other relievers. Plus, if Montero is to salvage anything for the remainder of the season or turn his fortunes around, it won’t occur sitting in the bullpen. Montero has to pitch, however painful it might be. Asked after Sunday’s game if he must reevaluate when and how to use Montero, Baker offered another damning indictment of the situation. “I’ve already reevaluated,” Baker said, according to the Houston Chronicle. “The thing about it is, when am I supposed to use him? If not, you use up everybody else.” Tailoring Montero’s appearances to either low-leverage or blowout games is one solution, but the Astros don’t score or allow enough runs to create many of them. Houston still boasts the sport’s best team ERA. Its lineup, however, has just a .717 OPS and is struggling to sustain anything in Yordan Alvarez’s absence. The byproduct of both trends is a bevy of leverage innings, which exposes the vulnerability of lesser-used relievers and struggling ones like Montero. Four relievers have separated themselves as trustworthy in those situations: Bryan Abreu, Phil Maton, Hector Neris and closer Ryan Pressly. Montero and Pressly were the team’s two most well-rested relievers entering Sunday’s series finale at Dodger Stadium. Abreu threw 30 pitches in Houston’s 8-7 loss an evening earlier. Both Neris and Ryne Stanek had pitched two days in a row, though Neris needed just two pitches in his appearance on Saturday. Baker told reporters afterward the team “really didn’t want to use” Neris on Sunday. With his club holding a three-run lead on Sunday, Baker used Maton to navigate the seventh inning against the fifth, sixth and seventh hitters in Los Angeles’ batting order. Maton required 11 pitches to procure his three outs. Maton has 10 multi-inning appearances this season, but given he also appeared in Saturday’s game, it made sense to forgo another on Sunday. Maton is also among the sport’s most-used relievers this season: Sunday’s seventh inning inflated his season total to 38 ⅔ innings. Entering Sunday, only 10 major-league relievers had thrown more. That dilemma is one the Astros must be mindful of throughout the season with many other relievers. Abreu, for example, already has 36 appearances. Just five relievers in the sport have more. Houston won a World Series last year, in part, due to their bullpen’s light workload in the regular season. Maton’s clean inning meant the Dodgers had Miguel Rojas, Michael Busch and Mookie Betts scheduled to hit in the eighth. Busch is a rookie with a .561 OPS. Rojas has a .546 mark, more than 100 points below his career average. Asking Montero to handle both of them is fair, especially for someone making $11 million. Rojas struck out and Busch bounced out, leaving just Betts between Montero and a clean inning. A full-count changeup hit Betts to ruin the dream. Freddie Freeman followed with a double that scored Betts before Will Smith socked a game-tying home run that sent Baker from the dugout. “We’ve done everything. We’ve gone to the video room. I’m telling you, he was throwing the ball great,” Baker said of Montero. “You can’t keep somebody loose all the time or else you’ll burn those guys out in an emergency. And it happened so quickly.” That Baker opted for Neris after Montero only furthered frustration. If Neris was indeed available, asking him to pitch the eighth seemed reasonable, but Baker said the team’s coaching staff only wanted to use him in an emergency. Same for Pressly pitching multiple innings. Montero created just such an emergency, forcing Neris to appear for a third day in a row and Pressly to pitch multiple innings for only the second time in a regular-season game since May 29, 2021. When Montero’s ineffectiveness begins to impact more important relievers, it prompts wonder how long this situation can remain tenable. No minor-league reliever is forcing the team’s hand to take Montero’s spot, but Baker does always want a left-hander in his bullpen. Houston currently has an all-right-handed relief corps. Parker Mushinski and Blake Taylor are both at Triple A, have major-league experience and could afford far more value than Montero currently provides. Montero has no minor-league options left. The team could create a way to place him on the injured list and allow him to sort some things out, but given how poorly he’s pitched all year, it’s worth asking why that hasn’t already happened. Montero is signed through 2025. Cutting ties three months into a three-year deal is difficult to envision, but all other options are nearing exhaustion — accentuating just how untenable this situation has become.
