Olson, Acuna, Austin Riley and Ozzie Albies played every game in the first half. I read that today and was wondering if we could trade Baker for Snitker at the deadline? It must be nice actually having a manager who plays his best players.
They did that last year too. And then flamed out in the NLDS. Call me crazy, but I feel like I prefer the organizational strategy that keeps leading to ACLS's and WS's.
As a general rule I like giving days off but I feel Dusty or whoever makes the decisions is inflexible and shortsighted. If you are giving one of the regulars a day off and another comes up sick, move his day off don't sit them both. If you need to take we a guy out of the lineup rearrange the lineup don't just put the replacement in his spot
Why, though? The Astros' system has worked for more than half a decade now - Hinch did all the same things with lineups and rest (not to the same degree, though). Maybe the players value knowing their off days in advance. If you're going to give guy X and Y each a day off, then doing it on the same day vs splitting them up doesn't change their overall win probabilities much. You just decrease the chance of winning one game by a small amount and increase the other. At the end of the day, despite having 4 of their 6 starters injured, missing their 2 best offensive players for huge chunks of the season, and having their prize FA signing be mediocre, they are on pace for 90 wins. The Astros are fine and are still focused on October and making decisions that way. People here were saying the Astros sacrificed yesterday's game because they didn't play 1 guy (who, if he played every day, would impact 1 win every 30-40 games). It's out of control dumb. One lineup position change or playing an extra guy today instead of tomorrow doesn't change their win probabilities anywhere the amount of corresponding complaining that comes with each move. How many thousands of posts were there all year this year that playing Julks was destroying the team and costing them wins? Now he's one of the Astros' better actual players and it turns out all of that wasn't true and now he has a WAR (scaled for playing time) just around ... Diaz.
He did. He also has lost earlier in the playoffs a whole lot more. Do you want the Astros to be the team that dominates or the team that gets lucky on hot streak? Remember how Bruce Bochy was a genius a month ago and the Astros could never possibly catch up to such a genius manager with such a dominant team? If the Astros played all their top players every day, the team would currently not have either Dubon or Julks contributing today. It's all that "unnecessary" playing time that develops depth.
I’m for giving days off but having Diaz on the bench after the ASB is wild. Playing Madris instead is even more wild. I’m not a fan of the “predetermined scheduled days off” - although I think Dusty sometimes uses that as excuse when asked about some of the harder to justify decisions - and would rather give days off based on recent player performance. Similar to how you don’t bench a player in the middle of a heater in the NBA, I can’t stand when he sits someone who just went 4-4 the night before. Also, it’s ridiculous how many games Maldonado catches if we are using logic of “keeping players fresh”. He’s about to be 37 yet he’s in the top 5 in innings caught. That’s ridiculous.
We’ve also had more depth the last decade where we were able to use a guy like Marwin or Diaz instead of the starter. AJ Hinch would have NEVER had Blight Madris batting 6th. Edit: We’ve also had a ton of injuries pile up even though we have this amazing system you speak of. That being said, I don’t think this team has the depth to make a playoff run if it gets in as a wild card. Maybe they will pick up a starter at the deadline but I will be surprised if it’s a true #2 or #3 they can slot in there.
You should look at the data on players who get "hot" one day and then how they do the next day. Over a large sample size .... they unsurprisingly perform like their normal selves.
Tyler White got 200+ ABs with a negative WAR in 2019. He mostly batted 7th and 8th, but had 50+ ABs batting 6th, and 22 batting 5th. And that's was in the Astros best offense ever. JD Davis got 100+ ABs in 2018. Madris has 22 ABs so far more than halfway through 2023. Agreed - but injuries tend to be one-off things. Playing people less can reduce them but if you get hurt on a swing, you get hurt. It's an isolated incident. The impact on the Astros I think is that the players manage to stay fresh and still play their best baseball in October. The Astros have for 7 years been playing more games than anyone else in the league. I do agree the pitching may be a problem, but for this exact reason. Due to all the injuries, the Astros haven't been able to keep their pitchers fresh this season and it could be a problem come October.
He also won a WS in FAR less shorter time than it took Dusty. And let’s be real…we won on the backs of one of the most dominating bullpen performances in history. Before you make up some rationalization how that was all Dusty “keeping them fresh”, you might want to go check the league leaders in appearances this season where you’ll find Abreu and Maton.
You serious? Tyler White had an OPS above .850 in 2017 and 2018. Last time I checked Jose Abreu has a negative WAR and he’s batted 4th or 5th all season if you really want to take it there. JD Davis is still getting regular ABs for the Giants right now. Blight Madris is not comparable. Edit: It’s amazing to me that ANYONE could actually justify Blight Madris hitting 6th last night.
Yes, the Astros are more likely to have a pitching mess in the playoffs this year for that exact reason. All the top Astros pitchers last year were well rested.
Maybe Madris is more comparable to Vaughn Grissom, who Snitker has batted 6th 30 times this season with a -0.8 WAR. It's pretty fascinating to see how upset you are by a rookie getting 8 whole at-bats in the 6 spot this season, in a pair of games the Astros won. I wonder how much time you spent complaining about Julks playing all season and now look what the Astros have?
I already posted it a few weeks ago. The whole "hot hand" phenomenon is total nonsense in baseball. There are tons of studies but here's a recent one:
