One thing I noticed is that we play the next two Thursdays, then only one more Thursday game the rest of the season. That should help a bit.
That’s a pretty brutal schedule and the Angels are the team to worry about. Our manager is hurting our chances to even make the playoffs. They need to force his hand on Diaz. He should be the catcher 100% against starting right-handers. If you have to play Maldonado then start him against LH, but even that is a stupid argument. If we don’t sign Hader or a TOR starter and Dusty is allowed to play his hunch baseball the rest of the season, we are screwed. He thinks he is a baseball god after winning a World Series with the best bullpen performance in the history of baseball. He didn’t win squat before he had a pitching staff no one could hit on.
Astros when Diaz catches RS/G 5.7 RA/G 3.4 Astros when Diaz doesn't catch RS/G 4.5 RA/G 4.5 Diaz's hitting, blocking, and throwing advantages suggests that there should be a little better than 0.5 (0.4 for hitting alone) run advantage per game for Diaz based on tangible skills. Their intangibles, who's pitching, tertiary effects of not having a hitter as bad as Maldy in the lineup, luck, game planning, game management combined seem to correlate to a ~1.75 run/game advantage for Diaz so far. I think a lot of this advantage is luck and who's pitching. For Maldy to be a better overall catcher, the Astros would need to be getting lucky by over 2.25 runs/game when Diaz catches.
It’s a damn good thing the Astros just basically traded for Altuve and Alvarez at the deadline, and may add JV to the rotation and Brantley to the lineup. I like our chances.
My eye test says Diaz calls a less predictable game that gets weak contact. Hunter Brown pitches tons better with Diaz behind the plate.
Will probably go to Jung in Texas or Henderson in Baltimore, France will suffer from not starting the season on the roster and not having any prospect buzz. 3rd seems reasonable, he should get votes for sure.
Completely observational, but it seems like Brown attacks hitters with Diaz and tries to pitch around them with Maldy.
Crazy that Henderson might win it when Yainer Diaz has the same stats since may 31st.. and he’s not getting to play as much.
With zero outs and 1 runner on, Maldy is hitting .294. That's why he's in there. Diaz only hits .231 in that exact situation. Imagine, we're down by 1 run with a runner on base.... nobody out.... and Diaz is up instead of Maldy. I mean, I can't fathom NOT having Maldy up in that situation.
WAR don't lie, do it? https://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/majors/2023-rookies.shtml#all_misc_pitching eta: meh, apparently it do. That includes stats from last year up until they hit the rookie barrier.
New York Mets agree to trade Justin Verlander back to Houston Astros in MLB deadline deal I can't find what we traded away . . .
Next years SP with everyone healthy: Valdez Verlander Javier Brown Garcia McCullers Urquidy This trade really helps next year as well!
So pitching staff should look like this? SP1 - F. Valdez SP2 - J. Verlander SP3 - C. Javier SP4 - J. France SP5 - H. Brown SP6/LONG - J. Urquidy MOP UP - R. Stanek MID - K. Graveman LEFT - P. Mushinski 6th - P. Maton 7th - B. Abreu 8th - H. Neris CL - R. Pressly
In the short/medium term, the Verlander trade means: Altuve is the only player we should expect to see extended this coming offseason. Bregman is gone when he reaches free agency. The odds of Tucker or Framber being extended are also near zero, but if they do happen, they will not happen until Nov 2024 at earliest. Houston will enter 2024 with the best, deepest pitching staff in the league. Right now they would have Urquidy, Garcia, and McCullers slotted for bullpen roles. All 3 of those guys might work out great that way, but I could also see them trading Urquidy for a more established late inning RP. Houston believes in both Meyers and Tucker. This offseason Houston's only need looks to be a backup C, and if the Astros are as high on Salazar's defense/gamecalling as we've heard, then their 2024 roster might be set: 2B Altuve SS Pena DH Alvarez 3B Bregman RF Tucker 1B Abreu LF McCormick C Diaz CF Meyers Bench: Dubon, Salazar, Julks, Kessinger Rotation: Framber, Verlander, Brown, Javier, France Bullpen: Urquidy, Bielak, Whitley, Montero, Martinez, Graveman, Abreu, Pressly (Bielak and Whitley are out of options and would be placeholders for Garcia and McCullers; Martinez would be competing with other optionable arms like Dubin, Gage, Cousins, Blanco, and Mushinski)
we already knew that the Astros can’t sign Tucker. Tucker wants to leave when he’s able to, that’s all there is to that. I definitely see Bregman staying an Astro.
