This is literally 2 days in a row (if we don’t get this done here in the 8th) that you can almost singlehandedly blame the astros loss on maldonado.
There are team guys like Altuve last year asking to be dropped in the lineup when he was in a slump or Yordan this year offering to bat lower since Tucker was doing well... Then there are the apparently selfish me first guys like Abreu and Moldy. They hide injuries and refuse to sit for the benefit of the team. I agree it's on the Skipper at that point.
Maldy threatened to demand a trade when the Astros were looking into Contreras and Murphy in the off-season. He refuses to be a back up.
Including this year (11-1), Framber is 36-3 in SB attempts over 6 years, which is pretty shocking for a lefty. That's not all on the catcher, I don't care who he is. Montero is 19-2 in 2 years, Javier is 29-9 in 4 (those 1st 3 guys are 37-6 this season so far). France is 4-0. Brown and Bielak are 13-13, everyone else is 21-6.
Dusty is going to Dusty. Now it’s on Crane. Not demanding excellence from his GM and manager and letting go of Click after he did a masterful job. He has been the best owner in Houston sports history, but he has fallen off this year. He allows his GM to go out and get Verlander, but let’s Dusty f*ck it all up. I know that Crane wants to win this year (see Abreu, Graveman, Verlander), now he needs to do lay the hammer down on Dusty via Brown.
At some point I have to think that the general manager steps in unless he is certain he will be over ruled by Baker and Crane. It is a real possibility that Brown will let Baker run Maldonado out there every single game and if it fails go to Crane and discuss why it failed - or let Baker retire. I am not anti-Maldonado - there is a reason the pitchers love him. However, the offense is clearly not consistently good enough without Diaz in the line up. I don't think many other GM's would have Maldonado out there every start, and not pinch hit for him late in games.
"And not pinch him late in games". EXACTLY!! As frustrating as it is, and as much as I disagree with it, it's an exercise in futility hoping that Dusty plays Diaz more. That he's going to start Maldy every game that Framber and JV pitch. However, when the team is struggling to score runs, and it's late in the game and they bring in a RHP, there's no reason why Dusty shouldn't be pinch hitting Diaz for Maldy. Dusty himself has said that "Diaz struggles against LHP". OK now a RHP is in and you're still going to go with Maldy??? At some point Dana Brown HAS to step in and I would like to believe that he'd have Crane behind him. Diaz should be catching every other pitcher (should be catching every pitcher but that's a different debate) and when he's not catching he should be at DH and at 1B here and there.
HE caught a WS championship. He is on pace for 3 WAR. If we had Contrereas instead of Maldy we'd probably be in 1st place. The worst thing about Contrereas would be that he blocks Diaz somewhat. I don't think that's why you said that though. I suspect it's because the Cards pitchers got in their feels about Contreras. I'd say they should shut the **** up and pitch to who they are told to. HIS ERA is 1/2 a run higher than the backup guy (Maldy's by comparisson is 7/10's above his backup guy) but all the numbers look pretty similar except for Babip of 346 against Contreras (holy **** the Cardinals defense must be horrifically awful) while the Babip on the backup is 300. Normalize that and their numbers are bang on the same.
