WTF is he going to do calling a team meeting? lol. Play better? Perform to higher expectations? Sacrifice? That is fooking gold.
“Team, I need you to exit the locker room. Me and Dusty need to have a meeting.” Spoiler “Team, I need you huddle. Dusty, I need you get out.” *Players trying not to laugh* “What just happen is not acceptable. Slap in de face. That not who we are. Jeremy, you are better than Jose Vizcaino. Snap out of it. Yordan, where are the dongs? Jose, pull your head out of your ass. You keep getting thrown out on the bases. Unacceptable. Yainer, don’t get any ideas. It’s not happening. Kyle, get better soon. Doobie, just keep play hard. Pitchers, listen to me and trust me. I know best. As for myself,… ”
Maldy is responsible for the pitchers sucking and and the bad offense. Dusty is responsible for puting Maldy in this position and the crappy lineups. They both need a demotion. Someone needs to have an intervention
2018? They won 103 games, two more than 2017. Unfortunately they ran into the cheating Boston Red Sox that postseason.
This team can't afford to try to be the 2000s Lakers of coasting through the regular season and just turn it on in the playoffs... way too much competition this year.
This team is very top heavy without much depth. Kessinger, Julks, Hensley, and Singleton are simply not MLB calibur. Dubon is a last man on the bench guy treated like a starter. Abreu and Maldy are simply past their primes and need to be complimentary players not focal points counted on to win games. Framber, Javier, and Brown have pitched too much and need a break but are out of time. The 2nd or 3rd quarter of the season was the time for that. Now they are needed to secure a playoff spot. The top of the bullpen is fine, especially now that its a bit fresher, but the bottom 1 or 2 guys can't be counted on to get outs in close games. If the 10-11 best position players started 95% of the time and Dusty would ALWAYS pull a starting pitcher not named JV after 6 innings or 3 times through the lineup this team would be on easy street. Unfortunately it's all coming down to Maldy. If he continues to start more than 50% (that's very generous) of the games this team may not make the playoffs. If he starts more than 1 game in a postseason series they will likely be eliminated very quickly. If Diaz was the starting catcher now this team is World Series contender. With Maldy, its a borderline playoffs team and no threat.
.172 batter calling a team meeting is like Davis Mills calling a Texans team meeting, John (Wall, or) AWOL calling a Rockets team meeting, or Beard (never playing for the 76ers) calling a 76ers team meeting. Astros have too much respect for a player who shouldn't be playing baseball batting below .200, the past 3 years (.172, .186, .172). Sorry Y.Diaz, K.Lee and all the past Stros catchers who couldn't move up because they got stuck with a catcher, who is really just a cheerleader than a player. It would be a travesty if he gets into the Astros Ring Of Honor.
Dusty's mismanagement of the pitching staff is something that has flown under the radar somewhat in light of his more spectacular failures. He has limited the pen's innings by wearing out our starters while at the same time wearing out all the high leverage relievers. It's like he would prefer to have a 3-4 man bullpen.
Every night, he treats innings 7-9 like game 7 of the World Series, while he treats the lineup card and innings 1-6 like day 1 of Spring Training. I feel he is completely obsessed with the idea that only pitching, defense and "timely hitting" matter, and even then only in "crunch time". It explains his lineups, leaving the starters in too long, going too much to the same few relievers, favoring veterans who "have been through it before", and why he views RBIs as the most important statistic (as he said last week about Bregman). I think we're getting closer to a "unified theory of Dusty." He must have been devastated when MLB stopped tracking "game winning RBI" as a stat ... it was his version of WAR.
Shhh Dusty has learned how to manage pitchers since he joined Houston... Framber hasn't gone over 130 pitches unlike Kerry Wood in 2004.
Bregman is timely though... .942 OPS with 2 outs, RISP for his career better than any other scenario... (granted only .710 OPS in late & close situations)
Very good post. One point that I would add is that his more spectacular failures likely contributes to the number of high leverage innings, and by extension the wear and tear on the high leverage relievers. The DIaz, McCormick, and Meyers triumverate have a 14-5 record built on offense and defense that has yielded 6 victories by more than 3 runs. I don't mean to say these three are carrying the Astros in these games (well sometimes they do), but when they all play, fewer very poor hitters play, and fewer weaker defenders play.
in 1972 Dave Roberts had a 610 OPS in 1974 Dave Roberts had a 617 OPS in 1977 JR Richard had a .592 OPS in 1980 Joe Niekro had a 648 OPS in 1996 Mike Hampton had a 581 OPS in 1998 Mike Hampton had a 676 OPS In 1999 Mike Hampton had a 805 OPS in 2000 Mike Hampton had a 587 OPS All better than Maldanado this year
If Dusty used the slightest bit of his brain instead of just running Maldonado out there 4-5 times a week his OPS would be 100 points higher. The last 4 years have been consistent. He's a very competitive hitter vs LHP, and a complete non competitive embarrassment against RHP. But as usual 76% of his PA's have been against RHP.
It's a classic baseball old head problem that they just can't wrap their heads around despite I'm sure being told a million times. A good starting pitcher is in most cases still not a good starting pitcher the 3rd time through the order. More often than not a mediocre reliever is the better option, if not a notably better option for the game it at least saves wear on the starter (the superior pitcher) long term. But Dusty almost always will try to squeeze that extra inning or 2, and get burned, instead of going to a middling bullpen arm. He's actually gotten pretty lucky that JP France becomes a magician and manages to prevent people from scoring 3rd time through despite his peripherals all taking a dramatic downturn. We as a team got lucky last season that there were too many good pitchers for Dusty to f**k it up.
