That is the concern for sure. Even if we win the division we will have to go to the whip all the way through the end of the regular season which has a cost in and of itself.
Yep. Small things add up even if individually they are less than the noise of random variation in team wide stats. Sometimes a team gets lucky. Sometimes it doesn't. A team that plays well enough to win 93 games is going to get lucky and win 100 games more often than a team that plays well enough to 90.
Would you pick Moore or Giolito? The starter is sexy but a solid lefty out of the pen could be more impactful down the stretch. Especially if graveman is out for a bit and Maton being crap again. But I could see the cubs grabbing Giolito anyway.
The only guy I believe the Astros might have a shot at that makes some sense is Clevinger and that is only if Crane is willing to eat a pile of money. Clevinger has a mutual option for next season with a 4 million dollar buyout. So Clevinger is going to cost a team about 5.5 million bucks for one month rental plus the playoffs. I expect Giolito, Moore, and Reynaldo Lopez to be gone way before our turn to claim them.
https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2023/08/adam-kolarek-elects-free-agency.html Could be an interesting lefty option. But hardly played in the MLB this year so super small sample size. Does the fact he cleared waivers indicate not much interest around the league?
They aren’t winning 100 games. The question is how much of that is injuries to Altuve, McCullers, Garcia, Urquidy, Brantley….. the loss of Verlander and the fatigue to Valdez and Javier. The bullpen usage I won’t criticize Baker for, he was left on an island by Brown until the all star break. However I will criticize some of his line up choices.
Dusty could have done a better job of keeping some of the innings off his leverage guys at points in time. Nerris has pitched a handful of times in 5+ run games. Presley with the appearance up 4, **** like that. Montero was unplayable and he doesn’t like marrinez. The other guys all caught too many innings because of that. Dana could have done a better job shuttling guys to and from Sugarland imo.
We dug ourselves a hole with our offense with the BS lineups and pinch hitting. Batting Abreu cleanup when he wasn't doing so hot, not playing Chas and Diaz, batting Chas in the 8th spot. The pitching for the most part has been good and the team ERA shows that. My only criticism with pitching is how he played Montero in high leverage situations when he wasn't right. We should just played him in big leads or holes until he got his mojo back.
