Again, this is just telling people how to fan. You are acting like your way is best. This is arrogance and it’s the problem. Let people do it their way. To me, it sounds like you are more “miserable” than them. Let fans root that way they want and don’t judge them. Judging people is bad (unless they don’t tip! Lol)
AJ Hinch had a 100% fan approval rating in a comparative survey middle of 2019. Yes, people are still mad about pulling Greinke for Harris, but Baker's moves have been habitual and have self-sabotaged this team in a rare window of opportunity to win back-to-back championships. Its as if Rudy T decided to bench Horry and Cassell in favor Cureton and Brooks. This is also professional baseball where fans rightfully when umpires miss by half an inch... so we have every right to complain about egregious mistakes the management (front office and field manager) have made.
I do love the "it's all about the computer" all the time, managing is so easy. Dusty does **** "all about the computer" We end up with Singleton PH for Chas Sometimes you don't want to listen to the computer, you ****ing nerds.
No one threw a fit with Bregman in the 2-hole... his OBP make him ideal for it... plus that's where he spent a quarter of the time in his 2019 season (168 PA)... and majority of the time in 2018 (438 PA)... both years in which he has top 5 MVP finishes Career numbers for Bregs batting 2nd: 327 games started, .282 BA with .872 OPS
I did! I thought that was pretty clear when I very clearly posted, "I'm guessing..." Guessing means I don't know! BTW, arguing Alex Bregman should not be hitting 2nd - where he has a .386 OB% - is an absolutely moronic take. Why would you not want *more* players on base for Tucker and Alvarez? He 100% should be hitting 2nd, and Baker slotting Pena there for the biggest regular season game of this era was a questionable move that paid off again and again and again Monday night.
actually Bregman is good in the top 5 spots. He hits into a lot of double plays, and he slumped for the first 2 or 3 months of the season. That is why some of us were pushing for him to be moved down slightly from #2. I don’t recall anyone pushing that hard though. Also, I don’t think many were upset that he hit 4th last night either. Putting Pena 2nd is what drives some on here crazy but even that is pretty chill. Most here know Pena hits well there. So yeah I would say that it’s an embellishment to say that anyone was really going nuts over any of that. It’s all the other stuff that Dusty does that drives me and many others crazy.
We were far less entitled and jaded in 2019. It's incredible how winning can, in many ways, rot a fan base. I don't know if that survey is a real thing, or not - but *a lot* of people wanted Kyle Tucker to play more in 2019. (Josh Reddick was the Martin Maldonado that year). (And yeah, I'd love to see that survey after game 7.) But, that's been my point all along: Hinch had a line-up that was fool-proof in 2019. By October, they had eight (!!!) regulars with an OPS of .850+. Their starting catcher had an OPS of .790! If you go back to my first post in the Baker thread, that is the basis of my entry in to it: fans aren't used to not having 7, 8, 9 bats. Healthy, this line-up - at least early - wasn't near as deep, and they've dealt with injuries throughout the year. If you took 2-3 of those bats away from Hinch, and then took Altuve, Brantley and Alvarez away from him.... everyone would've b****ed up a storm as he tried to patch over the holes while they won ~95 games. Great point! He has personally self-sabotaged them into first place in a division in which the Rangers and Mariners have both had historic winning stretches. What a bum!
I don't believe Dusty, at all, that the Computer told him to do that. He's lying and obfuscating. He hates Chas and has been petty toward him all year. You should always listen to the computer (when it has enough evidence to give an accurate and statistical sampling under normal type conditions.) Just like in Black Jack you should always split 8's, always hit 12 against a 2, along with a bunch of other things that marginally increase your odds of winning over enough time. This game doesn't lack data. Now- if Chas was nursing something or the like where he's "not Chas" that is of course a different story and why you need humans involved.
Despite a horrific home record and 2019 World Series, home field advantage tends to matter, and it is completely out of reach.
Baker could have a starting catcher with an 850 OPS that plays better defense than the actual starting catcher and has a lower catchers era than said catcher but he doesn't want the kids to win too much or something. He could have a starting CF that he pencils in there every day and gets him 5 or 6 WAR which is all star level but he can't leave well enough alone. This team should be idiot proof, but alas, we have a monumental idiot instead of merely a low grade moron. As for all the who hits where in the order it's mostly bullshit. It's a difference of less than 1 win a year between optimizing perfectly your lineup v having the right players in the lineup. Hit Bregman 2nd instead of 3rd (which is what "the book") tells you he should hit and you are talking about missing by fractions of an inch that won't amount to anything in the long run. Don't play Diaz in favor of Maldy. You are missing by a mile and that **** matters. I haven't seen Dusty criticized much at all on his "missing by an inch" decisions. People are sick of his missing by a mile decisions and every time he opens his mouth he spews forth more absurdity. Last year in The Athletic article about him he said he changes lineups and hits or sits people based on dreams from the night before. If you can't understand how that will literally drive a portion of the fanbase batshit crazy when our team is underachieving the projected win totals from the beginning of the year and in a dog fight for a division title (and playoff appearance) then I don't know what to tell you. This team is 1 three game losing streak away from being out of the playoffs. We've had 2 losing streaks of 3 games in the past 2 weeks. If you don't get why this is so tenuous I can't help you there.
Blanton: I heard stories that if he had a dream the night before about a situation and in the game a similar situation would come up, he would make a change based on that. Kelley: Every now and then Dusty would go with someone off the wall (out of the bullpen), and you’d be like, “What the….? I’m not sure I follow this one.” But we would make the joke: “I guess he dreamed that s— up last night!” He’d be the first to tell you. He’d be like: “I had this dream last night…” When Dusty is PH for a top 20 hitter in the American league with ****ing Singleton b/c he had a dream that it worked out I can't support that. Computer my ass.
Very well said Similar to both I started going to games in the late 70's which required about a 2 hour drive to the dome, but dad would take me as much as we could afford I remember vividly being at the Calhoun County Fair and listening on the radio to the Astros-Phillies series in 1980, quite possibly the best playoff series ever, any sport. I really thought we finally won it all in 86 right up until Kevin Bass struck out Before the current dynasty, the most excited i've ever been over sports was probably the night of the Randy Johnson trade, I just knew that was the one that would make the difference, and to be fair we were the best team in baseball the rest of that regular season During the dark ages I would go to probably 35-40 games a year, would buy a cheap ticket and go sit wherever I wanted. Damn Jon Villar was a bad baserunner, but I was there cheering him on as much as I could and as loud as I could Personally, I get upset with and have called out people who post that the team is trash, and as soon as something goes wrong posts how we have already lost etc.... The difference, for me, with Dusty is that while I feel the players are giving their all even when they fail, I feel that Dusty plays favorites and doesn't always even try to put the best team on the field, just the one that he wants to. I don't need to go on and on about that anymore on here, my feelings are clear on it and likely won't be changed. For the first couple of years I wasn't a fan of Dusty the manager but thought he was a good dude, just a guy probably too old to be a mlb manager in todays game (I don't dislike old people, I am one)...but this year has just wore me down with him, probably because it is an almost every single day issue I also understand the team aspect of things greatly, I just retired from a career as a coach myself, and quite honestly an extremely successful one. That might be why the whole thing upsets me so much, i've always felt like you had to do what is best for the team at all times, not the individuals you happen to like more In any case, I would say 90% of us on here have one thing in common, we LOVE the Houston Astros, and no matter what we think of others posts and thoughts, that keeps us coming back I don't necessarily think our "window" is closing, I think we have a while yet to go. Javier is just worn down from his high load last year and basically no offseason. Garcia should come back and be fine. Maybe now that Lance has the surgery he can come back and give us great pitching too. So I think we have a while to go on this run My thing with this year is this, it's been over 2 decades since anyone went back to back. Most of MLB and the nations baseball fans will always use the "you cheated" BS for the 17 championship, and whatever on all of that. I want to be that team that goes back to back, either to give more recognition to guys like Altuve, or to just make the rest of the league hate us even more Either way, GO ASTROS
I'll add to this, while you obviously won't hear a player speak out against him/his decisions, there is no way they don't internally say WTF And last week when he said in his presser "it's not like we have a guy like Julio Rodriguez, if we did we would just run him out there every day"...how do you think that made Chas feel, knowing he has been better than Julio this year both at the plate and in the field
Pretty much this. Even if this one time Dusty was actually following the computer, there is no way the computer told him to play Julks over one of Chas and Meyers 2/3s of the time for the 1st 2-3 months. Humans are needed for information that the computer doesn't have. He is doing things that aren't close to being rational for most people. Granted, players love the loyalty...the ones he shows loyalty.
I'm sure Maldy is ride or die for him. I'm sure Chas thinks he's a ****ing idiot and hates him. That's the nature of any dynamic where someone plays favorites. You will have guys that love the authority figure and guys that hate it (depending on which side of the favoritism you are on) and then a whole bunch of guys in the middle that have their feelings about it affected by how they feel about the pet and the whipping boy. Because they are humans and humans typically like stuff that goes their way or their friends way and dislike shitty things happening to themselves and their friends. Other than Correa and maybe a couple other guys there aren't a whole hell of a lot of players that view the game by what is it that makes me valuable. Correa is vocal about this. Do guys use the stats and numbers to twerk things like swing plane or the like to make them hit more bombs and make more money? Sure. But most guys aren't going to look under the hood to figure out what makes for value creating in the way that Carlos does. Now, if only he could get back to being valuable again (not at the Astros expense).
Players for the most part know when someone is better than them or not. They wouldn't usually admit it, but deep down Julks knows Chas is better etc... If you are Julks you want to play every day, no doubt about it. But while you would never say "hey skip, play Chas more he is better", if the manager did play Chas more and you less, you might not be happy about it, but it wouldn't typically make you angry cause deep down you would understand But when you are Chas and you know you are better and you sit the bench in favor of the lesser player over and over and over again, it's gonna bother you a whole lot more because you know it is personal I have seen this kind of crap many many many times in my career and it sickens me every time
Sure. But Julks will like Dusty and be ride or die. And group dynamics are such that if Julks is popular and Chas isn't then that favoritism isn't likely to bother many people. Many a leader has used someone in the outgroup as a scape goat to unite people together. It's ugly and brittle, but while it works it works.
