Remember kids: 1) Framber game of his life tonight 2) Miami loses to NY Mets tonight 3) Miami loses to Pittsburgh early on Friday At that point, not even Dusty could screw the pooch if these 3 things happen.
My point was a more than 1 run difference in ERA difference over the entire season is worth way more games than the difference between Diaz and Maldy. That difference in ERA is more than 16 games. Dusty didn’t cause Garcia, Urquidy, and McCullers to get hurt and he did not sign Montero, Maton, or Stanek.
I don't know about that. The difference bw Diaz and Maldy at the plate is dramatically different. And over the course of a full time player for a year Diaz blows away Maldy by miles. He's already separated himself in just a limited number of games
Dusty used up the small margin for error with his bad decisions. I have no problem for people saying he should be fired for it. He didn’t cause the margin of error to be so small. The stats used to calculate WAR and such would support a 2-3 game difference, but not a 5 game difference. It doesn’t really matter given there was 0 margin for error. The difference in pitching performance is worth more than 16 wins.
Diaz's catcher ERA is ~0.50 lower than Maldonado last I heard -- and that's while primarily catching the "lesser" pitchers on the team. Fewer runs surrendered and more runs scored with Diaz. Dusty's avoidance of that scenario is why Pressly and Neris pitched 4x in 6 days at least twice this season. Maldy's passed ball epidemic also leads to more runs and more pitches for the staff. Teams have free reign to steal bases too. Would be interesting to know Vegas' opinion had Diaz caught 60 more games than he did. There's a .400 difference in OPS between them.
Most formulas use 10 runs to a win. So 1.1 runs in ERA is 178 runs over a 162 game season and worth about ~18 wins. Maldy is currently at 0 bWAR. Diaz is at 3.3 bWAR in 103 games. So over 162 the difference is 5.2. WAR isn’t perfect, but you could make the case if Maldy never played and Diaz played every game that would be ~5 wins difference. Diaz has played over 100 games and it’s not alway a Maldy / Diaz split, but say Diaz played in 60 more games the difference in wins is 1.9. 2-3 wins based on Dusty’s lineup decisions is plausible. 5 is a big stretch.
If you believe WAR 60 games would be just under 2 games difference. Diaz has already played 103 games, so he could not have played 60 more though. I see a .240 OPS difference, not .400. It’s hard for 1 player to make that big of a difference over only 60 games. Along those lines Chaz has played all but 1 game of this current losing stretch. I’m not defending Dusty’s decision and clearly this season even 1 game matters right now. I just don’t see him as the main cause of the Astros problems or even one of the biggest causes. He’s the easiest to point fingers at though.
The .400 difference is when Diaz plays catcher. DH is a waste for him because he hits much better, far better when playing defense. Currently, he's 1.000 at catcher and 1.200 at 1B (looking at you Dusty for playing Abreu so damn much) vs his .600 at DH. Diaz's WAR gets dragged down with DH. And that doesn't consider the defensive difference between Diaz and Mold. 60 more games at catcher seems 5-8 extra wins. If any of those wins came against a playoff contender, it's a 2-game swing for each one. It's truly amazing how much Dusty has sabotaged this season.
At least they switched up the lineup from last night lol. from the comments fans aren't too happy, especially without kelenic
WAR includes defense. You can question how well it captures it, but it does consider it. Even you if you say the 40 games he has DHed don’t contribute to defensive WAR, it’s maybe the difference between just under 2 games and 2 games. You can believe what you want to believe. That’s not what the analytics that people complain Dusty doesn’t listen to say though.
Maldy has 394 PAs at C for -1.1 fWAR. Diaz has 187 PAs at C for 2.3 fWAR Total fWAR from C...1.2 Simple math if Diaz was played at C for Maldy's time and Maldy for Diaz's time... Maldy has 187 PAs at C for -0.5 fWAR. Diaz has 394 PAs at C for 4.8 fWAR Total fWAR from C...4.3 That's a 3.2 fWAR difference. Assuming Diaz is treated like he's a good catcher and Maldy is producing negative fWAR...Diaz 465 PAs, Maldy the rest That's 4.2 fWAR difference. That's just at catcher.
I would think that the difference would be closer to 5 games but with 4 games remaining, 3 would put them 1/2 game ahead of the Rangers + the tie breaker and 1 game from clinching a playoff spot in the 2nd WC spot if they didn't win the division.
Treating Julks like a bench player and having Chas be an everyday player when healthy and Meyers getting the rest of the Julks PAs outside 55 PAs (typical bench), that's another 1.5 fWAR. So 5.7 wins lost by not playing Diaz as an primary C, Chas and Meyers as starting OFs. This does not take into account that Dusty is freaking idiotic regarding platoons. Maldy and Meyers have large platoon splits in favor of them being plus hitters versus LHPs, but were treated like they were plus hitters against RHPs. Eyeballing, I'd say that's at least another 1 fWAR for just Maldy and Meyers combined if their PAs vs LHPs was in the 32% range instead of 25% and 22%, respectively (28% is normal for an everyday player).
Let’s say Diaz played the whole season as catcher and got 710 PA (Bregman had played 157 games with 707 PA right now). By your math Diaz would be worth 8.7 WAR over the full season. That would be be the best season ever for a catcher (Johnny Bench and Mike Piazza). He’s good, but not that good. He’s also played over 100 games and (yes not all at catcher, but you also can’t just selectively ignore them to get a higher WAR/PA). For what the other poster said, for Diaz being worth 8 more wins in 60 games he would need a WAR of 21.6 for a season. The most WAR ever in a season is 16.5.
FTMP I think we agree, I didn't include absolutely everything (like France off setting etc.) just pointing out the injuries and that would be a struggle for any manager but as I said....Dusty ****ed around and found out. He refused to adjust, pivot or tweak from HIS way and we're paying for it.
