You could not be more wrong. That is a perfect example of a team NOT using your suggestion. The team chose Maldy because of how he handles the pitcher. You can say he wasn't good with the glove which is true, but he certainly was not starting because of his bat.
Disagree that Yordan is an average LF. He is below average in my eyes ... but maybe almost average at Minute Maid. No matter which park, Yordan will get replaced in the later innings. In the playoffs, it will be really tough to take runners turning singles into doubles, off of Yordan. Too many playoff games are one run affairs, to gift a runner scoring position like that.
Yes they do as far as performance goes. However as far as literally raw athleticism goes it's more like 22 or 23 and it's all downhill from there. Experience means players get better, even as they age, and that 27-31 year old guy is living in his peak sweat spot. But, and this is kind of crazy- every individual component is worse than it was at 23 or 24 from an athletic perspective. This article explains it and is pretty fascinating if you are interested. https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id...ng-cycle-how-mike-trout-becomes-albert-pujols
He had no business starting over Diaz. He only started because of Dusty’s stubbornness. How do you still hold on to this Maldy fantasy pitcher whisperer bullshit? Maldy was a fat, broken down player who couldn't defend or hit and his game calling “brilliance” was greatly romanticized and embellished . Holy crap I had no idea you were still believing that garbage. It’s kinda why Dusty wasn’t renewed too.
Maldy was a horror show on defense and obviously an even bigger horror show with the bat. He was starting because dusty gonna dusty, there was no valid baseball reason for him to even be on the roster.
It's not a guarantee that Jake doesn't have another run in him. He's had some good streaks. One more decent 3 or 4 week run gets him to be over a 100+ OPS guy. Right now he's at 687 and 94- I mean you can call that below average I guess if you want but it's so jumbled down there that a 2-4 tonight with a double or a 1-3 with a HR and he's back at 100. I sort of consider anything between 95 and 105 average.
I think you are almost right but wrong about this. My contention has always been that you need 3 or 4 bats (in that series) to win a playoff series. I think the easiest way to get there is to have 6 dudes because you figure half will be going good and half not good over a 5 or 7 game sample. The key is to score 4 runs a game. If you do that with the Astros pitching staff you figure you should be good more often than not. So, yeah- someone has to get hot. But it doesn't have to be at the bottom of the order. Yordan or Altuve can go nuclear and the other guys in the 1-5 spots can just do their job and that's fine enough to get to that 4 runs per game that you need to win. Is it easier if it's Pena or Meyers or Singleton? Sure, that's found money. But we can easily win a series with just Altuve, Tucker and Yainer going well. Or just Altuve, Yordan and Diaz going well. They just have to be going really well, which guys like that can do over a 5 or 7 game series. But yeah, the deal with not getting decent platoon partners at 1b and LF was a real self own.
We agree he had no business starting. Especially with Diaz on the roster who had been so good. I'm just saying catcher is a position that is determined more by who is pitching for you than who is pitching against you. And Dusty was using the Astros' pitcher, not the opponents pitcher as his reasoning too.
Astros WAR by player that matters: Yordan- 4 Tucker- 3.6 Pena- 3.1 Altuve- 2.9 Bregman- 2.9 Yainer- 2.6 Meyers- 1.7 Caratini- 1.0 Dubon- 0.6 Singleton- 0.1 War is a counting stat so obviously PA matter. However- it's blindingly obvious when you look at this that the Astros are in really good shape at 6 positions. Those guys all project out to have 3 or more WAR which is the metric for a really good everyday regular. They are fine at 1 position (Jake) where they project to be around 2 or better. 2 is the cut off for a solid major league regular. Caratini at 1.0 with his few PA would make you believe he could hold down the fort as a league average regular. Can they cobble together enough production from a straight platoon of Dubon and Singleton to be 2.0 and not a black hole? Maybe. But Dubon has to play less and Singleton has to never face LHP for that to work. That's a fine playoff lineup. It means that Diaz/Caratini have to be catcher/DH on the same day, Yordan has to play LF every day for a month and they have to go straight platoon/PH for 1B, which is less than ideal. But, that's the recipe. On the mound: Blanco- 3.3 Valdez- 2.6 Brown- 1.7 Scott- 1.6 Abreu- 1.5 Hader- 0.9 JV- 0.6 Kikuchi- 0.5 (in 3 starts!) Presley- 0.0 Arrighetti -0.2 (rising with a bullet after being really bad). 10 guys is more than you need in the playoffs. 8 is your path to victory if you get the lead in the game early, have your starter keep it and go to the bullpen. I don't want to see Turn Ferguson, Ort, Kenny powers errrr Brian King or anyone else in the playoffs. Starters (I think) Framber Brown JV Kikuchi (though I'd be fine with it being Blanco) Bridge guys (he's the guy that tries to hold the game if you are losing by 2 or 3 in the 5th inning- he gets the game to the end or until you get a lead and turn it over to the bullpen) Blanco (or Kikuchi) Arrighetti Back end with a lead (or tie) Scott Presley Abreu Hader Mop up (finish out a game that the bridge guy ****s up or when you want them to wear it because your starter got shelled and the offense didn't get back in it and you want to save the bridge guy for later) Ort Dubin or Martinez Fired off into the sun- Turd Ferguson. Keep around the team (just in case pocket just in case) King Montero Whitley Specific skill on the bench: Leon- defense for Yordan in LF late with a lead and PR if necessary, Break in case of glass or an injury- Dezenzo or Whitcomb, plus I guess give me Chas who can back up all 3 OF positions in case one of them get hurt mid game. That's a pretty sexy playoff roster that's one real player short if deployed that way b/c we didn't bother to trade next to nothing for Canha or WInker or something like that. Oh well- that's plenty good enough to fly a flag if everyone does their job.
Even Dana Brown knew it wasn't the right decision. He openly lobbied for Diaz to start more but politely acquiesced and didn’t challenge Dusty further. Maldy was not any better with the pitchers than Diaz was. Not enough to bury an athletic defender with a .900 OPS. There was no baseball logic there. Defending Dusty on this can’t be for baseball reasons either. It was absolutely beyond stupid how Dusty handled the catcher position the entire year last year. And before anyone says something dumb like “he was a rookie”, Diaz could’ve been catching all the pitchers the entire season and gaining valuable experience with each one. Yet Dusty made sure he could say Yainer wasn’t ready for the playoffs by never letting him catch any of the top pitchers for the entire season. This was an axe to grind for a narcissist coach It certainly wasn’t because Maldy was better for the pitchers in any way.
F FWIW I agree with you about 2023. All of my posts are about what happened/why I think it happened. It has nothing to do with what I wanted or would have done if it was my decision. I will point out that Dana was powerless. All he could do was talk to the media and hope Dusty buckled to public pressure. The reason he has this job is partly because Dusty won the power struggle against the previous GM.
Well it’s just that you told me I “couldn’t be more wrong”. Obviously, I couldn't be more right. Dusty and Maldy were cancers in 2023 and that is precisely why they are gone. Well, that and they both suck at their jobs.
I apologize for my aggressive response. My point is that Astros pitchers are much more of a reason than the opponents pitchers that determine who is catching. You opposed this view and used Maldy last year as evidence? Maldonado catching last year proves that point, not disproves. Now, 2023 and Maldy have nothing to do with the Astros in 2024 but I'm sure Joe Espada considers the Astros pitcher more than the opposing pitcher when deciding who will catch. Caratini has caught Kikuchi every start and I expect that to continue regardless of who starts against them. Catcher is still much more about defense and handling the pitcher/ pitcher being comfortable and happy than it is about hitting.
Dusty wasn't wrong in wanting to get Maldy experience catching Brown in case that was necessary in the playoffs. Where he was a paint chip eating moron was not going the other way with that and getting Diaz experience with all the other starters. I hope Diaz gets some time catching Kikuchi between here and there. I don't know if it's specific to Kikuchi but think it's more likely that "Diaz needs a day not squatting every 5 days- lets put the new guy with the backup catcher and make that a thing. I would like to make sure that Caratini has caught all the other guys a handful of times in case, god forbid, something happens to Yainer and conversely Diaz catches Kicuchi a couple times.
I don’t think anyone needs a breakdown of why a catcher is important. Maldy sucked at ALL of those things. My point is that what you say is usually correct but is not the case with last years team. Maldy was not starting because of baseball reasons. Maldy’s game calling skills were GREATLY exaggerated. The numbers prove this and so does this season’s performance by Diaz as the starter. Maldy was not starting because he helped the Astros win. He was a hindrance in all facets of the game of baseball.
Yeah Kikuchi was given to Caratini before he ever pitched for us. It wasnt because Caratini is a better catcher (he isn’t) it was to lock Victor in once a week at the position.
Didn't the pitchers all have better RESULTS with Yainer? Baseball Reference has splits for pitchers by catcher...
