I see them swing early in counts at pitches outside the zone or simply not “hittable” quite often. I see your points though. Espada seems infallible to you and I respect that. Hard to not let the frustration cloud my judgement
When you score 5 runs in a 3 game series and the other team scores 15, you’re in trouble. Score… 1 Friday and today. 3 yesterday. I’ve seen enough of the Astros for a few days.
I'm just not of the book that all managers have some playbook and manipulate every AB game to game.... Cora probably does a little more given his pedigree of picking up tells/tips. The Astros, as a team, are above average in zone swing %. Extrapolating that to whether or not they trend to earlier swings, they'd still apparently be above average, and then the data does differs from the eye test. I just don't see a lineup or some other strategy where some offensive powerhouse was "stifled". Guys are playing everyday that don't really have a hit pedigree. And its taken most of the season for Walker/Diaz to try and escape their dreadful starts (and I guess we can now add Correa to that category as well). Pena's consistency and performance was a huge factor in this offense. Yordan is their best hitter period. Sanchez will be better than Hummel/Chas/Meyers at the plate.
Is there a baseball player out there that doesn't do this? Is this even a manager's job to manage that? How does a manager teach a player to not swing at unhittable pitches? And if it's possible, why does any player in MLB ever swing at a pitch outside the strike zone?
https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/team/117?view=statcast&nav=hitting&season=2025 This helps further define their zone % swings, first pitch swings, chase rates, etc.... compared to league average.
