Ryan Gusto threw 86 innings for us, he's almost certainly gonna end up 3rd on the team at seasons end. Colton Gordon currently has 68, he may not log another one. The fact that this team could win a division with only 3 starters throwing over 70 innings is wild.
That is insane. 13 different SP, only 2 with >90 innings or >1 fwar. Of course that goes hand in hand with them having 5 RP who’ve thrown more than 50 innings, 2 of whom ended up getting hurt due to overuse. Really really strange year for the Astros. The pitching injuries, the scrap heap arms throwing well, riding the bullpen, the top 3 hitters all getting hurt for big parts of the season, the next 2 best hitters slumping the first half of the season, bringing back Correa…and still leading the division…just a crazy year.
AJ Blubaugh, Ethan Pecko, and Miguel Ullola all have better stuff than every pitcher on Houston’s big league staff except Brown, Hader, Abreu, and Valdez. Bryce Mayer can probably also be added to that list.
Help me understand why we optioned blubaugh. That means he can’t come back for another 15 days, am I right? Is there any other way he is back?
I guess what I just keep coming back to is, what do the Astros do next season if they are fully healthy? Walker looked bad to start the season, but the past 50 games he's been the guy they thought they were getting, so you'd want to keep him at first probably Pena is a lock at SS Correa is a lock at 3rd Paredes will need to play somewhere every day, so probably 2nd base Yordan is a lock at DH Diaz is a lock at C That's pretty much the entire infield and DH locked down without a spot for Altuve. On top of that you'll have seemingly a million guys you will want to play in the outfield. Dezenzo, Smith, Sanchez, Meyers, McCormick I just don't see Altuve being an every day player next season despite the fact that he'll be making 33 million. Tell me where I'm off base here, because I just can't see any way around it. He could still get at bats filling in for guys resting but you give up A LOT on defense no matter where you play him. His .800 OPS this season is the only thing keeping him a net positive player, anything less and he's all but unplayable. He's still a first ballot HOFer and one of the greatest Astros of all time, but I'm just not seeing a way to keep playing him every day much beyond this season if everyone is back healthy.
someone gets hurt. He likely can't pitch for a few days, and it is just tough playing a reliever down with shaky starters.
Options: Trade Paredes. Would be a sell-low move but the clearest way to clear the logjam. Trade Pena, move Correa to SS, Paredes to 3B. Would go a long way toward rebuilding the farm but downgrade the defense significantly, although Dubon and Urias mitigate that risk. Salary dump Walker in a trade, move Paredes to 1B. Sell-low move but would clear payroll and clear the logjam. Play Paredes at 2B, Altuve in LF. Moves the logjam to the OF and doesn’t require a trade. Would be a defensive downgrade, but Dubon and Urias mitigate that risk and injuries likely solve the problem at some point. Sanchez, Dezenzo, and McCormick are fringey players who can fit on the bench; Dezenzo can be sent to the minors for depth and to rebuild his value. Meyers and Smith are the CF and RF.
You are missing the most obvious one- trade Yordan and make Altuve the full time DH. That would replenish the farm way more than Pena To have any chance to get anything remotely approaching fair (theoretical) value Yordan would have to have a healthy and really good September and playoffs.
I’m not saying they should, everything is about value, but I bet it’s on the table along with everything else he mentioned. If they could get the return from the first Soto trade I’d do it. Anything less and I wouldn’t.
After this season, seems like we need to be 2 deep in every position, and there is no such thing as a log jam.
Option 1 gets rid of arguably our best hitter who is like 26 just so a guy who is a decade older and nearly washed can keep playing every day. Thanks, I hate it. Option 2 gets rid of arguably the best player on the team at 27 so a guy nearly a decade older and nearly washed can keep playing every day. Thanks, I hate it. Option 3 is viable IF you can find a trade partner...but will Altuve continue to be better than guys like Brice Matthews or Sanchez? Is he really better than Dubon overall? Option 4 is viable but you'd still be hurting the team just to keep playing Altuve every day. That's my issue really, I see Altuve quickly becoming a "fringey" type player and I wonder if we decide to hurt the team just to keep playing him the way we did with Biggio in his final seasons. The difference being, with Biggio's final 2 seasons when he sucked, the team sucked too and wasn't going to make the playoffs....that's not the case with the Astros. I just don't think we can afford that luxury while trying to contend.
The 2 points of consolation are that Dana Brown has a pretty good track record so far of building a roster, and that injuries mare very likely to clear out any logjams. Altuve is a poor defender but not unplayable. There’s probably been less than 10 plays all season where his defense mattered.
Altuve has been our second or third best hitter this year. he will be starting next year and rightfully so. 800 OPS is excellent.
I mean they aren’t doing at least 3 of those options either… it’s on the table and discussed at least I bet.
There's more to baseball than that, while this season he's been a plus hitter, he's a disaster in the field. If he doesn't maintain an .800 OPS, he'll quickly become a net negative. Father time is undefeated, even when facing legends.
Tucker set the precedent for Houston trading someone like Pena or Paredes. Outside of that yeah I agree the odds are very low of them trading Walker.
