Luis Garcia out for 2 more seasons. Astros really need to callup the best Star Prospects in the System next season. Need to Rebuild the Pitching Staff. Really need to clear out these older pitchers. LMJ, Javier, France need to go. Arrighetti is done. Valdez is gone.
The rest of the season is going to be a dog fight. The team is full of imperfect talent and the pitching is on fumes. This team reminds me more of 2021 everyday.
The team hasn't worked the count since like probably 2019. When Baker took over, the approach was "see ball, hit ball". It's been like that ever since. Of course it worked in 2022 because the pitching staff was amazing. Didn't work in 2021 because Atlanta's pitching staff shut the astros down and the astros were swinging at everything. The only current player who works the count is Paredes. And sometimes Yordan.
Yeah, look who was on that 2019 team. Springer, Yordan, Bregman, Brantley, Correa and even Chirinos all were good hitters capable of working counts. You aren't going to change the DNA of a hitter - Altuve has always swung at everything. Pena, Yainer, and Dubon aren't any different. Doesn't have anything to do with Baker.
Paredes is one of the elite hitters in the game at seeing pitches. Alvarez is a patient hitter. Correa can be a patient hitter. Diaz, Altuve, Pena, Dubon, Walker, Sanchez, and Smith are all impatient hitters who allow opposing SP to pitch deeper into games than they should be able to. Altuve and Pena have hit for enough power to mostly justify it but the other guys hit into a lot of outs early in counts without doing enough damage to warrant the aggression. Another reason why I’m ok trading Pena and Walker this offseason, and really hope Dubon gets <300 pa next year.
I love the random "Dusty's fault!" criticism here. From 2017-2019, they were bottom 8 in the league in pitches per plate appearance each year. They continued that during the Dusty years and got even worse at it with the talent drain. In total, they made 7 straight ALCSs and 4 WSs and won 2 WSs using that aggressive offensive philosophy. But obviously its terrible now.
I wouldn't say Walker is an impatient hitter - his career norms for walk and chase rate don't tell that story. Said it in a previous post but pitchers are just challenging him knowing they can beat him with a good FB at the top of the zone. He's reguarly hitting in 1-2 or 0-2 counts because they blow it by him (he typically fouls it off) and then he ends up chasing.
You’re just a Dusty lover. Most of your posts are just you rushing to his defense. Dusty sucked. He was a stubborn ass hole. He was handed a dynasty and he should’ve done more with it. His bullshit selfish loss to the Rangers was the final straw. He wasn’t retained, and for good reason.
Still at 80% per Fangraphs. But the posts I’m referring to are all of the “dynasty is dead, trade and fire everyone” posts. This has been a disappointing year but much more due to injuries than intrinsic performance, and there is no reason to think next year will also be historically bad (though I acknowledge some core pieces will be our most/all next year also)
We seem to have a great ability to predict when a player declines and overpay him right before that moment.
Yeah, I don't care what Fangraphs says - I would hammer it if you offered me +400 (the implied odds at 80%) that the Astros missed the playoffs. The pitching staff is a mess right now with all the injuries and the offense is pressing. I'm not saying we won't make it but IMO it's a coin flip. I agree about next season though, I think we'll be right back competing for the division assuming we get better injury luck.
As per usual, you completely missed the point of the post which was about the Astros offensive philosophy over the last decade and how it had nothing to do with Dusty.
I don’t disagree, their fundamentals have been pure **** but I can’t think of another team so devastated by injuries in all of Astros history, granted my first game was 77’ but still.
Strange how you are so opposed to people talking facts and data if it concludes something you don't like. I know you have a weird fetish where everyone has to only criticize Dusty, but life doesn't work that way for most normal people.
He's not wrong about what he is saying here. That said, it is hilarious you hardly ever see him posting in here, but the moment the name Dusty gets brought up, he might as well be batman and that might as well be the bat signal because you know his ass is coming.
