I'm sorry, but Diaz would qualify too and we didn't include Meyers or Yordan who also are great values. Altuve and Correa are paid reasonably. The only bad contracts are LMJ and Walker.
Playoff baseball will always be different as we’ve discussed earlier…. But you do need either viable starters for the lengthy regular season or bullpen depth. Hard to qualify for the playoffs (or be a winning team in general) without at least one. The Astros season certainly took a turn as the rag-tag starting pitching started finding its non-overachieving level (along with the stalwarts no longer being dominant)… and the bullpen got thinned out with Hader out and some of the other guys regressing some. And even when the Astros were humming on all cylinders back from 2017-2022… they also went through similar starting pitching randomness in the playoffs (tandem starters, JV coming out of the bullpen more than once, Urquiddy showing up). You could also make the case that JV pitching every start in 2019 as well as 2022 (post TJ) probably did the team a disservice for the playoffs as he was noticeably fatigued. I actually would be curious to see how playoff teams/stats have faired the last 10 years with the abundance of bullpen games that now become a yearly staple in the post-season. I’m guessing it’s probably quite favorable (hence why teams don’t fear doing it)…. Wouldn’t work for 162 but becomes a borderline advantage in a singular game with hitters unable to get a read on any one pitcher.
Diaz/Myers tendencies fine in an otherwise healthy/complete lineup…. But both have a book that seems to become further and further defined with more PA. Meyers at a bit of a crossroads… 30 years old and soft-tissue injuries start showing themselves in a position of physical demand, and unlikely to have another level in him at the plate. I expect Matthews to get some OF/CF exposure in ST (unless he’s packaged in a trade for pitching). Yordan would be amazing if he’s healthy, but when you’re getting bilateral knee operations at 23 and suffering from overuse hand-tendon inflammation exacerbated by hamate fractures at 28, its just never going to be a given. You can’t really trade him… nor can you really extend him. Correa will be interesting as his numbers were great in 2024 and great with the Astros. He’s had health on his side more and more and not having to play SS can only help there.
I'd be really interested in this too. My suspicion is that, bigger picture, the teams that do bullpen games most aren't the ones that generally win the World Series, but it's also likely to be because those are the weakest teams in general. I feel like the Dodgers, Astros, and other teams that routinely do well are the ones that rely on those bullpen games the least, but who knows. And their performance in those bullpen games themselves might tell a different story than the overall team performance. It just feels to me that when you have to rely on 6 or 7 pitchers all pitching well, something is going to go wrong more often than not.
If Misiorowski doesn’t start at least 2x think the Brewers are cooked. They’ve got to apply pressure to the Dodgers to win or face the flame thrower.
