Bo Porter with a refreshing state of the union about the 37-79 Astros: “There’s segments of the game in which we just need to improve. We’ve been in ballgames, we’ve had position to win ballgames. But this is Major League Baseball. Nobody is walking away feeling like it’s a moral victory,” Astros manager Bo Porter said. “I don’t believe in moral victories, in the first place. This is a performance-based league where you have to close games out and you have to win ballgames. At the end of the day, that’s what it’s about. … We could sit here and ‘If’ and ‘Could’ all day. At the end of the day, you have to do it.” Keuchel: “If we’re going to get better, we’ve got to get more knowledgeable and be better baseball players all around. Talent-wise, we’re good – we’re good enough to win. We just make mistakes here or there. Everybody: pitching staff, defense, offense,” Keuchel said. “You see the other teams that are good and they’re good baseball players all around. That’s one thing I’ve been trying to tell this team. We’ll get there. It’s just a matter of when.”
Our pitchers have an unfair disadvantage in that they don't get to face our hitters every once in a while.
Why do they not swing at fastballs down the middle with two strikes? I understand you're gonna get locked up by a fastball time to time..but it shouldn't happen this much
Yes, Carter is the reason we suck. He is second in K's to Mike Napoli, here is the rest of the K leaders 1.Mike Napoli, Red Sox (best record in the AL) 3.Dan Uggla, Braves (best record in MLB) 4.Jay Bruce, Reds (5th best record in NL) 5.Chris Davis, Orioles (5th best record in AL) 6.Pedro Alvarez,Pirates (3rd best record in MLB) So you guys need to shut the hell up about how Carter's K's are crippling our lineup. He isn't an all-star, but he has the 2nd highest OPS on the team, so we may as well cut everybody except Castro. This team has a lot of problems, buts Carter's K's aren't chief among them. It just reeks of shortsightedness and general lack of baseball knowledge..
Haha yea right. I was the guy always being bashed for being a Rangers fan all my life. I do respect having season tickets and enduring this dark time for your team. The way I see it if you don't know what it is to suffer then you can't appreciate and enjoy when your team is on top. Here's to the Astros getting back to relevancy and starting a Yankees/Red Sox rivalry with the Rangers.
Outside of Castro I highly doubt anyone in the rest of the lineup is considered part of the future and will eventually be replaced. That being said I was just pointing out that the epitome of all or nothing Carter had a typical line for the night. Sorry to incite the wrath of those so much more knowledgeable than I.
Yeah your right, there's no way Carter, Hoes, Grossman, Villar, Dominguez, or Altuve ever improve. They are mere bodies to be replaced by our future army of HOF'ers in the minors. It's not your personal ignorance, i probably should have quoted XIrocket, you were merely the last person to post about Carter. You don't replace young (still less than 1000 PA) cheap players with upside unless you have something better, which we clearly don't. Carters K's aren't the problem, he has been our 2nd most productive player. The problem is the whole team sucks right now and for some reason his shortcomings seem to bear the brunt for no good reason.
His Ks are the problem. He's going to set a record for K-rate for somebody with so many PAs. Has Carter been our 2nd most productive player? Not likely. While he does have the 2nd highest OPS, He's tied for 4th in oWAR (with Grossman), and his WAR is slightly less than 0. Carter will be 27 in December. He isn't exactly young. He was also signed out of HS, so he started his professional career in 2005. Can he get better? Yes. Is it likely he gets much better? No. Should he be playing? Yes.
Slight tangent because I'm not too familiar with how WAR works. If you had team of all replacement-level players (ie, WAR of 0?), how many games would that team be expected to win? In other words, does anyone know the baseline of "wins OF replacement players" instead of above them?
I have no idea. We have a team WAR of 6.0. So in theory, our 37-79 record would be 31-85, which extrapolated over 162 games would be 43-119. Angels have a team WAR of 22.7, so they would go from 53-63 to 30-86. Mariners have a WAR of 19.9, going from 54-63 to 34-83. A's have a WAR of 28, going from 66-50 to 38-78. Rangers have a WAR of 35.2 going from 68-50 to 33-82 I'd guess expected W-L would show better correlation, but not really (obviously small sample size) Astros: Expect W-L w/ replacements = 35-81 Angels: Expect W-L w/ replacements = 33-83 Mariners: Expect W-L w/ replacements = 31-86 A's: Expect W-L w/ replacements = 37-79 Rangers: Expect W-L w/ replacements = 30-88
Does that mean that the 2003 Tigers set the bar for replacement players? It will also probably be one of the last times we someone have a 9-21 record like Mike Maroth.
Interesting, their WAR was was 4.3, and the expected W-L was 49-113. 1962 Mets had a WAR of 9.6, record of 40-120, and expected W-L of 50-110.
Interesting - thank you! So a replacement level team seems to be in the 35ish win range. I was curious in the sense that do the teams that make the playoffs (90-100 wins) have team WARs of around 50-60, or does WAR not really work like that? It's not a stat I've ever paid much attention to - I'll take a look with the best teams and see what they look like. Second WAR question - is it a cumulative stat, or does it project out for a 162 game season? ie, if a player has a WAR of 2 after 81 games and keeps performing the same, would they have a WAR of 2 or 4 by the end of the season?
35ish at this point, probably in the mid 40s for a full season. Last year most playoff teams were in the 40s. Cumulative stat.
The baseline replacement level is set to produce a winning percentage of .294 or ~48 wins over a 162 game season. See http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/unifying-replacement-level/ However, that's set over the entire majors leagues, so a roster full of replacement level players might be expected to win less than that in a tough American League east. Or vice versa may be expected to win more than that in, lets say, the NL West. See http://www.baseball-reference.com/about/war_explained.shtml War is cumulative, so producing 2 wins over half a season would put the player on pace for 4 wins if he continues the same production. If you want to be optimistic about carter, you can say that he performs poorly in WAR in large part due to his defense in LF. Put him at 1st or DH going forward and he won't give back as much of his offensive value.
Are you serious with this..Ks at that rate are a killer to the team..not even putting the ball in play, taking walks getting on 1st etc, etc, just wow. I think Carter has good power and could be a DH from time to time but there was a reason Oakland let him go.
I don't understand how this thread has turned into Carter-bashing, considering his 2 home runs recently. He is not being overpaid, ala Carlos Lee. Anyway, I'm going to the game this afternoon. Not sure what to expect besides an empty-ish stadium and a come from behind win from the Rangers. I look forward to seeing Oberholtzer pitch in person.
