I say yes, and for these reasons 1. Catcher. Castro is having a good defensive year, but he SHOULD be better offensively, i expect better number. I think Conger should catch a little more, he is good framing pitches, maybe the best, and is hitting good lately. 2. First base. Carter should get better numbers from here on. 3. Second base, Altuve should improve his hitting 4. 3b We are getting Lowrie back. 5. SS Full time Correa 6 OF, Springer is starting to look as a complete all star player he is. We have many options to allow one or two players not to be hitting and playing Of. Examples (Tucker, Santana, Marinisek, Rasmus, even GAttis and Singleton DH) We have many opitions 7. DH GAttis has been productive but i think he is going to hit even better. Pitching Well, we have Straily, Feldman, Obie, Appel in the minors or coming back from injury. I think we are getting another starter, Kazmir? Well, the only worry about Kazmir is injuries and that he struggled in the second half last year. But, i think one starter is coming to Houston. Relievers, we have a nice group, Qualls maybe struggled because he was injured???? Right now he is the weak spot as Hernandez has done pretty good as the long reliever. AS you see, many players are not doing as good as they have done in the past, so we could see even better numbers, especially on offense for this team to compete against a tough Angels team with a nice rotation, left handed rotation Go Astros
Plus, not to mention we have an insane amount of young players who are going to continue to develop and learn on the fly at the Major League level this year. We have already seen guys that are putting up better numbers month after month (thinking of Springer mostly). I think adding one more starter might just put us over the top from fringe contender to having a real shot at a WS title this year. These are exciting times!
Was Castro a subpar hitter in the minors? On a team filled with low-.200 hitters, he needs a higher BA. I'm also wondering how the hell Altuve managed to hit .340 an entire season while consistently hitting .290 all other years. I want him .320-ish.
So pretty much, every player we have...is just going to do better. In that case, yes, we can be better.
With Rasmus i think he is doing better than i expected, thats why i did not put him in the category of improvement, he has been a nice surprise, but, if he goes into slumps, then we have other guys that are good
he would only be a #7 hitter at his age. But if he got 3 hits, i think i would call him a #6 hitter and then we would need a new #7 hitter
How can they be worse, do even worse offensively??? I dont think so, they will improve on offense, at least averages (Valbuena, Carter, GAttis, Castro, Altuve
Oh I know, but not worse? Really? You guys have short memories. Matt Dominguez? Mark Krauss? Brandon Barnes? Carlos Pena? Brett Walrus? Or in more recent history, Alex Presley, Jesus frikken Guzman?
