Wall is correct. Gomez is sucking at the plate. There's still plenty time to turn things around, but as of now, the trade is wack. We'll see how Fires performs in his first MMP start tomorrow.
I just don't think we tried to go all in like you're saying. If we did, we would have gone harder after Price / Chapman. Those guys were possible, but we were being conservative/smart still and obviously not going all-in for now and mortgaging the future.
What's your numeric scale of "all-in"? 10, 9, what? I'd say the Stros went 7.5.... which isn't "all in", but pretty significant. Posters seemed to really like some of the prospects involved. Trade can still work regardless. I think Gomez will start hitting and Fires will be a solid 3rd or very good 4th.
Based on zero trades by the Padres, the haul Detroit got for Price, and the fact Chapman didn't get traded tells me the price for those guys was absurd. There was no way we were going to touch that. I can't pull it up right this second, but I think I said "almost all in" or something to that effect. Obviously, had we gone all in we would have walked away with Kimbrel and Price, or some combo like that. But rather than look at this season as a bonus, the front office thought it best to get real aggressive. Maybe the best way to look at it is to pretend Kazmir, Gomez, and Fiers were a package deal as opposed to separate trades. Considering we gave up almost nothing (in comparison) for Kazmir, the sum of the trades is at worst a B+. If Gomez gets it together, it's an A. We'll see.
I'll piggyback on this. I did in fact say "almost all in". Which is precisely what we did. I like your idea of a scale. 7.5 sounds about right.
I'd be on board with this. And I think I would happily do everything all over again if you told me I could have a B+ with the potential of an A trade deadline depending on 1 player's performance who has some history and has another season on his deal. (It's key to talk about next year as well, and that's an important difference between Gomez and Cespesdes)
Big SMH @Gomez Obviously his offense has been an issue since joining HOU... and this entire season. And wasn't even great during his All-Star years. But I'm questioning his overall defense. Sure, he can "go get the ball", not as good as Jake (which has costed us some runs)... but thing is, his throwing sucks. I haven't seen him make a good/great throw since he's been here. Still cheering for him, but his defense is severely overrated. Luhnow may've over sold this guy. Thank God for Fires. He seems to be a solid #3 or very good #4.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Gotta hand it to <a href="https://twitter.com/jluhnow">@jluhnow</a> for the Mike Fiers trade. (also got Carlos Gomez). <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Astros?src=hash">#Astros</a></p>— Adam Wexler (@awexler) <a href="https://twitter.com/awexler/status/634919508885438464">August 22, 2015</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Just popping in to say that thaGREATwall losing his feces over this trade 10 days after it was consummated was pretty funny.
Going back to 2012 Gomez is 14th in all of baseball in WAR. He has been a very productive hitter for 3 1/2 seasons. Even this year, in a down season, he had a .772 OPS at the All Star break. He went into a slump (a bad one) and many people choose to assume the one month is his true level, and not all the success he had prior. He's good, it was only a matter of time before he got it going again. I could do without all of his theatrics though.
When the deal happened, I compared it very favorably to the Beltran deal. It's not hard to imagine him going on a Beltran-'04 romp in October. If Springer can regain where he was when he got hurt... man, this is a scary line-up.
I think you nailed it right here. I don't take that much offense to it, but I also understand that the vast majority will. At this point, I shrug it off as so ridiculous, it's amusing. But bat flips after singles are...ridiculous. And we have two guys now that are notable bat flippers. I also probably don't mind it as much because it annoys the hell out of a really good buddy of mine, so every time they do it (after every single), I envision him getting really angry, and I get a little chuckle out of it. But those same theatrics will cause both fans and the opposition to criticize Gomez with a microscope. When we are winning, even if people don't prefer it, they're probably thinking "who cares, we're winning!" But the moment you have a couple of ugly at bats in a row, and if it happens to be a key situation, naturally fans will be even more quick and even more harsh with the criticism. I am not defending Gomez at all, because that comes with the territory with his theatrics, and I think he is aware of that, and ok with that. I think it's mostly harmless though, unless of course, you are Brian McCann.
Great posts, and I'm very happy to see Gomez finally swinging the bat better. Perhaps what you two have touched on was the reason for my extreme frustration with Gomez. Here we were in the middle of a tight division race and traded for a guy that was supposed to supercharge our lineup, and all we seemed to do was regress. Add in his constant showboating every time he made the slightest decent play, and the guy kind of irked me. If you're hitting and playing well, I don't give a damn what you do to celebrate. But it's time to tone it down and get your head straight when you are in the kind of slump he was in. Anyway, glad I could give some of you a laugh, and I'm happy to see Gomez finally hitting well. Here's to hoping he keeps it up.
bat flipping after a single? dude must have gotten one too many participation medals as a kid. that's beyond bush league; that's approaching mental incompetence. I hope he finds a way to grow up. You can have "fire" and "spark" without being a prepubescent douche.
Gomez can moonwalk around the bases for all I care. The only thing more unbecoming than grown men showboating is grown men complaining about it.
