Cristian Javier's Invisiball

Houston has traded away 30+ prospects over the last 5-6 years. Here is the list of guys who have put up more than 2 fWAR in the majors during that time (war since 2015):

Enrique Hernandez 7.4
Ramon Laureano 6.8
Domingo Santana 4.9
Teoscar Hernandez 2.7
JD Davis 2.5
Brett Phillips 2.0
Mike Foltynewicz 7.6
Joe Musgrove 7.1
Vince Velasquez 6.4
Josh Hader 6.4
Trent Thornton 2.0

I didn’t include Martinez, Villar, Grossman, DeShields, Stassi, Lyles, or Straily because they either weren’t acquired via trade or they weren’t considered prospects at the time they were traded.

There are no former Astros prospects among the current Fangraphs Top 100.

 

Laureano and Hader are the only star caliber players they traded away. There’s quite a few fringe regulars (Davis, Teoscar, Phillips, Santana, Musgrove, Velasquez, Thornton). Folty could have been a stud. There’s still a lot of guys in other teams’ systems who are not ranked highly but have significant ceilings (Beer, Bukauskas, Martin, Cameron, Franklin Perez, Celestino, Alcala, etc etc etc). It’s pretty amazing how much talent Luhnow developed during his tenure.

 

Javier has found a little too much of the plate a few times. He has been largely unhittable outside of homers.

 

Watching our pitching staff is a bit different to me these days.

Last year, with Verlander and Cole starting 40% of games and the Osuna, Pressley, Rondon, bullpen, it felt like we were all smoke, all the time.

This year, with Greinke, Framber, and Javier, it's a lot more craft and guile.

Both are fun to watch.

 

Gotta say, the most fun watching any Astro pitch for me, has to be Cy Young Keuchel. Working the bottom of the zone, dotting corner to corner. He was magnificent and deserved a no hitter while here.

 

I like when Greinke said that his goal is to be throwing fastballs sub 80 for strikes.

 

Would have been sweet if James had panned out as a starter. James and Verlander in with Greinke, Javier, and Valdez is an ideal mix of pitching styles.

 

[Premium Thread Bump]
Javier's deception (from his low arm slot) and lack of vertical drop on his fastball (perceived as rise by the hitter) are what make him so unhittable. The Astros appear to place a huge emphasis on movement and spin, ahead of traditional metrics like simple velocity. Take a look at this article from 3 years ago. You'll see many players on the movement leaderboard who were not in the Astros farm system and the Astros went out and picked them up (Pressly, Neris, Maton, Biagini, Osuna, Morton). It looks like pitch movement is an area where the Astros really focus on when prioritizing pickups and in development. Javier's no-drop FB would be a tough matchup especially the day after facing Framber's huge drop offerings. They are polar opposite pitchers in terms of movement.

Very interesting article below. Javier would be in the top 5 of the four-seam fastball rise leaderboard if he were ranked in this article (from 2019).
https://www.mlb.com/news/pitch-movement-leaderboard-new-at-baseball-savant

 

And it's usually a secondary pitch that he fails to locate that he gets burned on

 

Javier literally defying the laws of gravity and physics

 

This post stands out especially considering his tough outing in G4 of the '21 Series

 

Can’t wait to tell my grandkids about this pitcher we had that could throw an invisible baseball

 

Didn't Randy Johnson also have a "rising" FB?

 

I believe he threw side arm so it was a different type of rising fastball. The typical rising fastball is thrown overhand and really doesn't rise except in relation to the expected downward arc.

 

Sadly my grand kid don't give a flyin at the moon about baseball, invisible or otherwise.

 

LOL! If it isn't an APP, it doesn't exist.

 

If it bleeds, it can be killed.