Contreras and Maldy split time at Catcher and Contrares gets another 50 at DH. Alvarez get's about 30-35 and various starters get a Half Day at DH. No one get half the starts at DH.
No to LF. If we acquire Nimmo or Brantley, they can handle LF when Avarez moves to DH for 30 -40 games. If not, Meyers in CF and McCormick in LF. Or we might even be so bold as to play Leon, who has the strongest arm...in baseball? How many 80 arms are there?
A lot of that is being asked to catch 100+ games. If we are ready to reduce Maldy's load, I can see a 60/60/40 split for Maldy, Contreras and Lee. That would certainly extend the health of each catcher.
If I continue to hear that Contreras is only a good hitter FOR A CATCHER I am going to pull my hair out. Do some research before you make comments. Sheesh.
Appreciate the work. I would flip Brown and Urquidy in this exercise and plan on 22 Starts at 5 IP for Brown to get his feet wet. 110 regular season IP and then 3rd or 4th starter In the playoffs depending upon LMJ health and effectiveness seems like enough of an ask for a rookie- and I’m on the Hunter Brown is going to win a CY Young bandwagon.
Yeah it really is stupid. He has never been worse than average in his career and he was 30% better than average 2 of the last 3 full seasons. Last years stat line for him was basically the equivalent of Bregman or Tucker in his rate stats. I honestly don’t know which thing our fan base does is more stupid- that- or the deification of Maldonado. Both make me want to bang my head against a brick wall.
He and the Cubs have said that he wears down catching every day. The Astros nerd cave agrees. Go look at his career splits. He is far more productive in the first half most years for that reason. His OPS is like .850 when he isn't worn down. That is why the Astros would let him DH half the time. He would likely have hit 35-40 homers last year had he been handled differently.
Missteps? I think it is fine if he and his golf buddies want to handle free agency because he doesn't have a GM. He makes the financial calls anyway and will with the next GM as well. I will have a problem if he doesn't hire a competent and bright GM that can handle the draft, farm system and player development. Going out and signing free agents is the easy part.
When people are talking about absorbing Verlander's loss. they also need to look at what we stand to gain offensively. The Astros got a pathetic .565 OPS out of C, .656 OPS out of 1B, and .598 out of CF (mainly because they insisted on anybody but Chaz). We also had extremely pedestrian numbers at LF/DH opposite Yordan. With Abreu and (hopefully) Chaz playing more we could easily add over 100 points of OPS at 2 different positions. That's not to mention Tucker/Bregman/Pena who IMO will all post better numbers next season, possibly quite a bit better from Tucker and Pena. If we add another bat, which seems likely at this point, it will add even more room for growth. Pitching was always gonna take a step back even with Verlander. The expectation is that the offense improves to offset that, and on paper it should.
I'm with you. There is some advantage to exposing Lee to more game action; especially if we want him to take the majority split with Contreras starting as early as 2024. Dusty mentioned trading Yainer or Lee if we sign Contreras. I wonder which player the Astros value more right now?
He was referring to your rant about all of the Astros front office and associates openly talking about their free agency plans.
I think Diaz if there is no Contreras and Lee if there is. They complement the other side of the pairings. But Yanier would have to fight for time at positions we would have no doubt starters. His lack of speed reduces his flexibility on the bench.
You're losing 28 starts from Justin Verlander also Jake Odorizzi gave this team 12 starts. That's 235 endings for those two. However you're hoping that Lance is able to increase his eight starts and stay healthy and have 28 starts. That means Hunter would have to increase his two starts to 22 starts as the number six. Then you still need the same healthy production from every starter last year. Framber another 31, Urquidy, Garcia 28 each, Javier had 25 he could bump up to 28+ and allow someone to miss a few starts. I fully expect them to sign another starting pitcher to help out on a one-year deal maybe two. However if everyone can stay healthy by some miracle again this Bullpen is loaded has not been overworked and there are arms down on the farm that can be called up for a spot starter two. Forest Whitley is 24 could he final make a jump? JP France could help eat a few starts. Everybody's favorite Brandon Bielak has already made 8 starts in and Astros uniform. This is why JV leaving wasn't crushing (I'd matched the Mets offer with tax break factored) Then I would have tried to trade for Reynolds or Murphy and whatever else you need/want.
Nah, he could certainly end up catching 80-85 games a year once Maldonado retires. Keep in mind that Maldonado only caught like 25-30 more games than that. The Astros will need a good back-up catcher but they need one with Maldonado anyway.
There are two ways to keep a secret. Tell no one or tell everyone you're interested in everyone. It looks like the second is in play.